Wallet Logo

Prostocash - buy Биткоин

Latest release: 2.0.2 ( 22nd June 2020 ) 🔍 Last analysed 13th June 2022 . Custodial: The provider holds the keys Not updated in a long time
4 ★★★★★
36 ratings
9th September 2019

Jump to verdict 

Do your own research!

Try out searching for "lost bitcoins", "stole my money" or "scammers" together with the wallet's name, even if you think the wallet is generally trustworthy. For all the bigger wallets you will find accusations. Make sure you understand why they were made and if you are comfortable with the provider's reaction.

If you find something we should include, you can create an issue or edit this analysis yourself and create a merge request for your changes.

The Analysis 

(Analysis from Android review)

Note: The app has a resemblance to Биткоин-обменник – NiceChange Custodial! Stale! .

App Description

  • Buy bitcoin or sell bitcoin for rubles, euros and dollars;
  • Buying, selling and exchanging other cryptocurrencies and electronic money;
  • Withdrawal of cryptocurrencies to the bank card;
  • Temporary storage of cryptocurrency;
  • Formation of invoices for payment by other users;
  • Tracking of all operations performed.
  • Supports BTC, ETH, LTC, XRP, ZEC, XMR, DOGE, DASH, etc.

Verdict

Similar to Биткоин-обменник – NiceChange , ProstoCash has an ‘Internal Balance’ that can send and receive Bitcoins.

We believe this service is custodial because of this ‘Internal Balance’. Accounts are synchronized between the web app and the mobile app. Membership tiers are upgraded after KYC. There are no provisions for backing up the ‘Internal Balance’.

(dg)

Verdict Explained

As the provider of this product holds the keys, verifiability of the product is not relevant to the security of the funds!

As part of our Methodology, we ask:

Custodial!

Is the product self-custodial?

If the answer is "no", we mark it as "Custodial: The provider holds the keys".

A custodial service is a service where the funds are held by a third party like the provider. The custodial service can at any point steal all the funds of all the users at their discretion. Our investigations stop there.

Some services might claim their setup is super secure, that they don’t actually have access to the funds, or that the access is shared between multiple parties. For our evaluation of it being a wallet, these details are irrelevant. They might be a trustworthy Bitcoin bank and they might be a better fit for certain users than being your own bank but our investigation still stops there as we are only interested in wallets.

Products that claim to be non-custodial but feature custodial accounts without very clearly marking those as custodial are also considered “custodial” as a whole to avoid misguiding users that follow our assessment.

This verdict means that the provider might or might not publish source code and maybe it is even possible to reproduce the build from the source code but as it is custodial, the provider already has control over the funds, so it is not a wallet where you would be in exclusive control of your funds.

We have to acknowledge that a huge majority of Bitcoiners are currently using custodial Bitcoin banks. If you do, please:

  • Do your own research if the provider is trust-worthy!
  • Check if you know at least enough about them so you can sue them when you have to!
  • Check if the provider is under a jurisdiction that will allow them to release your funds when you need them?
  • Check if the provider is taking security measures proportional to the amount of funds secured? If they have a million users and don’t use cold storage, that hot wallet is a million times more valuable for hackers to attack. A million times more effort will be taken by hackers to infiltrate their security systems.

But we also ask:

Obsolete!

Was the product updated during the last two years?

If the answer is "no", we mark it as "Not updated in a long time".

Bitcoin wallets are complex products and Bitcoin is a new, advancing technolgy. Projects that don’t get updated in a long time are probably not well maintained. It is questionable if the provider even has staff at hands that is familiar with the product, should issues arise.

This verdict may not get applied if the provider is active and expresses good reasons for not updating the product.