Bitcoin Forum

About 6 months ago I created https://orangefren.com/ (https://orangefren.com/).
Also available at http://rnwis2whetqcj4oknksnc5l24jbh33nflunifff3xtjjonnoxu3ld6id.onion/ (http://rnwis2whetqcj4oknksnc5l24jbh33nflunifff3xtjjonnoxu3ld6id.onion/).

OrangeFren.com lets you quickly compare the rates among instant, KYC-free, exchanges trading Bitcoin (including on Lightining), Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero, USDC and USDT.

The comparison takes into account the amount you're willing to trade and (by default) your region.

At this point the site queries about a half a dozen exchanges, none of which require a sign up.

For trades from Bitcoin into Monero the site also shows atomic swaps when their rate is better than that of instant exchanges.

We also partnered up with some of our best exchanges to offer the OrangeFren Guarantee - a security deposit provided to us by the exchanges to compensate our users in cases of disputes with the exchanges.

The specifics vary depending on the exchange, but the most common points include compensation to the user if an exchange runs off with their money, doesn't respond to their messages, lies about the previewed exchange rate or when the user is asked to answer KYC or SoF questions and passes the verification.

You can also use our service through our Telegram bot: https://orangefren.com/bot/telegram (https://orangefren.com/bot/telegram). It has the same functionality as OrangeFren.com with the added ability to request price alerts delivered through a DM straight to your inbox.

If you'd like to follow our project we're most active on Reddit as u/OrangeFren.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback!

Can you share how much they deposited for this?

So it's not KYC-free?
One of the exchanges (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1307188) you're listing is a confirmed selective scammer (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=1307188):
That's gonna be costly to compensate your users.

All of the exchanges listed on OrangeFren.com generally don't require KYC verification. However some check if the coins are tainted and then require SoF verification.
This never happened to any of my users and in the case of exchanges that have a reputation of doing so in the past there's a red warning on OrangeFren.com.
It's unfortunate, but sadly unavoidable if the exchanges constantly require liquidity from the huge CEXes.

The OrangeFren Guarantee does not apply to all exchanges listed. Currently it's only for trades on FixedFloat and eXch. Although I have suggested the service to others too, including the one you mention, they have declined.

I will look into the reports regarding the service you mentioned and probably add a red warning for them too.

Currently we compensate up to 2k USD per trade with FixedFloat and up to 1k USD per trade with eXch. Note that with the exception of an exit-scam our compensation maxes out at 10% so under normal circumstances that's a proportionate compensation for trades up to 20k and 10k respectively.
Our reserves are naturally larger than the per trade maximum.

So the "KYC-free" claim is misleading :(

Can you share how they check that? And list the exchanges in [Blacklist] of unreliable, 'taint proclaiming' Bitcoin services / exchanges (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5401468.0)?
Taint only exists if people believe it does! The notion of "taint" is very bad for Bitcoin. Allow me to quote myself:

I didn't see any warning on the selective scammers I mentioned (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1307188). It's better to avoid them entirely.

I didn't catch that when you wrote "compensate our users", but after checking the meaning of the word, it turns out "compensate" doesn't mean what I thought it would.

There's a flaw in your Untraceable Bitcoin with Monero (http://rnwis2whetqcj4oknksnc5l24jbh33nflunifff3xtjjonnoxu3ld6id.onion/guide/BitcoinMoneroTunnel): the exchange you use knows exactly which Bitcoin addresses belong to your IP address if you're not using different Tor identities.

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Your Disclaim affiliation (http://rnwis2whetqcj4oknksnc5l24jbh33nflunifff3xtjjonnoxu3ld6id.onion/add) is genius:
https://loyce.club/other/disclaimaffiliation.png

Well... we've never observed them being non KYC-free to our users. And if they start doing that and the users go through their verification we'll compensate them for their trouble and loss of privacy straight from the exchange' coffers. It's not flawless, but if we only listed exchanges that will never check if your coins are tainted we'd only be able to list one and I suspect it's only a matter of time, before they too are forced to change their business model.

Unfortunately no, because there is no objective standard, just like you say it's entirely subjective. Anecdotally I have reason to believe stolen coins are considered tainted, but coins from DNMs are not, but that's just me connecting the dots from the things I hear, please don't rely on this observation.
Aside from the warning users an exchange might take their funds if they appear tainted we also warn users if an exchange is known to send tainted coins which then cause inconvenience when the user tries to spend them.

I fully agree with you. However so long as Bitcoin's blockchain is transparent it is unavoidable. The only (admittedly partial) solution which comes to mind is the use of Bitcoin's Lightning Network of which I am a strong supported and actually before OrangeFren.com I spent my days creating tools for lnd professionally. For that reason OrangeFren.com does separate comparisons and collects separate rates from Lighting exchanges.


You're right! Thanks for letting me know! I'll go over the post and fix the error.

Thank you! The website actually started off with that idea, however nobody ever used it. Recently I was actually planning on removing that feature entirely.

That's an interesting point that I haven't considered. My rationale was it's best for new users to already have accounts on P2P exchanges to avoid the temptation of going with one of the huge CEXes which are atrocious from a privacy standpoint.


I considered adding that, however it's hard to get a good source for this. I've seen exchanges break their own ToS with respect to requiring verification or allowing the user to get their funds back if they refuse to answer questions.

I can ask the exchanges outright, but if they lie or change their mind in the future like some did with their ToS then I'd be giving the user a false sense of security.

Can you list all the services and exchanges you are using to get best offers?
I tried finding offers for several trading pairs and I only found two or three for Bitcoin Lightning, and most of the other coins except ethereum.
I never used Exolix exchange and I wouldn't trust ChanegNow very much that they won't ask for kyc or freeze my coins.

As I write this OrangeFren.com lists offers from: FixedFloat, SideShift, Exolix, ChangeNow, MajesticBank, StealthEx, eXch and (for BTC->XMR) atomic swaps.

The website only shows results which fit the amount you want to trade and, by default, are available in your region. Bitcoin on Lightning is a bit tricky, because there's only a few exchanges that support it and most don't service US customers, however in the coming days I expect to be able to list another Lightning exchange and it'll be one available globally.
You might also be seeing few offers, because recently many of the exchanges faced difficulties with their liquidity providers surrounding the Monero hardfork.

I have the pleasure of announcing that thanks to eXch.cx (http://eXch.cx) OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) is organizing a meet-up in Budapest, Hungary 🇭🇺 in two weeks on Saturday the 19th of August

Where? Satoshi Nakamoto statue, Záhony u. 7, 1031 Budapest 🇭🇺

When? From 14:00 on Saturday the 19th of August

Sign ups are below - they are FREE
https://orangefren.com/event/7 (https://orangefren.com/event/7)

Since you're reading this on BitcoinTalk you're probably not new to cryptocurrency nonetheless we always welcome everyone, you don't need to like Bitcoin, you don't need to know anything about cryptocurrency, if you're interested in these topics and wanna hang out that's all you need 🧡

If you make it you can expect some refreshments and free Monero stickers

Thanks to LocalMonero.co (http://LocalMonero.co) OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) is organizing another event, this time in Istanbul, Turkey in about a week on the 2nd of October.

Where? Sarıdemir, Ragıp Gümüşpala Cd. No:29, 34116 Fatih/İstanbul 🇹🇷

When? From 19:00 on Monday the 2nd of October

You can sign up on Meetup.com: https://www.meetup.com/moneroturko-istanbul/ (https://www.meetup.com/moneroturko-istanbul/)
Or on OrangeFren.com (noJS, Tor-friendly): https://orangefren.com/event/8 (https://orangefren.com/event/8)

Thanks to LocalMonero.co (http://LocalMonero.co) attendees will get a free, water-proof 💦, fire-proof🔥, stainless steel wallet to punch or etch their crypto mnemonic into
The LocalMonero.co (http://LocalMonero.co) wallets are also available for purchase globally on: https://monerosupplies.com/product/localmonero-wallet/ (https://monerosupplies.com/product/localmonero-wallet/)

If the event goes well it will become a cyclical event happening every few weeks.

@OrangeFren is there any way you could improve your service to find best deals for exchanging BTC (and other coins) for fiat currencies (cash, etc)?
I am looking for some better alternative for bestchange.com.

Good idea! I'll work on that

Thanks to FixedFloat.com (http://FixedFloat.com) OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) is organizing two more events!

The first one is in Andorra (Nov. 2nd) and the second one in Barcelona, Spain (Nov. 3rd)

Andorra
Where? 20 Carrer de La Vall Barri Antic Hostel, Andorra la Vella AD500 Andorra

When? From 16:00 on Thursday the 2nd of November

Sign up on OrangeFren.com (noJS & Tor-friendly): https://orangefren.com/event/9 (https://orangefren.com/event/9)
Sign up on meetup.com: https://www.meetup.com/cryptocurrency-fixedfloat-com-meet-up/events/296674600/ (https://www.meetup.com/cryptocurrency-fixedfloat-com-meet-up/events/296674600/)

Barcelona
Where? COMTE D'URGELL 182 LOCAL 3 08036 Barcelona, Spain

When? From 18:00 on Friday the 3rd of November

Sign up on OrangeFren.com (noJS & Tor-friendly): https://orangefren.com/event/10 (https://orangefren.com/event/10)

Thanks to FixedFloat.com (http://FixedFloat.com) attendees will get a free, water-proof 💦, fire-proof🔥, stainless steel wallet to punch or etch their crypto mnemonic into as well as free Halloween candy!🎃

The FixedFloat.com (http://FixedFloat.com) wallets are also available for purchase globally on: https://monerosupplies.com/product/fixedfloat-wallet/ (https://monerosupplies.com/product/fixedfloat-wallet/)

Thanks to eXch.cx (http://eXch.cx) OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) is organising an event on Malta in about a month on Friday the 5th of January.

Where? Down the Rabbit Hole, 64 Triq Rue D'Argens, L-Imsida, Malta 🇲🇹

When? From 19:00 on Friday the 5th of January

Sign up on OrangeFren.com (noJS & Tor-friendly): https://orangefren.com/event/11 (https://orangefren.com/event/11)

The venue - Down the Rabbit Hole - accepts cryptocurrency

I see that tickets are free for this event, so I don't see why anyone wouldn't want to come if they are in Malta in January.
That is why I took the liberty and I shared the event with people I know from that region.

Thanks to eXch.cx (http://eXch.cx) OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) is organising an event in Lisbon tomorrow on Friday the 9th of February.

Where? The Block, R. Latino Coelho 63, 1st floor, 1050-133 Lisboa 🇵🇹

Notice that the event is on the 1st floor!

When? From 18:30 on Friday the 9th of February

Sign up on OrangeFren.com (noJS & Tor-friendly): https://orangefren.com/event/12 (https://orangefren.com/event/12)

The first 1️⃣0️⃣ people to show up will receive a FREE Cryptosteel Capsule compatible with the 25-word Monero mnemonic. The Capsules have the eXch.cx logo on them

The venue - The Block Lisboa - accepts cryptocurrency

Very nice!
Next free gift should be some open source hardware wallet. maybe Satochip, Seedsigner, Trezor or something similar.

One question:
What happens if money was frozen by exchange when customer uses it via OrangeFren?
For example, recently I saw this with one guy who used FixedFloat exchange, and you have OrangeFren Guarantee for them.

The scope of our guarantee depends on the service in question. With FixedFloat we are unable to offer refunds if the coins were frozen due to taint. Nonetheless, in cases like this, if a user reaches out to us, we intervene and try to assist them in getting their money back. In this recent case we did just that and the user got all their funds back.

However, with for instance eXch, our guarantee agreement offers a full refund to a user in the event of freezing due to taint.

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Following the very successful event last week in Lisbon with over 60 attendees, we're back for another meetup.

Thanks to eXch.cx (http://eXch.cx) OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) is organising an event in Madrid next Friday on the 23rd of February.

Where? Cryptocafé, Calle Bastero 13, 28005 Madrid, Spain 🇪🇸

When? From 18:00 on Friday the 23rd of February

Sign up on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) (noJS & Tor-friendly): https://orangefren.com/event/13

1️⃣0️⃣ lucky attendees will receive a FREE Cryptosteel Capsule compatible with the 25-word Monero mnemonic. The Capsules have the eXch.cx (http://eXch.cx) logo on them

The venue - Cryptocafé - accepts cryptocurrency

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

I am glad to hear that, and someone should update that info in scam accusation board.
It is always worth checking for best exchange rates and to exchange coins with help of Orangefren.
Maybe you should start some type of affiliate program.

They are good, and we need more exchanges like that.
Is it possible for you to somehow add Bisq and Agoradesk rates?

Thank you! We plan on doing an affiliate program, but it's not a top priority at the moment.

We're currently internally testing Bisq, AgoraDesk and others for fiat <> crypto swaps. We already have AgoraDesk for crypto<>crypto.

As of yesterday WizardSwap also has the OrangeFren Guarantee.

Thanks to AgoraDesk.com (http://AgoraDesk.com) OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) is organising an event in Buenos Aires in two weeks on Friday the 15th of March.

Where? Espacio Cultural Bitcoin, Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear 405, C1058 AAC, Buenos Aires 🇦🇷

When? From 18:00 on Friday the 15th of March

Sign up on OrangeFren.com (noJS & Tor-friendly): https://orangefren.com/event/14
Sign up on Meetup.com: https://www.meetup.com/buenos-aires-crypto-meetup-sponsored-by-agoradesk-com/events/299558195/

If you make it you will get free Monero stickers and a free stainless steel LocalMonero mnemonic wallet!

The venue - Espacio Cultural Bitcoin - accepts cryptocurrency

Glad to hear that, I am surprised that nobody made something similar so far.
Another exchange with fiat trading you can consider add is Robosats, and I know they are trading with Lightning Network but it could be interesting option when fees are higher.

Thanks to AgoraDesk.com (http://AgoraDesk.com) OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) is organising an event in São Paulo in two weeks on Saturday the 23rd of March.

Where? Jardim Botanico, 996F+73 Vila Água Funda, São Paulo

When? From 9:00 on Saturday the 23rd of March

Sign up on OrangeFren.com (noJS & Tor-friendly): https://orangefren.com/event/15 (https://orangefren.com/event/15)
Sign up on Meetup.com: https://www.meetup.com/sao-paulo-crypto-meetup-sponsored-by-agoradesk-com/events/299709186/ (https://www.meetup.com/sao-paulo-crypto-meetup-sponsored-by-agoradesk-com/events/299709186/)

If you make it you will get free Monero stickers and a free stainless steel LocalMonero mnemonic wallet!

The venue - the botanical garden - has an entrance fee. The fee will be refunded to all attendees with either XMR or BTC over LN.

Today we added fiat <> crypto rates!!

We list rates from Bisq and AgoraDesk

Selling more than $10k?

With the OrangeFren Broker Partner you can sell crypto straight for cash 💸, in person 🤝, around the World 🌎, without KYC  8)

Try it out on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) 🧡💚

Finally!
I have been looking for something like this for a very long time.
With my testing using different amounts and I am only getting offers from Bisq right now.
Are there any future plans for adding more rates from other providers like PeachBitcoin, Robosats and others?

How can we find more information about OTC Broker and available locations?

Yes, we'll add more soon.


You can contact the broker personally via SimpleX (there's a link on the result page of a search to sell crypto). Then he can answer all your questions.

As for locations:
Albania
Tirana

Austria
Vienna

Belarus
Minsk

Belgium
Brussels

Bosnia and Herzegovina
Sarajevo

Bulgaria
Sofia
Burgas

Croatia
Zagreb

Czechia
Prague

Denmark
Copenhagen

Estonia
Tallinn

Finland
Helsinki

France *
Paris
Nice
Monaco
Cannes
Marseille
Lyon

Germany *
Berlin
Munich
Frankfurt
Hamburg
Düsseldorf
Stuttgart
Cologne
Dortmund

Greece
Athens
Thessaloniki

Hungary
Budapest

Ireland
Dublin

Italy *
Rome
Milan
Naples

Latvia
Riga

Lithuania
Vilnius

Moldova
Chisinau

Monaco
Monaco

Montenegro *
Podgorica
Budva

Netherlands
Amsterdam
Rotterdam

North Macedonia
Skopje

Norway
Oslo

Poland  *
Warsaw

Portugal
Lisbon

Romania
Bucharest

Russia *
Moscow
Saint Petersburg
Yekaterinburg
~25 other cities

Serbia
Belgrade

Slovakia
Bratislava

Slovenia
Ljubljana

Spain *
Madrid
Barcelona
Alicante
Valencia

Sweden
Stockholm

Switzerland
Zürich
Geneva

Ukraine *
Kyiv
Lviv
Kharkiv
~10 other cities

United Kingdom *
London
--------------------
"*" == some other cities in that country are possible as well

We'll be doing cities on other continents soon too. If you live on another continent you can ask the broker to see if he's able to provide there already

Some deserved coverage for our frens from Orangefren in our online publication :)

What does it mean where there is no notification or guarantee from your side? For instance, just for testing purposes, I did a BTC to ETH search, and the second result is for ChangeHero. Your page doesn't show the OrangeFren Guarantee (like with eXch), but there is also no warning that funds may be frozen.

When I go to ChangeHero's website, the first thing I see is this:

https://changehero.io/

The site's TOS also states the following:

https://changehero.io/terms-of-use

Sure I will.
So I just need to write a message to broker with trade I want to do, right?
That is decent amount of cities being supported with broker, but I guess there will be no real guarantee from OrangeFren (since this is a partner) that users won't be tricked or scammed in some way.

Note for everyone that broker is only accepting >10 000 USD trades.

The OrangeFren Guarantee works through the exchange providing us with a deposit that we hold onto. Then in the event of a dispute with a specific exchange, we are able to, under previously agreed terms, to refund the user directly using the exchange's deposit. ChangeHero has not decided to to provide us with such a deposit, however they have assured us that they will issue a refund in the event of a refusal of undergoing KYC.

Yes, simply writing to the broker is the way to initiate a trade.

You are correct about the risk. The service is provided by a partner that we have a lot of trust towards and that people we know also trust. We will be implementing some form of a guarantee, just like the existing OrangeFren Guarantee, in the future. But for that to be enforceable we'd need to move all communications to a place that allows us to see it. We need all the facts to do dispute resolution. We're looking into how to make it happen.

In partnership with eXch we are doing a giveaway on Reddit's r/CryptoCurrency subreddit.

There's a prize of 0.5 Bitcoin for correctly guessing the BTC/USD rate in a few days time. The competition doesn't require any KYC.

You can participate here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/1cd7e6w/exch_bitcoin_posthalving_giveaway_competition/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/1cd7e6w/exch_bitcoin_posthalving_giveaway_competition/)

Wow thank you - to both of you eXch and OrangeFren - for such a great giveaway! WTF 0.5 BTC guys, this is a decade of basic salary in many countries. This is a great idea as r/CryptoCurrency is a very active subreddit, and I think a lot of people will enjoy to discover your services and find it useful.
I entered my guess and hope to be lucky ;D

Thank you for explaining, and good to hear you have plans to improve this service.

Great reward, but r/CryptoCurrency is known to have very strict rules for posting and commenting anything on their subreddit.
If I may suggest that you create another similar prediction giveaway here in Bitcointalk forum or maybe on X-twitter.

Nothing against you or your honesty, but I trust a centralized exchange or swap service to do the right thing as much as I trust any government that the tax revenues they collect will be put to good use. In other words, I don't trust them one bit!

But I have had several positive experiences with eXch, and can only recommend the service to others.

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I noticed that your website doesn't have a FAQ or Help section. It might be worth creating one. For instance, I wanted to check which exchanges have an OrangeFren Guarantee, but the information is nowhere to be found on the site. I can complete a search and see it in the results, but there really should be something better.

Thumbs up for the giveaway!

I think that OP probably benefits from these strict rules to avoid alt-accounts spamming the giveaway no?

We're already doing a Cryptosteel Capsule giveaway together with eXch here on Bitcointalk. We'll be doing a giveaway of MoneroKon tickets soon too, we might do it on Bitcointalk, I'm still not sure

I agree and this is precisely why we came up with the OrangeFren Guarantee. eXch was one of our first partners to provide a deposit so I think they understand this natural lack of trust.

Thanks for the feedback. We'll definitely be adding that.

Yes, we're seeing a lot of comments getting shadowbanned by Reddit. This is perfect for us, because not only is spam removed, but also it's Reddit's liability if they hide a comment for a genuine user, not ours.

I was so far from the good rate lol, congrats to the winner and well done for the nice giveaway!

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/04/30/rRCRv.png

Honestly if I had placed a bet I would've been way off too  :D

The winner of the r/CC giveaway has been selected (/u/yankeeedooodle) and the prize of 0.5 BTC was delivered to him. Thank you to all who participated!

Crazy that I predicted very similar bitcoin price in different competition.  :o
Congrats to guy who won this reward ;)

Thank you for that, I appreciate it.
Both OrangeFren and eXch are doing some amazing things, not just with giveaways, but in general how you are operating and working in this crazy conditions of the brave new world.

Today we added 3DS-enabled prepaid Visa cards

No KYC 😎, global coverage (incl. EU🇪🇺) in-store and online. They work just about everywhere we tested. You can add them to Google Wallet or Apple Pay. There's a one-time 5% fee when you buy them, but 0% currency conversion fees thereafter. They won't work in ATMs.

I suggest getting one when you travel✈️ or for your kid 👪. For instance I recently traveled to Buenos Aires and a friend I went with was robbed at gunpoint right next to me. But with a prepaid card you can keep your main card in the hotel safe and only loose a few bucks.

Find them in the Sell tab when you select USD 🔍

Try it out on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) 🧡💚

_{It goes without saying that even though these products do not require KYC you still ought to report the sale of crypto if your local laws require you to do so, as well as pay any applicable capital gains taxes. 🧑‍⚖️}

Is this the same as buying directly from Stealths website, in terms of fees and everything else?
One suggestion is to think about doing some redesign of OrangeFren website, to make it easier to know this cards actually exist ;)

Sure, but this is virtual card, not physical, so you would probably have to give them your smartphone (with this card) and everything else you have.
Maybe better to also carry some old and empty cards, blank cards are very cheap and they can also be used as DIY open source hardware wallets and encrypted seed storage (with Satochip) ;)

For now it's the same. In the future we will add more cards and negotiate better terms for our users. As to modifying the website, yes, good point. Added to the todo list.

If you're traveling to a dangerous location I would advise you to take an old phone to carry around. You could load up this old phone with such a virtual card. I never heard of Satochip, I'll look into it.

We were asked by some users to create a way to leave a feedback about OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com).

So, today we joined TrustPilot. If you used OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) before and would like to leave a review then you can do see here: trustpilot.com/review/orangefren.com (http://trustpilot.com/review/orangefren.com) :)

I guess no more 3ds-enabled cards after recent update from Stealths partners  :P

It's open source hardware wallet, bearer, and seedphrase storage in format of credit card.
Cool thing that you can even use blank sim java cards and load firmware:
https://satochip.io/product/blank-sim-javacard-for-diy-project/
https://satochip.io/product/card-for-diy-project/

There must be some better alternative for trustpilot.
I saw so many fake reviews for services there, and many scam websites also used trustpilot with bunch of paid reviews.

Indeed... The law changed just as we integrated them. Well, at least we still have non-3DS cards that can be added to Google Pay and Apple Pay and used in-store. As well as the OrangeFren Broker Partner that can deliver physical cash to you in most large European cities.

We're working on a solution to this very problem. It'll be public by the end of the week ;)

Hello frens! We have a lot of news so we'll be breaking this post up into sections.

🧡 OrangeFren Forum
We're excited to announce the launch of the 🧡 OrangeFren Forum 🥳. A new bulletin board style forum for the cypherpunks in Bitcoin and Monero.

Link: forum.orangefren.com (http://forum.orangefren.com)

The forum already has threads by:

• WizardSwap instant exchange
• Liberation.travel geographical arbitrage travel agency
• Stealths.net no KYC prepaid card provider
• kycnot.me OG directory of no KYC exchanges & services
• Cryptosteel manufacturer of metal mnemonic backup solutions

The last ones even offer a 5% discount on order made by OrangeFren Forum users 🏷️
If you run a service that caters to the cypherpunk community, or are looking for a forum for persistent, long, discussion then join the OrangeFren Forum 😎

🎟️ MoneroKon ticket giveway
Thanks to eXch.cx (http://eXch.cx) we'll be giving away 4 MoneroKon tickets for 🆓FREE🆓 

To be added to the giveaway, just leave a comment in the thread on the OrangeFren Forum: https://forum.orangefren.com/showthread.php?tid=10 (https://forum.orangefren.com/showthread.php?tid=10)
The winners will be selected on Monday the 13th of May at 4:00 PM UTC

🇨🇭🇮🇹 Lugano meetup sponsored by eXch
Thanks to eXch.cx (http://eXch.cx) OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) is organising a meet-up in Lugano, Switzerland 🇨🇭, in two weeks on Sunday the 26th of May.

Where? Impact Hub Ticino, Via Antonio Ciseri 3, 6900 Lugano, Switzerland 🇨🇭
When? From 15:00 on Sunday the 26th of May

👉 Sign up here: https://orangefren.com/event/16 (https://orangefren.com/event/16) 👈

🤝 OrangeFren Affiliate Programme
Lastly, we're excited to announce the OrangeFren Affiliate Programme 🤝

The programme works by you providing us with your existing ref links to any of the services we list on the website. Then, when a user visits OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) using your link, we'll replace our ref links with yours for all the services that you provided us your link for.

This means, your profit share is 100%! And we never hold custody of your affiliate earnings.

You'll find the link to join the footer of OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com)

Here's some good news!
I've signed up and applied for the Monerokon giveaway; it's a great initiative; thanks again to you and eXch for the opportunity!
Unfortunately I'll be far from Lugano at the end of May, I'd have liked to attend the meet-up. Will it be recorded or something for those who missed the party?  :D

Your affiliate system looks cool, I will give it a try even if I have only 2 referrals links for now lol

Good luck with the giveaway, I hope you'll be able to attend! Unfortunately we don't have any plans to record the meetup, but Monerokon is recorded in its entirety usually.

If you just have the ref links for the most popular services then I wouldn't bother creating ones for the others. Top 2-3 services collect >80% of the traffic and you don't need more than 1 ref link to use the OrangeFren Affiliate Programme

I will be for sure in Monerokon, but my question about recording the meetup was about the one in Lugano that you organize :)

Small bump, as we have more or less 1 day left to participate to the ticket giveaway!

Our MoneroKon ticket giveaway has concluded! Thank you to everyone who participated! And thank you to eXch.cx (http://eXch.cx) for providing the tickets!

The lucky winners are:
✨freeslave
✨nottheonion
✨janowitz
✨vernska

The ticket vouchers were sent via DMs on the OrangeFren Forum

Giveaway thread: https://forum.orangefren.com/showthread.php?tid=10 (https://forum.orangefren.com/showthread.php?tid=10)

Today we bid our farewell to AgoraDesk 💔

On OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) we list 5 alternatives for our users:

👉 Relai - OTC trading desk with no KYC up to 1000 EUR/CHF per day. Bitcoin-only

👉 Bitnik - OTC trading desk with KYC, but no CRS reporting. Support for all major currencies (crypto & fiat)

👉 Stealths - Global 🌍 & US 🇺🇸 prepaid cards

👉 Bisq - (cumbersome) DEX with support for fiat & crypto

👉 OrangeFren Broker Partner - contact info to a trusted broker providing cash for crypto in major cities (excl. 🇺🇸) without KYC

You'll find these options in the Buy & Sell tabs 🔎

This thread is now translated in French:  OrangeFren.com - comparaison de services sans KYC (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5496432.0)  :)

Are you planning to add HavenoDex exchange offers in future?
This is another alternative recently launched as fork of Bisq exchange, that should in theory have cheaper fees.
I noticed Bisq page on their website that showed market trades is now gone, I hope this is nothing serious but it could be.

PS
I like the changes you made recently including new forum, and it would be great if you could offer more options for no-kyc cards (with different partners).

Merci beaucoup! <3

Sure, once Haveno is mature enough, and there's an API available, we'll be happy to integrate it.

Thanks! We're planning on having more cards soon. Are you more interested in general-purpose prepaid cards or gift cards for specific stores?

Today we received a free Capsule from our friends in Cryptosteel (https://cryptosteel.com/shop?csr=964) <3

Thank you Cryptosteel

Pro tip: Although they were designed for Bitcoin's 24 word mnemonics they support Monero's 25 words just fine too!

https://orangefren.com/file/orangefren_cryptosteel_capsule.jpg

We never ask for donations, but recently we received an anonymous message requesting we post an address. So we posted an XMR one in the footer of our page right next to the link to our affiliate programme. Much to our surprise we received a lot since.

Thank you! 🧡💚

It's great to see that the Monero community supports its favourite projects. To those who haven't donated, please don't feel obligated to!

I know people who are much more interested in having more non-kyc prepaid cards, both virtual and physical.
There are more than enough websites offering crypto gift cards for shopping only in specific stores.

It looks so tiny like it can be used with keys on keychain.
Do you know exact dimensions by any chance, I couldn't find it on their website.

Alright I'll try to find more providers for cards

It's 10cm long, a bit long for most keychains

I am interested. Do you know any non-KYC PHYSICAL cards?

Thanks ;)
One of the last cards that I know was CoinDebit.io card, but they shut down their business few months ago, and there is one member in forum who is offering nokyc cards but they are not cheap, and I won't post any links here.
Now let's stick to the OrangeFren topic please.
 

Today we release a tiny new feature for those who like to keep JS disabled.

OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) doesn't just work without JS, but now it will also warn you which exchanges require it. 🥰

This feature is rolling out right now to all users with JS disabled.

http://rnwis2whetqcj4oknksnc5l24jbh33nflunifff3xtjjonnoxu3ld6id.onion (http://rnwis2whetqcj4oknksnc5l24jbh33nflunifff3xtjjonnoxu3ld6id.onion) 🧡🧅

You can now earn money with our embeddable widget 🤑

We're delighted to announce the OrangeFren Widget ✨

Simply place an iframe on your webiste with src set to http://orangefren.com/widget (http://orangefren.com/widget), if you're part of our affiliate programme then append ?ref=YOUR_CODE 💻

You will earn 100% of the profits generated by searches made with the widget 🙆‍♀️

Try it out on the OrangeFren Forum: https://forum.orangefren.com/ (https://forum.orangefren.com/) 🥰

https://orangefren.com/file/orangefren_widget_on_forum.jpg

https://orangefren.com/static/file/swapter_kycnotme.jpg

Together with kycnot.me (http://kycnot.me) we have written a review of a relatively new instant exchange - Swapter.io (http://Swapter.io)  8)

Our rating: ★★★☆☆

They have great fees, great liquidity, work over Tor, but sadly a policy of shotgun KYC.

You can read the full review on the OrangeFren Forum: https://forum.orangefren.com/showthread.php?tid=21 (https://forum.orangefren.com/showthread.php?tid=21)
Or on kycnot.me's blog: https://blog.kycnot.me/p/swapter-review (https://blog.kycnot.me/p/swapter-review)

Try out Swapter.io (http://Swapter.io) and share your thoughts on the thread on the forum 🧡

Need a guaranteed no KYC? 🥸

Now on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) you can toggle to hide services that might ask for KYC 🫡

https://orangefren.com/file/bitcointalk_attachments/never_kyc_toggle.jpg

If I understand correctly that means affiliate will earn all profit from trades and OrangeFren gets nothing?

Nice feature, but very short list of exchanges so far ;)
I can't find any offers from Bisq exchange via OrangeFren, not sure if it's removed or they changed something.

Yes. Our affiliate programme is non custodial and very privacy-centric. We don't even see the trades made by users brought to OrangeFren.com with another user's ref link.

Yeah sadly, there's not too many such services available. Thanks for the report, will look into it!

Friendly bump!

🇩🇪 Berlin meet up sponsored by Cake Wallet

Thanks to Cake Wallet (https://cakewallet.com/) OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) is organising a meet-up in Berlin, Germany 🇩🇪, in three weeks on Saturday the 29th of June.

Where? betahaus, Rudi-Dutschke-Straße 23, 10969 Berlin, Germany 🇩🇪
When? From 15:00 on Saturday the 29th of June

👉 Sign up here: https://orangefren.com/event/17 (https://orangefren.com/event/17) 👈
👉 Or here: https://www.meetup.com/crypto-cake-wallet-meetup-berlin/events/301576442/ (https://www.meetup.com/crypto-cake-wallet-meetup-berlin/events/301576442/) 👈

Today we're proud to show off our new logo for OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) 8)

https://orangefren.com/file/bitcointalk_attachments/orangefren_logo.jpg

Today we have added rates from Nanswap. They specialize in Nano XNO, but also have pairs for BTC, XMR, ETH and LTC.
We now list rates from 21 services on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com)

***

Did you know we have an affiliate program?

Start making money with OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) today 🤑

Our partners receive 100% of the revenue from their searches 😎

👉OrangeFren.com/affiliate/new (http://OrangeFren.com/affiliate/new)

https://orangefren.com/file/bitcointalk_attachments/7000_searches.jpg

Stats for OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) 👀

XMR: 31%
BTC: 21%

😭The least popular coin - STORJ 🏆

https://orangefren.com/file/bitcointalk_attachments/orangefren_stats.jpg

This are arguably only two coins you will ever need in your life.
Can you tell us what percentage is used with stablecoins (this can be on all blockchains combined)?
I think you should also add USDT on Liquid Network, that is backed by Bitcoin.

I'll include info about stablecoins or other large pairs in the next stats report.

Do you know any instant exchanges that have USDT on LN?

Thank you.

I know about non-custodial decentralized exchange SideSwap.io that have instant swap option.
Aquawallet.io is another alternative for mobile users but I think they are using SideSwap.
I am not supporting other instant exchanges but I think that Changelly.com and Sideshift.ai also support L-USDT and L-BTC on Liquid Network.

SideSwap is interesting. I wanted to add L-BTC for a while, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
Changelly is known scam, unfortunately. SideShift.ai - we used to list them, but they were a pain to work with. Had very high fees. Eventually, they started to ask us to log IP addresses of our users and we just said hell no and removed them.

Yeah, well I am not supporting any of those exchanges like changelly, but you asked where is L-USDT listed and I replied ;)
You can find the full list of supporting exchanges on Liquid website, maybe there are others that I am not aware off that have L-USDT and L-BTC listed.
I also asked eXch to add support for Liquid assets as better alternative for stabel coins, and they are considering it.

After the Cake Wallet meetup in Berlin🇩🇪 we're doing a jacket giveaway‼️🎁

Follow the link for instructions on how to participate: https://x.com/OrangeFren/status/1818581535341080871 (https://x.com/OrangeFren/status/1818581535341080871)

Stats for August on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com)

XMR: 44%
BTC: 27%
LTC: 13%
ETH: 6%

YFI was the least popular coin 😭

Stablecoins accounted for just 6.2% of all searches this month. Bitcoin's LN came in at 0.83%

https://orangefren.com/file/bitcointalk_attachments/orangefren_stats_august.png

Just out of curiosity, do you know the proportion of clearnet/onion visits on OrangeFren?

This is another KYC-free exchange that I remember hearing about in the past but just rediscovered it via this thread recently. The OrangeFren website is clearly laying out all the fees alongside the name of the exchange and giving warnings about their KYC status therefore is a informing customers about all the options available to them before they place a transaction. That helps a customer determine the level of risk they are willing to take. The format works different to say eXch therefore it seems there is space for different models of KYC-free exchanges.

According to the data we have 25% used Tor. Doesn't matter if a user uses the hidden service or the .com from an exit node, they still get counted as Tor

Yeah I created it, because I wanted a directory to find exchanges like this and be able to compare them, incl. their rates, at a glance. No such resource existed, at least not for the privacy centric space. eXch is one of the exchanges we list, they're one of the more popular ones.

გამარჯობა! 🇬🇪

Thanks to WizardSwap.io (http://wizardswap.io/?ref=820391743d) OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) is organising a meet-up in Tbilisi, Georgia 🇬🇪, in two weeks on Friday the 27th of September.

Where? 1tab, 0162, 6 N Ilia Chavchavadze, 1st lane, Tbilisi 0162, Georgia 🇬🇪
When? From 18:00 on Friday the 27th of September

Sign up on OrangeFren.com (https://orangefren.com/event/18)
- or -
Sign up on Meetup.com (https://www.meetup.com/wizardswap-cryptocurrency-meetup-tbilisi/events/303357277/)

https://orangefren.com/file/bitcointalk_attachments/wizardswap_tbilisi.jpg

Well, I think directory and fees at a glance captures the essence of the website, congratulations on creating the OrangeFren business. There are several positives that can be taken from the website apart from the clear rates/fees involved and the various names of different outlets with KYC level showing. There is even an OrangeFren forum  ;D

I hope your event on 27th September 2024 is a success.

If some of you don't have a signature campaign ongoing, and want to support OrangeFren, you can take a look here :)
[OPEN] OrangeFren.com - instant, KYC-free, exchange comparison | Sig campaign  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5508967.msg64521130#msg64521130)

OrangeFren can you add exchange offers from PeachBitcoin app in your service?
They recently added orderdbook page on their website, so you can fetch that information easier without running their app on smartphone.
Adding offers from Bisq and HavenoDex would also be nice.
https://peachbitcoin.com/kycfree-orderbook/

can you https://chipex.cc/ add?
pls

Weird, are you a Changenow reseller or did you copy their privacy policy in a hurry?

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/09/11/BfgRz.png
Source: https://chipex.cc/privacy-policy-2/

Same in your ToS :
Source: https://chipex.cc/terms-of-use/

---

---

There are contradictions.

On your frontpage we can read :
(FYI there is a typo, "witout")

But in your privacy policy we find the following:




Your website doesn't smell good.

Best part is, if you sign up for our affiliate program and modify the signature to have your ref link, you yourself will be making money on every trade done through your link. Not some % of the profit, but the full amount we would have made.

Thank you paid2 for making that signature!

I'll make sure to get Peach integrated. We previously started working on it, but they had some bugs in their API. We reported them and as I recall they fixed them already so it should be a breeze.

Bisq's integration is already done and it was working until the Bisq team broke their CLI and daemon as well as a web endpoint they had. The situation with Bisq is so ridiculous that they now no longer ship prebuilt CLI and daemon like they promise to AND they ignore reports about this AND they don't give build instructions. But even after coming up with them on our own the CLI and daemon still don't work. To real cherry on top is the old version of Bisq don't work either. At any rate, once there is some new automated way to get the order book from Bisq we'll have all of it on our website once again in no time.

As a privacy advocate, for the main reason that I'm currently not in a campaign, this signature will definitely be the right one for me now, but based on my rank and the requirement, my rank is not qualified.

edit: Just checked through the link now and see there are some changes from when it was first posted; full member codes are now available. will update ASAP.

Looks good! <3

I noticed the voluntary signature campaign thread. I think it is a good idea to find ways to bring your business to a wider audience and I wish you success in your project. Many members here were probably unfamiliar with the business model and URL but now there will be a bigger discussion around it thanks to some members participating in the voluntary signature campaign.

Thanks for working on this.
Maybe the problem with Bisq started with their new version 2.0, they are probably working on adding a bunch of new stuff on time for their roadmap.
I don't know in situation is better with HavenoDex integration, they forked from Bisq but everything is based on monero.

Hello!

I am missing godex.io in the exchanges listed. For example, BTC > XMR, I can't find Godex:

https://orangefren.com/results/0.005/BTC/XMR/

Other than that, great service! I will take a look into the affiliate program, I am looking for some service to add a banner in my domain. Thanks!

We don't have Godex listed. That said if their team is interested then they can reach out and we can get them added. At this point we only add services that reach out to us first, because we get listing requests every few days that keep us busy.

Following our recent Bisq issues we partnered with eXch to launch an initiative to write a better Bisq 1 client. The initial funding for the initiative is 5 BTC.

The announcement: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5509573 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5509573)

Team BitcoinVN has joined the Orangefren Guarantee program  :)

https://i.ibb.co/mcTLsr7/image.png

This is an amazing announcement. It shows absolute commitment to the cause both on your and eXch part. I will need to have a look at the issues you are referring to with Bisq to understand why you launched the initiative but this is something that inevitably will attract a lot of attention from those that want these sorts of exchanges to succeed.

For our affiliates we now have a search counter in the affiliate dashboard. This will help you track how many searches were made using your ref code.

If you're not yet participating - the OrangeFren Affiliate program gives you 100% of the revenue from all the trades completed using your ref link. Joining requires no KYC, no email or any other identifiable info from you. It's also entirely non custodial on our part - we never have access to your earnings. Ref links work on clearnet, Tor, and in our embeddedable noJS widget.

Our top affiliate has had over 6800 searches done with their link.

https://orangefren.com/file/bitcointalk_attachments/search_count.jpg

The affiliate programme is also fully compatible with the signature campaign made by paid2 8)

Link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5508967.msg64521130#msg64521130

The dangers of AirTags and car rentals. How our team was TRACKED in the Caucasus ⚠️

On Friday we were organising a meetup for WizardSwap (https://www.wizardswap.pw/?ref=820391743d) in Tbilisi 🇬🇪

We arrived in the country a few days earlier, rented a car and went into the Caucasus. We drove through the night across the valleys and up the mountains. The next two days we spent admiring the sights and hiking up to the glaciers.
On the third day, as we were returning to a hotel, our phones all chirped within 10 minutes of each other. We were being TRACKED. Our phones all detected an Apple AirTag following us.
Since all our phones received the warning we knew the tracker wasn't one of ours. Although we were far from any towns, we were on a road. Quite a busy one at that. Could it be that some other car was close enough to us to trigger the alert?

We tapped the notification and saw a map. 8h of our travels were laid out. Point by point. This could not have been an accident.
When an AirTag follows you you're given the option to have it make a sound. It will do so without letting its owner know. We clicked the button and heard a chirp from behind the car.
We stopped on the side of the road. Emptied the trunk. Pressed the button again. The chirp was right in front of us. We took out the spare tire and beneath it found an AirTag.

Disabling one is quite easy. Twist the metal cap off and take out the battery. Given its location within the car we immediately assumed it was installed by the rental company. We reached out asking about it and they starting off by LYING about it 🤡

Why did it take 3 days for us to get alerted? Usually you'd receive a warning after 8h, but in our case the AirTag was low on battery and didn't stay on for long enough previously. As for what happened to the AirTag - we attached it a donkey we found walking on the side of the road up in the mountains 🫏

https://oshi.at/rHaw/xIbq.png

"Funny", the only time I found a camera in my hotel room was in Batumi, in Georgia too.
(The manager had also lied, assuring me that it had been “forgotten” by a previous customer LOL)

About the Airtag, I'm not surprised that there is one (even if it's a disgusting practice), given that the country is at the heart of a zone of tension in many respects, but what I do find surprising is the company's lie about it, which is clearly shady. Did they provide you with more professional explanations when you returned the car?

Interesting! Only time I got bitten by bedbugs was in Batumi too.

They provided a rather generic "we need to know where our cars are", after additional pressure they explained there's fine prints disallowing the use of the car on some roads in one region, because they are very dangerous and insurance doesn't cover them. Also apparently this assists in locating the vehicle if someone drops it off at a random place at the airport parking. Although that second reason is usually solved by requesting a video of where the car was parked.

If they were honest about the AirTag from the beginning I probably wouldn't even mind it that much. Of course I would disable it or spoof its location. The lying really is the most egregious part of this

Isn't that the budget tracker that uses any iPhone to broadcast it's data? A serious tracker wouldn't have alerted your phone.
I really dislike how phone companies use every phone they ever sold as a free data provider for all other devices they sell.

Lol. Now give the donkey an iPhone so he can broadcast his location.

It is! Pretty silly of them to even use an AirTag when there's plenty of areas is very spotty. I suppose maybe it makes no difference to them since when the customer returns all this history will be uploaded to them anyways.

Only thing missing in this story is James Bond 007 coming back with a donkey in the end  :D
I am a bit surprised they don't have GPS tracking in their cars, and I am not defending the company that rented cars to you, but they are probably using AirTags as cheap protection from thieves.
It would be better if you didn't use iPhones (they can't do this with android phones), but dumb phones are even more secure.

Or drop him of in the nearest village or town.

I have an Android phone actually. But one of my team mates traveled with his iPhone. We both got the notification at the same time

You were using unknown tracker alerts enabled in settings or something else?

The campaign is now updated:

We've started almost a month ago now, thanks again to everyone who supports this initiative :)

I have the default settings and those have the unknown tracker alerts enabled

We now have an OrangeFren signature for Member rank :)

I love it!

Stats for September on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) 👀

XMR: 45%
BTC: 19%
LTC: 15%
ETH: 8% 
USDT: 5%
USDC: 1%
SOL: 0.8%
ZANO: 0.8%
BTCLN: 0.5%


https://oshi.at/uYQX/UPMJ.png

For some reason, the image link turned out to be broken..
I advise you to use talkimg.com (http://talkimg.com) to download images. Service from a user of this forum, here is ANN of talkimg (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5450546.0) 
Btw, you'll get image link right away in bb code.

The image looks fine. It's too big in my opinion but it's visible on the forum. I do support the notion of uploading Bitcointalk images to TalkImg. After all, that's why this image host was created. We can never know if and when we will have another Imgur issue with other service providers.

Can you still access the site? Showing internal server error. Overwhelmed by traffic?

It seems to be appearing and disappearing. Maybe an issue with Bitcointalk. I'll use talkimg in the future, thanks for the tip!

Seems to be working fine right now. It's possible we were doing some upgrades and that's why it was briefly down. If you see an error again, let me know

Thanks for the signature & avatar btw <3

We started experimenting with exchange widgets on the results page, so that you can complete the whole trade on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com)

Until you click the "Open Widget" button no connections are made with the exchanges so there's no privacy penalty to this :)

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/10/15/8vqwj.png

But this widget option is not available for all exchanges, I can only see this with two services during my testing.
It would be nice if you could expand it to few more popular exchanges.

I want to report another bug on OrangeFren.
In Sell tab I tried to see options for selling 1 BTC to EUR  with Global settings, and website was showing me Internal Server Error message.
I tried different ammounts but I always had the same error, and it appears that all fiat currencies except have the same error except USD.

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/10/15/8ymvC.jpeg
https://orangefren.com/results/1.0/BTC/EUR/?region=00

More widgets will be rolling out soon :)

Sorry about the bug. It's fixed now.

It remains inaccessible upto this moment. Still showing thesame Message: "Internal Server Error. The server encountered an internal error and was unable to complete your request. Either the server is overloaded or there is an error in the application."
Trying to access it via mobile phone.

Interestingly I can access it via Google search. Guess that's the cache
Hope you get it fixed soon.

We're happy to share the NanSwap widget has been added to the OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) results page.

Currently you'll find widgets from:

• Exolix
• NanSwap
• Quickex

More widgets coming soon 8)


https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/10/18/8g113.png

I saw a statement somewhere that you have many requests for listing new exchangers on your platform. Could you write here some of the guidelines you pay attention to when making a decision when adding a new service to the list?

I was not able to find such information on the site, I don't know if maybe I was just too lazy to research in more detail

The answer depends a bit on why exactly you're asking. If you want to know how to pick legit no KYC exchanges then I think being listed on kycnot.me (http://kycnot.me) and having a thread here on Bitcointalk are good. Although not required. Generally exchanges must reach out to us first. They have to generally not require KYC. Supporting Bitcoin and Monero is more or less required, simply because most of our users care about these two coins the most. That said, I don't have a formulaic approach.

A lot of decisions, regarding how scammy or legit a service is, are based on intuition. I'm in a position that allows me to interact with the teams running the services we list for days, often weeks, before they're listed. I tend to also ask them what region they're from. That's usually enough information to develop a gut feeling about people.

I could probably compose a list of red flags and green flags, but I'm a little concerned someone might try to game it.

I was most interested in this. The reason is that most exchangers (especially new ones) make a significant announcement when they are listed on a monitoring service, in some way they raise their trust score by using the rating of a monitoring service.
I'm not against new services, I'm just interested in the verification procedure that aggregators do before listing them.

We're delighted to share that OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) is now a sponsor of the preferred image hoster for Bitcointalk - talkimg.com (http://talkimg.com)

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/10/23/KZJ9j.png

Wow, unexpected and wonderful at the same time.
The two super useful sites have now become friends.
Good luck to both projects.

Did something changed with OrangeFren Guarantee?
I think percentages were different and much bigger than they are now.

Great choice!
Talkimg has been doing great recently, and I think they are now most used image hosting provider in bitcointalk, all this ''thanks'' to the issues with Imgur.

This is how what I remembered:
I just checked a few trades on the site, if I want to exchange 2 BTC, only 1% is protected. But if I want to exchange 0.02 BTC, depending on the exchange it's 84% or fully protected. Other amounts give different percentages.

Γειά σoυ! 🇨🇾

Thanks to WizardSwap.io (http://wizardswap.io/?ref=820391743d) OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) is organising a meet-up in Nicosia, Cyprus 🇨🇾, in a week on Friday the 1st of November.

Where? Axess Workspace, 28, Konstantinou Palaiologou 1015, Nicosia, Cyprus 🇨🇾
When? From 18:00 on Friday the 1st of November

Sign up on OrangeFren.com (https://orangefren.com/event/19)
- or -
Sign up on Meetup.com (https://www.meetup.com/wizardswap-io-nicosia-crypto-meetup/events/304159746/)

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/10/24/KmKhv.jpeg

The percentages should be roughly the same as they were. We didn't change anything, although currency fluctuations might move the needle a bit.


The % you see on the results page is how the deposit we hold for this exchange's users compares to the size of your search.

To simplify things a bit - let's only consider the case of an exchange exit-scamming or getting hacked halfway through a trade. If the exchange exit-scams we will use the deposit we have from them to compensate its users. We will compensate up to 100% of the coins the users lost, but only using the deposit we received from this exchange. If the exchange exit-scams with a higher amount than the deposit we have, then the % of the results page indicates the size of the partial refund we can provide.

If you want to trade a higher amount than the deposit we have available, we offer the possibility of temporarily increasing the deposit just for your trade. In such a case:

• Exchange deposits extra to us
• You deposit into the exchange
• Exchange sends you the other coins
• You tell us all went well
• We return the extra deposit to the exchange

Well explained in previous post, but I don't understand how you can increase the Guarantee percentage temporarily for single trade just by customer contacting you.
I don't think you are going to receive another quick deposit from any exchange in that short amount of time.

This note is stated on your website for most exchanges (with different percentages) that have OF Guarantee :

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/10/24/KP9aC.jpeg

You're right to point out the delay. Typically it would take hours to arrange. Although in the best case scenario it could be done in minutes if I'm online and so is the exchange when the user reaches out. But yes, this is a feature meant for very infrequent, very large trades.

We're happy to share Swaponix (https://swaponix.io/?r=cff9e786-d089-4ef4-89a7-22f19b0f6783) is now available on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com)

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/10/29/K5LHT.png

⚠️ There's an ongoing phishing scam against MajesticBank.sc (https://majesticbank.sc/?ref=mgzySX). The phishing domain ends with .co

Please always verify the TLD or use OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) to avoid getting phished

There is majesticbank[dot]de too, I don't think it belongs to majesticbank.sc

MajesticBank.de is legit. I just confirmed with their admin. Although they don't really use it anywhere.

I wonder why this SCAM phishing link have the same ref code mgzySX you are using on legit MajesticBank exchange :)
There is always a possibility that scammers could attack Orangefren website also, and on your website there is no information about legit exchange links/domains.
Maybe you should think about improving that somehow.

It's the same ref code because they tried to convince us to replace our link to MajesticBank with theirs. It almost worked, except, we never talk to MajesticBank over email. Good effort though.

As to your suggestion - good point. Working on it  8)

We're happy to share today we rolled out two new upgrades to the homepage.

• Only available pairs can be selected.
• Only available amounts can be selected.

Meaning, no more wasting your time going to the next page, only to find out the pair or amount aren't available.

We've added links to each service's Bitcointalk thread, to make it easier to quickly learn more about them in a reputable source.

https://talkimg.com/images/2024/11/05/bzWya.jpeg

I support the idea that exchanges are directed to Bitcointalk as a place where they will present themselves and give possible answers to potential users. If you would reach a sufficiently respectable place in this domain, the idea of ​​a mandatory ANN on the forum as a condition for listing would be welcome.

It will be a requirement going forward.

Good idea!
I think this will bring more activity and conversation in forum topics of those exchanges.
Bitlist.co service is using something similar but they also added number of posts in topics, to show ones that are more active.

We're happy to share Swapuz joined our OrangeFren Guarantee programme  8)

https://oshi.at/vytW/VcPI.png

Furthermore: starting today we are now providing info about whether an exchange uses their own liquidity to complete trades. We encourage users to choose either "Own liquidity" or "Mixed liquidity" to help strengthen the competition to CEXes as well as have a better guarantee the exchange won't violate its ToS.

https://oshi.at/ZaTG/fqJn.png

Great idea, but how can you be sure they are using their own liquidity or not, unless you are constantly monitoring this?
We know eXch is using their own liquidity, that is stated on the page bottom, and updated on regular bases, but I haven't seen that on other exchanges.
I have my doubts about ChangeNow using their own liquidity...

Indeed we're not yet 100% sure for all the services listed. But the plan is to monitor the services as well as collect feedback from our users

Forwarding a message with some questions which was posted in the OrangeFren's campaign thread:


It depends of the exchange selected if I'm not wrong. By the way, some of them will never require KYC or SoF (like eXch).
But in case you don't know, you should have a look at the OrangeFren's guarantee:

---

I don't think there's any competition, OrangeFren is just an aggregator of services and exchanges. However, I think OrangeFren will reply or clarify if necessary.

That's exactly right. Some services may end up requiring info from you. For those services we always have a warning on the results page.

Additionally, if you're only interested in services that promise not to ask for KYC you can filter the results down using the link on the top right which reads "Show only never-KYC" or append "?kyc_policy=never" to the results page URL, like so https://orangefren.com/results/0.05/BTC@BTC/XMR@XMR/?kyc_policy=never (https://orangefren.com/results/0.05/BTC@BTC/XMR@XMR/?kyc_policy=never)


That's right, as well. OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) is a directory with a search function. Our closest competitor would probably be kycnot.me (http://kycnot.me), although we partner on a lot of projects and serve slightly different needs. We might actually list AtomicDEX at some point.

I checked the first exchange from this list:
That makes your never-KYC list look like it's just marketing.

Exchanges don't always actually have the same policies as their ToS. One example in the other direction is ChangeNow which has (had?) ToS that stated they offered no KYC refunds, yet they didn't. That's why on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) you'll find a little warning about them being known to violate their own ToS.

Stats for October on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) 👀

XMR: 47.81%
BTC: 42.46%
LTC: 3.86%
ETH: 2.75%
USDT: 1.21%
SOL: 0.45%
USDC: 0.23%
BTCLN: 0.12%
ZANO: 0.10%

https://talkimg.com/images/2024/11/19/bjJ2N.png

Using OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) can save you lots of time in case of issues with exchanges.

5 days > 5 min

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/11/21/bcUev.png

Our TrustPilot: link (https://www.trustpilot.com/review/orangefren.com)

How realistic is it that at your request you will receive a confirmation or verification of the reserves of some exchanges?
Three different users can see the same thing quite differently, I don't know how reliable the method is collecting feedback from users.

Do you mean how likely is it that an exchange will provide a proof of reserves upon request?

I think most that actually have their own reserves are quite happy to do it.

Back for round 2... We are once again sponsoring talkimg.com (http://talkimg.com) - the preferred image hoster for Bitcointalk

https://talkimg.com/images/2024/11/27/bqubl.png

Is OrangeFren Broker Partner still available and working?
I don't know if you are using data from Localcoinswap.com exchange, but this is another nice alternative for non-kyc trading.
In my opinion it is better than HodlHodl I saw on OrangeFren.

TalkImg 2 - Attackers 1 ;)

OrangeFren Broker Partner is still available, however the demand has been below expectations.

I'll talk to LocalCoinSwap and see if we can get them added :)

I think it's probably because of the amount minimum of 10k + lack of escrow, these two requirements together must restrain a lot of people

Or people are not selling Bitcoin now, they are just hodling and waiting for new record ATH ;)
I usually prefer face to face trading with cash, but some people are afraid to meet anyone and exchange bitcoin in person, this could be one of the reasons.

https://i.postimg.cc/zXcQsZR5/orangefren1-Copy.png

With alleged multiple hacks and millions of USD$ allegedly being stolen from them, Fixed Float are untrustworthy therefore the question has to be asked: why is OrangeFren associated with them in any capacity?

We have read the posts about Fixed Float, they have an absolutely atrocious reputation in the forum. It does not present OrangeFren in a positive light if they are promoting an exchange that has serious allegations made against them.

FixedFloat.com stole my funds (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5492679.0)
Fixedfloat is scamming me for 8000+ EUR IMPORTANT PSA! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5482815.0)

Of course we care deeply about the quality of the services we list and don't tolerate scams. You mention that they were hacked, this is true of course, but I fail to see how it makes them untrustworthy. To the best of my knowledge their hack hasn't resulted in their users loosing any funds.

I am deeply familiar with one of the cases you linked to. However, let me assure you that in all the years we've been online we never had a single instance in which FixedFloat violated their own ToS. Every once in a while we get a user reach out about a trade gone wrong with FF (or any other exchange), we then immediately delist the exchange from OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) and investigate. FixedFloat was delisted many times as part of this procedure. However, FixedFloat does reserve the right to require their users undergo SoF questions. They claim to invoke this based on the history of the coins that were deposited by the user. We warn our users about this. We also provide a link to click to filter out all exchanges that have a similar policy (or you can just append ?kyc_policy=never to the result page URL).

I believe our users have the right to choose. Hence the warnings, hence the filter. But if someone wants to take the risk that's their decision.

You mention that we are "promoting" FF. I don't believe this is accurate. We don't play favourites with the exchanges we list. We collaborated on a few meetups with FixedFloat, but we also did meetups together with eXch, Cake Wallet, LocalMonero, WizardSwap, and Xchange. And eXch is the exchange that processed the funds that were hacked from FixedFloat(!). We also collaborated with Majestic Bank on building Intercambio.app (http://Intercambio.app).

If I remember correctly, FF covered all the losses incurred during the hack. All their users were paid out. If it was different, someone correct me.
I'm not saying they're ideal, but we've seen many cases where users suffered losses from hacks.

Still, they steal some of their users (hundreds of) using SoF and crazy KYC processes as a way to make people give up their funds.

---

I can not access the orange fren forum, I get a "403 Forbidden" error. Is it because of some ddos attacks?

To the extent that I know all the coins that they freeze as a result of their shotgun KYC policies are sent to the lawyers assisting the people who claim those coins were stolen from them. I don't necessarily agree with this approach and generally regard the concept of "tainted coins" as a scam. Nonetheless so long as FixedFloat are honest about their policies I'm fine with them being listed with the appropriate warning.

Yes it is. Sorry about that. Over the weekend OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) and our friends from BitcoinVN.io (http://BitcoinVN.io) got hit with a major DDoS attack that came with an extortion.

OrangeFren got hit for 11h and BitcoinVN for 15h. Our team and the team of our Vietnamese frens decided to forward the attacker's emails to spam and shitpost on Twitter. The attack against BitcoinVN only stopped after they questioned the attackers dick size on their status page.

 
https://talkimg.com/images/2024/12/03/pRzz3.jpeghttps://talkimg.com/images/2024/12/03/pRtX8.jpeg


As a result of all this some new friendships were forged: https://x.com/Bitcoin_Vietnam/status/1863477577085497523 (https://x.com/Bitcoin_Vietnam/status/1863477577085497523) :)

Naturally neither of us paid. I would rather shutdown OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) myself than pay even 1 sat to someone blackmailing me. As for our friends from Vietnam - for the life of me I cannot fathom what an absolute retard someone must be to think they can successfully extort the Vietnamese :D

It's a bit strange to me how someone first attacked TalkImg service and tried to stop it, and than they moved to OrangeFren as one of TalkImg sponsors and supporters.
I am wondering if there is any connection between this attackers, or maybe they are the one and the same.
They are probably thinking it's easy money to attack and blackmail anything related with bitcoin.  :P

I actually talked to TalkImg about this DDoS, but it seems to be different attacker. The same group that attacked us over the weekend also attacked eXch back in March though.

Stats for November on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) 👀

XMR: 39%
BTC: 25%
LTC: 16%
ETH: 11%
USDT: 3%
SOL: 1.07%
USDC: 0.72%
BTCLN: 0.38%
TRX: 0.23%
BCH: 0.22%
XRP: 0.20%
BNB: 0.18%
ADA: 0.18%
DOGE: 0.17%
ENA: 0.16%

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/12/05/pIkRZ.png

Uh, Litecoin is third with 16%, I didn't expect an altcoin dinosaur to still enjoy so much trust. I assume that due to the low fee, it is ideal for withdrawing assets from large exchanges, and then immediately converting them to BTC or XMR.

I often use LTC to pay for things when neither Lightning nor XMR is accepted by a merchant. Which is surprisingly common given that most merchants linked to fiat are scared of XMR and LN is a pain to setup.

Seeing Litecoin there in 3rd place really is an unexpected surprise but in the end it is being used because it serves a purpose for the end user. What is interesting are the statistics surrounding XMR, it is still reigning supreme head and shoulders above second placed Bitcoin. With regulated exchanges being pressured to drop Monero, I did not expect to see it holding that much percentage.

I'm not surprised, LTC is accepted almost everywhere, it's always easy to get liquidity, and the network fees are low.

---

I also found it surprising that the DDoS started just after the TalkImg ad... Good to know that this was not related finally.

Is the team you're talking about the one behind Infinity exchanger?

I think one of the reasons XMR usage is so high is, because the Monero community was the first one we promoted the service to.

Then again, we've been trying to reach LN users more in the recent months. A year ago we started an LN node (https://mempool.space/lightning/node/02935477addfaa40661e10fdd67cb08bf5f64ff7a8bc71b058fc8e5e505e09bbf1), we've sent many keysend messages to all LN users (basically text ads straight to their wallet) and since August we're selling LN channels on Amboss.space (https://amboss.space/magma/offer/ff761814-e9df-422d-822f-9128ed4bc3ed) as well as OTC for people that need channels larger than 0.1 BTC. Despite this effort LN accounts for <0.5% of our search volume.


I don't believe the team that attacked us is related to Infinity. It's a different team that has also attacked many non-crypto websites.

After a year since you launched it, if LN accounts for less than 0.5% of your search volume it would mean it has been rejected by users or they have alternative sources for LN. As for XMR, it does seem as though you have a solid customer base that are regularly using the service to obtain XMR. If you look at eXch, their customers are regularly using the service too therefore Monero is certainly not going away even if regulated exchanges are being forced in to dropping it.

Maybe. Our LN node is quite popular in terms of how many channels we've sold and how many payments we route. I think a lot of LN users don't do many swaps. At most they use Boltz, but for virtually all amounts BitcoinVN and eXch have much better rates between LN and onchain.

Our LN node is actually pretty great from a no-KYC perspective, too. We have no channels with CEXes, but we have a channel with BitcoinVN, eXch, Bitrefill, The Bitcoin Company, Cryptosteel and OpenNode. All no KYC, self custody, exchanges and merchants.

As for XMR - yeah I agree, it's not going anywhere. The community is very strong too and we're proud to be respected in it :)

Did someone had a problem with affiliate links? It seems that my afiliate link stopped functioning after a few days.

When I try to access my affiliate link I get this eror message:

It did work for a few days, but after that it seems that it stopped working.

Hey!

The most likely reason for this is that nobody used your ref link in a while. If you make a new one and message me I can set the new one to use the old ref parameter so that all the old links will still be valid :)

Thanks OrangeFren, I'll send you PM with my referral link :)

Our banner is on talkimg.com (http://talkimg.com) once again

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/12/09/p5tfb.png

Why is that?
How long is the "while" period and why is it even a problem for a link to be long-lived unless you are making some significant changes to the structure of the site itself?
Someone who works with 20 or more aff links would waste a lot of time if he had to frequently check their validity.

I was wrong about this. Currently, the only instance when your affiliate account will be removed is if you don't have any ref links set within it for a while. That's to say you haven't set your ref link for any of the exchanges we list.

The reason why we have the (unused) code to remove unused affiliate accounts is, because we wanted to make sure joining our affiliate programme requires no more than 1 click. So in order to ensure people don't create an ungodly amount we decided, if such a problem occurs, we'll just purge the accounts with the unused links.

Another reason is that monero community is much bigger than litecoin community, and that is a fact.
I have seen monero as most used coin on many websites, not just on Orangefren, and it's obvious why.
Bitcoin would probably be the most used currency everywhere...if there was protocol based privacy built in.

We got hit with another DDoS yesterday. Despite being hit with 100 000 requests per minute for hours, our clearnet site was down for just ~10 min.

The attack matches a pattern of attacks we've seen against other Monero supporting businesses since March of this year.

We hope this is the last of those ransom attempts, because the attacker must now realize we will never tarnish our dignity and would much rather close down our website than pay even 1 sat.

---

Not Your Keys - Not Your Coins
On #BackupDay take some time to consider how you're storing those keys 🔐

Not just will they survive a house fire🔥 or make it whole to your loved ones in case of an accident 🪦. But did you make sure only the right people know you have such a backup in the first place? 🔧

Our friends from Cryptosteel make products that are tamper-evident, meaning you will know if anyone had a look inside 🕵️

And you can buy them privately, either using BTC or Lightning ⚡️ and their own BTCPayServer, or even with Monero on xmrbazaar: https://xmrbazaar.com/user/Cryptosteel/ (https://xmrbazaar.com/user/Cryptosteel/)
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/12/12/ppQ79.jpeghttps://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/12/12/ppMaN.jpeg

---

Merhaba! 🇹🇷

Thanks to WizardSwap.io (http://wizardswap.io/?ref=820391743d) OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) is organising a meet-up in Istanbul, Türkiye 🇹🇷, in a week on Friday the 20th of December.

Where? CoBAC Workshop, Sarıdemir, Ragıp Gümüşpala Cd. No:29, 34116 Fatih/İstanbul, Türkiye 🇹🇷
When? From 18:00 on Friday the 20th of December

Sign up on OrangeFren.com (https://orangefren.com/event/20)
- or -
Sign up on Meetup.com (https://www.meetup.com/moneroturko-istanbul/events/305030176/)

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/12/12/pD9ob.png

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Excellent!

Please let me mention here that everyone has the chance to win a Custom eXch CryptoSteel Capsule for free (incl. free shipping) in our free raffles (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5522464)! :)

What are the reasons for DDoS ​​attacks on sites like Orangefren?
Transactions do not go through your site, even if it is maximally slowed down or crashed, the services that the site deals with are still operational. If the excuse is to support something specific like Monero, thousands of other services support it and a site like Orangrefren is just a part of it.

I can't shake the impression that such attacks come from companies that deal with protection against DDoS attacks.

Our friends from WizardSwap.io (who are actually sponsoring our meetup in Istanbul taking place this Friday) are getting DDoSed today.

I think the main reason for the attacks is to scare the people running those websites. You might have built a nice website, but the attackers gets to simply switch it off and you don't know for how long.

Was tor onion version of the website available during this short down time?
I have no idea who would waste money and resources on attacking your service, maybe it was competition or some agencies with unlimited resources.
Having some kind of backup alternative is always a good idea to have.

Yes, our Tor mirror got hit too. It got hit with a separate attack that was aimed only at the Tor mirror.

I understand the motive with the no-JS widget for affiliate partners, but the iframe is quite old-fashioned and a bad solution in general for many other reasons. Why didn't you make a different approach as well as for example support for popular CMS like WP?
Have you thought about it at all or do you firmly hold the position that the service must be exclusively privacy-oriented?

Interesting idea. If you have a website that would benefit from a WS plugin I can build one for you. There's no rule that a service using our widget must be privacy-oriented.

---

Our small team wishes you all a Merry Christmas! 🎄


[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

As I said, it would be nice to have this option. It would certainly be useful for me to add it to some ideas I'm working on. I also don't think you should do it just for one user, but I don't think I would be the only one who would use such a widget.
I've also seen some solid no-JS solutions (your competitors) in this direction, I certainly wouldn't ignore this.

In April we partnered with eXch for a 0.5 BTC giveaway on Reddit's r/CryptoCurrency

The winner is now going through a divorce and worried his wife will take it away :(

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/12/30/DWujj.png

I feel sorry for the winner..   :-\

Maybe it's time for him to take a cruise, (https://i.redd.it/25hx7uiyofh61.png) to relax a little bit.

Didn't he already sold his Bitcoin after April 25 00 ''tax free'' and turned it into inflationary fiat currency?
I think situation is much different if he is holding Bitcoin in his own non-custodial wallet, instead of exchange account or money in bank accounts.

PS
Another lesson learned in life, choose your wife very carefully.  :P

I hope he does have it in self custody!

---

Recap of 2024 on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) 🗓️

XMR: 46.67%
BTC: 38.75%
LTC: 6.01%
ETH: 3.44%
USDT: 1.69%
SOL: 0.58%
USDC: 0.46%
BTCLN: 0.46%
BCH: 0.16%
TRX: 0.14%
DAI: 0.12%
XRP: 0.11%
BNB: 0.10%
ZANO: 0.10%

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/12/31/DlKJN.png

In 2024 we organised meetups in cooperation with:

• eXch (https://exch.cx/?ref=B0EbA4c7) in Malta🇲🇹, Lisbon🇵🇹, Madrid🇪🇸 and Lugano🇨🇭
• AgoraDesk in Buenos Aires🇦🇷 and São Paulo🇧🇷
• Cake Wallet (https://cakewallet.com/) in Berlin🇩🇪
• WizardSwap (https://www.wizardswap.pw/?ref=820391743d) in Tbilisi🇬🇪, Nicosia🇨🇾 and Istanbul🇹🇷

We've now done a total of 20 meetups!
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/12/31/DlqX1.png

In 2024 our LN node (https://amboss.space/node/02935477addfaa40661e10fdd67cb08bf5f64ff7a8bc71b058fc8e5e505e09bbf1) routed 1101 payments and earned us 3323 sats 🫠

Most were routed by people who bought a channel from us on amboss.space (https://amboss.space/magma/offer/ff761814-e9df-422d-822f-9128ed4bc3ed)

We've sold 25 channels this year⚡️

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Year 2024 was definitely the year of Bitcoin and Monero, and I saw similar trend on several other websites that accept crypto payments.
This is probably bigger miracle for monero since most major centralized exchanges delisted XMR, and I don't think any other altcoin would survive this.
I do find it strange that only few people used stable coins on OrangeFren.

I bet most of that ''huge'' $3 worth sats is from custodial LN wallets  :P

Yes, we definitely need to attract more stablecoin users. Although the issue with most stablecoins is few are trustworthy. USDT and USDC both have their issues, the first being mostly used on Tron nowadays is problematic too. DAI addresses many of those problems, but few stablecoin users seem to use DAI.

I ran the numbers right now to check. Calculated with current exchange rate.
Average payment size: $97
Median payment size: $19

We've added a table with exchanges to OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) to make it easy to quickly check their features and see their average real-time rates.
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/01/02/OASqf.png

I was never a fan of any stablecoins and I think one of them will be used in the same way as CBDC.
DAI is also backed by USDC and other centralized assets so it's much different from other stable coins, but it's probably harder to freeze assets.
Meanwhile in Tether land  we have more and more frozen tokens:
https://decrypt.co/299354/tether-tron-trm-labs-126-million-usdt-frozen-crime

Only five options that never ask for KYC...

Are there at least any cheap ways of sending USDT? On both ETH and TRX it's quite pricey.

Indeed. I imagine the main obstacle is that being fully no-KYC requires a service to have its own liquidity and this is probably a major obstacle for newcomers.

---

We've added Boltz to OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com)

Not only do they support the Lightning Network ⚡️, but also the Liquid 💧 and Rootstock sidechains

Boltz uses submarine (atomic) swaps so they're truly non-custodial

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/01/03/OZglH.png

---

Some of you may not know this, but we also operate Intercambio.app (http://Intercambio.app). It will soon be getting a much overdue upgrade.
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/01/03/OZWg2.png

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Well done on the table and modifications!
I think the home page is better like that, it's clearer and more succinct.


Congrats for the new partnership! It's not often we see Liquid proposed somewhere, it's cool!
However I didn't know RSK, I will read about it.


Polygon?  ;D

There is a cheaper way by using USDT on Bitcoin Liquid layer2 network, fees are minimal, and it's easy to exchange from L-USDT to L-BTC and than back to BTC mainnet.
Aqua wallet is good for that and they even allow sending/receiving to and from ethereum and tron network (with extra fee).
Sideswap.io exchange can also be used for this (maybe you can add this in OrangeFren), and other exchanges also support Liquid chain.
It should be noted that Liquid is federated chain, so I am not saying this is perfect solution, and nobody should keep anything on this chain long term.

There you go, Liquid assets are available now ;)

I'm glad you like the changes! Truth be told I haven't heard of Rootstock before either. It seems interesting.

I shot SideSwap an message, hopefully I can get them added!

Given that you are quite engaged and open to new upgrades and improvements to your service, have you thought about implementing some kind of review system or even feedback where users would leave their experiences with an exchange?
I suppose it's quite complex and demanding to create a reliable feedback system, but that's lacking when it comes to exchanges.

We've considered it. You requesting it makes it more likely to happen :)
The issue that initially prevented it was keeping it free of spam is going be a challenge.

---

We're happy to share Exolix joined our OrangeFren Guarantee programme and is promising to never ask for KYC 🥳

They also often have a special discounted rate for OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) users 👀

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/01/09/OVkev.png

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

I assume that there would have to be a system of neutral moderators like this forum has, for example, where every feedback will be manually approved before publication.
It would be even better to have a universal form on all partner sites, where it is possible to give feedback only after depositing in the order. I guess it's a lot more complicated, but it would exclude paid reviews.

That makes it possible to filter out the obvious spam, but it's still very easy to abuse.

That's easy to get around: "I'll pay you $10 to place an order and write a review".
Or even easier: an employee creates one transaction per day, and leave happy feedback after that. There is no perfect system for feedback.

That's exactly the issue!
The easiest way to make it hard for services to self-praise would be to require login via some major platform, like Twitter, in order to comment. But of course, this is incompatible with our privacy-centric model.

You can always choose to manually approve every feedback, but that would demand more time from your side.
It is important to have good review system for exchange services but I still didn't find anything that doesn't have a bunch of fake and paid reviews.
One of the worst examples I saw is what bestchange is doing for years with reviews on their website.

We collect reviews for OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) on TrustPilot (https://www.trustpilot.com/review/orangefren.com) and kycnot.me (https://kycnot.me/service/orangefren#discuss). Here's one such review:
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/01/17/WwhoH.png

But the trouble is, literally half of the emails I receive are emails trying to convince me to buy fake TrustPilot reviews.

---

I'm happy to share the landing page for OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) now features a table allowing you to quickly compare major merchants of gift cards for crypto.
The services currently listed are The Bitcoin Company, Coincards, Bitrefill and Stealths. Of those, only Stealths sells 3DS-enabled cards that are accepted online in regions such as the EU.
As part of the listing we got our users an exclusive offer from The Bitcoin Company wherein they will provide a one-time cashback of $5 after you spend your first $21 there.
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/01/17/Wwolg.png

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Yeah, I am not surprised to hear that, they made a whole ''business'' with that :P
Out of curiosity, can you tell us how many they were asking you to pay them for writing fake positive reviews?

This is very useful, but I am not sure if all cards from Stealths can be considered as Gift cards, they are more like virtual debit cards.
There are also cards from Cake wallet you can consider adding for comparison, and maybe other also.

$4 - $6 / review. It sounds like a lot, but if a business has 10-20 legit looking reviews you'll probably trust it.

Stealths has gift cards too, not just debit cards. See here (https://stealths.net/gift-cards/?ref=oF1y7dzE). Although, unlike other providers, they charge a fee for issuing them. Then again, they accept Monero, work over VPNs and Tor, etc. So you're paying for the extra privacy.

I'm currently discussing with Cake to get their cards added. Should be done in a day or two at most.

---

OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com), now with Cake 🎂
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/01/17/WSbuJ.png
The fees differ, because we checked for a hidden fee in the exchange rate. Only Bitrefill sells gift cards at spot prices.

---

We're proud to be sponsoring a Monero meetup in Istanbul 🇹🇷! This is the 21st meetup we've made possible.

More info: https://www.meetup.com/moneroturko-istanbul/events/305699269/ (https://www.meetup.com/moneroturko-istanbul/events/305699269/)
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/01/19/W6Qqc.png

Some people asked on Twitter if they can donate to help fund this meetup & additional ones. If someone wants to donate then our XMR donation address is as follows: 868i3uV9Q8NjigjCnJ6P3L6oMizRYniGuAiVXYVYsBQE9g4gqVWs6qVEDC6SZR3ZiWgC787A9iTcdeF kUdTu8n7q2e7BN9m

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Congratulations on your sponsorship of the meetup. As it is your 21st sponsorship you deserve to be congratulated because it shows your commitment to promoting crypto.

If OrangeFren has made this meetup possible, are you the actual organiser as well as sponsor or just sponsor? Please clarify, is it correct had you not donated the meetup would not have taken place?

Thank you. I believe without building local communities Bitcoin & Monero have no chance at success or every day adoption.

In this case, unlike for all but one meetup in the past, we're only sponsoring. We advised a local Turkish friend we met a month ago during the WizardSwap sponsored meetup we organised in Istanbul on which venue would be best and where to promote the event. But they handled all the communication with the venue. They know Turkish, nobody on our team does.

Yes, if it weren't for our payment to pay for the venue the meetup wouldn't be happening.

The problem of everyday adoption has been at the heart of the crypto community for years. Far too many corporations and whales are buying Bitcoin for long term investment purposes rather than everyday transactions. Maybe by spreading information and knowledge to individuals and organisations at grass root level is the way forward and your contribution in this is invaluable.

I know eXch has made some donations and they have mentioned it in their thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=577207.msg64166513#msg64166513). I think their latest donation was 1 BTC (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=577207.msg64447202#msg64447202) in August 2024 to Thorchain. Are you keeping the amount you donated private or can you elaborate on the amount?

This specific meetup is quite cheap for us. We'll see exactly how much it ends up costing us, but it should be just shy of $1000.

It was a good decision to sponsor this meetup in Istanbul.
Turkey is one of the rear countries with many small local bitcoin shops and exchanges, you can literally find them everywhere in the street.
I am not sure how this ''shops'' are regulated exactly, but they are allowed to operate in this grey zone for now.

After many requests we've added typeable selection of currencies to OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com)

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/01/26/WBa6I.png

Oh, this is quite a useful update.

When you are already at the keyboard, the logo of some exchanges does not load properly. Maybe you should look at that too
For example
https://talkimg.com/images/2025/01/26/WiAXP.png

If the Istanbul meetup is only going ahead because of your generous donation, it is worth more than just the money. It is a fantastic initiative to get involved with. If there was a sizeable turnout for the event, the information amassed around would certainly go well beyond the venue as people would spread the news and share details with family and friends.

I hope all the delegates and organisers have a great time at the meetup on 30th January.

Thanks for the report! I'm unable to replicate it... Is this an issue you're seeing repeatedly?

I'm unsure if you changed anything, but now everything works normally. I tried on several browsers.

---

I see that you also have "OF Guarantee" in the table, what exactly is this about?
Some of the exchanges are escrowed funds with you, so in that way, you can offer certain guarantees or is it something else?

https://talkimg.com/images/2025/01/30/WxVof.png

Yes, that's correct. We hold deposits from the exchanges that participate in the OrangeFren Guarantee. This allows us to refund users directly in the event of an exchange violating its own ToS or getting hacked half way through a trade and loosing users' money.

We had to use these funds twice so far, both were cases wherein exchanges promised our users no KYC and then required it.

---

The first numbers for 2025 on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) are here🗓️

⚡️First time the Lightning Network matters⚡️

XMR: 40.37%
BTC: 24.75%
LTC: 12.31%
ETH: 7.02%
USDT: 4.20%
BTCLN: 4.04%
SOL: 2.19%
USDC: 1.27%
XRP: 0.34%
ZEC: 0.34%
DAI: 0.30%
BCH: 0.27%
BNB: 0.26%
ZANO: 0.23%
ADA: 0.17%
TON: 0.16%
TRX: 0.16%
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/02/01/enr2C.png

---

We've partnered with Exolix (https://exolix.com/?ref=Ep5YHVaJ25iEHvRU) for a Monero giveaway!

Three lucky users will receive $50!

To participate:
1) Follow on X: @OrangeFren (https://x.com/OrangeFren) & @exolix_com (https://x.com/exolix_com)
2) Swap any coins on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) using Exolix (https://exolix.com/?ref=Ep5YHVaJ25iEHvRU)
3) Fill out this Google form: http://surl.li/omksjz

No limit on how many swaps you can submit - more swaps = higher chance of winning!🔥

On Feb 10th three lucky winners will be randomly selected🗓️
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/02/01/en1Pb.jpeg

---

Only 4 days of the OrangeFren x Exolix giveaway remain!

---

Thanks to WizardSwap.io (http://wizardswap.io/?ref=820391743d) OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) is organising a meet-up in Vienna, Austria 🇦🇹 in two weeks on Friday the 21st of February.

Where? District Working & Event Venue, Donau-City-Straße 3, 1220 Wien, Austria 🇦🇹
When? From 18:00 on Friday the 21st of February

Sign up on OrangeFren.com (https://orangefren.com/event/21)
- or -
Sign up on Meetup.com (https://www.meetup.com/vienna-bitcoin-meetup-sponsored-by-wizardswap-io/events/306014438/)

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/02/06/evq6a.png

---

Today we're launching the OrangeFren Plugin!

It's an extension for Chromium-based browsers that exists to safe-guard users from accessing phishing scams aimed against the users of exchanges listed on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com)

It downloads a list of known phishing domains from OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) once an hour, as well as self-generates possible phishing domains and compares the websites you access against them. The extension is open-source and it does not save or transmit any of your activity.

You can get it here: https://github.com/orangefren/OrangeFren-Plugin/releases/tag/v0.2 (https://github.com/orangefren/OrangeFren-Plugin/releases/tag/v0.2)

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/02/13/eqWSa.png

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Excellent initiative, well done!

Do you plan to create such a plugin for Firefox-based browsers? I assume you've chosen Chromium because statistically most users use it. However I believe most people who value their privacy use Firefox (or some fork like Librewolf, Waterfox etc...), it could be great to have access to both .

Other question, do you think it would be possible to add a suggestion to report to Google when a user visits one of the phishing links? This would allow a maximum number of reports, which could increase the chances of getting a “phishing warning” message displayed (for those not using the plugin). I'm thinking of this: https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish/
It would probably be difficult to motivate people to report the phishing link to the hosting provider (often done by e-mail and time-consuming), but reports to Google Safe Browsing are quick and easy.

By the way, I maintain some lists of phishing copies that I frequently report when they remain online (for different websites), if you want I can share it with you from time to time in case there are some you don't have already (perhaps via a PR on Github?).

Thank you! Yes, we'll likely make a Firefox version too.

Good idea with the Google Safe Browsing. I'll look into it.

Please share those websites! Currently the plugin design is such that the data is all stored on the OrangeFren.com database server, so a PR wouldn't be a great fit, because the data isn't in that repo. Either shoot me an email or send a text on SimpleX :)

Why not create a hosts-file (like StevenBlack (https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts/tree/master))? I don't like plugins, so I add more and more domains I don't want to visit to /etc/hosts and point them to localhost.
It doesn't work on Tor browser though.

This is a good thing. However, a better system for updating the database of blacklisted phishing sites should be made. I don't know how possible it is to add something like a "submit phishing domain" to the plugin itself, where users could report such sites directly, without sending a PM here or through other chat tools.

This is a great idea with browser extension and it can be very useful but if I may suggest making additional filter for uBlockOrigin extension.
You can use the same list of phishing websites used in OrangeFren extension, so more people can have benefit even without installing anything extra.
With this method all browsers with adblockers would be supported.

List of different filters:
https://laniksj.github.io/ubo-filters/
https://filterlists.com/

Good idea! I made an endpoint for this: orangefren.com/api/get_phishing_data/hosts (http://orangefren.com/api/get_phishing_data/hosts)

If you'd like to automatically append it to your hosts file use this:
Just don't forget to remove the old ones when you're updating it.

---

I'll look into adding this. Usually it was the exchanges that told us about phishing sites tricking their users. That's why the initial decision to only have the data fed in from our channels with them.

I think that's a good idea! We have other plans for the plugin in the future too so I don't mind ad blockers having this functionality too.

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

If you are already expanding the list outside of the exchanges that are in your monitoring, maybe you can also add https://github.com/phishfort/phishfort-lists
Metamask also relies on their list. Recently, there have been several cases of sites being mislabeled as phishing by Metamask (https://github.com/MetaMask/eth-phishing-detect?tab=readme-ov-file), where PhishFort was responsible for the list/delist.

Hey frens! We've added a live chat to OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com). The chat requires no JS.

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/02/15/qSpx9.pnghttps://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/02/15/qSOPN.png

Now available in Intercambio.app (http://Intercambio.app) too

We've improved the chat. The message box no longer reloads so you can write without worrying about losing what you're typing. Still no JS :)

I like how you are not asking email or anything else from visitors who for writing in chat and asking questions,
but in case you don't answer quick enough or if browser window was shut down accidentally, is there any way to read the answer you sent back.

I recommend saving the chat ID or bookmarking the chat page. If you have the chat ID simply append it to:
Chats are setup in such a way that messages older than 7 days are deleted. So there's no real benefit to creating new chats. You can make one and reuse it forever and the old stuff will be gone all the same.

You can also leave a message with how you wish to be contacted. Ideally an email or simplex invite.

This was more good news because OrangeFren was involved in the Vienna meetup. Your commitment to the meetup events is commendable and because of that I hope you are receiving positive feedback from the delegates that attended. You did not provide any updates. Was there large gathering? I hope it was a successful event.

What are the next meetups or events you are contemplating organising or sponsoring?

That sounds great.
I did some testing on website and I noticed that even if main window in browser is closed, chat window remains opened and it needs to be closed separately.
I think some exchanges could also introduce something similar for their quick support chat.

However, the chat history is stored somewhere on the server for 7 days. In addition, anyone with a chat ID can access the log. Sometimes sensitive information can be shared there, so this can represent a potential risk.
I would suggest adding the "clear chat history" option (by user), which would reduce the potential risk.

The meetup in Vienna went ok, but the venue messed up. We relied on them to pick a time and day to maximize attendance and they put our event at the same time as another crypto event in their venue. Worse yet the reception was just automatically sending people to the other event when they showed up and said they're there for the crypto meetup.

Our next event will probably be in western Europe since the last bunch were central or eastern (Vienna, Istanbul, Nicosia, Tbilisi, Berlin).

I'm glad you appreciate this design choice. Most of the customer support queries we get involve information from across multiple pages, hence the decision to make the support chat easy to move around.

Some exchanges and our friends from kycnot.me (http://kycnot.me) asked us to share the live chat code with them. We already shared it with one and as we polish it up a bit we'll do the others as well.

Good idea! We'll roll it out soon. Before we roll it out, if you need the chat removed send us a message and we'll do it manually. I ought to point out that while yes - anyone with the chat ID can access the chat - only the user who created the chat sees his chat ID and nobody will guess it.

I just used this website to exchange a small amount of crypto and found it to be accurate and informative in referring me to WizardSwap which did an excellent job at swapping out at a reasonable exchange rate, with excellent speed and a good user interface on both OrangeFren and WizardSwap. Thanks!

Done :)

The live chats on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) now have a delete button that will remove the chat. If you have JS enabled you'll be prompted to confirm the deletion, if you don't the chat is immediately scheduled for deletion (chat is removed from all our servers within a minute or two).

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/03/01/qOeuD.png

Well, this was a quick reaction  :)
To be sure, the quoted part is only related if the user decides to delete the chat, but if the user does not click on "Delete this chat", the chat session will remain on the server for 7 days, as originally intended. right?

Almost.
If a user doesn't click on the chat deletion link then messages older than 7 days will be deleted. If there are no messages left then the chat is removed also.

So for instance: if a user messages us with a "Good morning" message once a day, every day, then the chat session will never be deleted, but it will only have the 7 messages from the past week. Older messages will be removed.

We're happy to share with you our brand new SimpleX Bot!

This bot uses Intercambio.app (http://Intercambio.app) to do trades with any of the services listed on that website, all without leaving SimpleX.

Get it here: link (https://simplex.chat/contact/#/?v=2-7&smp=smp%3A%2F%2Fu2dS9sG8nMNURyZwqASV4yROM28Er0luVTx5X1CsMrU%3D%40smp4.simplex.im%2FPumr2wT-zXjmXHAl0sSjRDTVir2En6Rm%23%2F%3Fv%3D1-3%26dh%3DMCowBQYDK2VuAyEA3OMCVdK1KNYZpx_iKT3gJ11eVrm-6PG5yYQ1RVz_yis%253D%26srv%3Do5vmywmrnaxalvz6wi3zicyftgio6psuvyniis6gco6bp6ekl4cqj4id.onion)

The bot also allows you to create trades with specific services for instance with eXch  8)
Please note the bot is very much in beta for now

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/03/03/qlI9j.jpeghttps://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/03/03/qlEsq.jpeg

Well done OrangeFren!
Having a SimpleX bot was necessary and waited by the community, thank you for taking the time to develop it :)

I'll be testing it later today!

As a beta version, does it currently only work with eXch or with all exchanges usable on intercambio.app?

Thank you!
All exchanges from Intercambio.app (http://Intercambio.app) should work, not just eXch, although I imagine a lot of users will want to use it with eXch and probably FixedFloat.

Unfortunately if the reception was directing your delegates to the other venue even after hearing they were there for the crypto event, it would have affected the turnout. I am sure if you ever decided to have another event in Vienna, you will not be using the same location again. With the help of sponsorship and support these small meetups are becoming increasingly important as they are contributing to the crypto ecosystem. Wherever you decide to have the next meetup I hope it will be a resounding success.

When eXch and FixedFloat are already mentioned in the same context, what do you think about adding some kind of warning to FF that there may be certain aggravating circumstances depending on the origin of the coins? By that, I mean FF's announcement that from now on, they will block all coins coming from eXch.

Good point. We'll add warnings in the next release.

Amazing work!
I didn't know bots like this are possible on SimpleX chat, but I am glad they do exist.
Great that IP address are not detected this way, but are the any limitations compared to exchanges like Intercambio web version?

There are no major limitations. In fact the SimpleX bot actually makes it much easier to pick which service you want to use :)

Stats for searches on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) in February 👀

XMR: 43%
BTC: 24%
LTC: 12%
ETH: 6%
USDT: 4%
BTCLN: 2%
USDC: 2%
SOL: 2%
XRP: 0.37%
BNB: 0.28%
TRX: 0.28%
BCH: 0.24%
ZEC: 0.22%

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/03/14/0J8QP.png

Hey! paid2 just told me about this plugin. I think it's one step to something much bigger, as (at least on the firefox add-on store) there are no lightweight, open source phishing protectors.

I would like to ask, do you think it is possible to:
- open source the list of sites that the add-on considers as official?
- opening up the list to be more than just from orangefren?

Maybe, forking for the above wider purpose (to not disrupt the original purpose)?

Great work and I will be downloading the plugin once it is on the FF store. It would be great to see this without reliance on any domain, and on a publicly maintained list instead. This could be a killer add-on for the world if it worked this way.

Thanks for the suggestions!
I don't mind sharing the full list with people and letting them add services to it, although the current design would make it quite tedious to push those changes to the users. Hopefully we can find the time to change the current approach to make it possible.

I think there is some glitch in intercambio.app.
I don't think it's an error, you didn't provide all the parameters, so it looks pretty strange.

So I created an order of 0.003 BTC to XMR, where I wanted alternative trades. The option is two possibilities, but it is impossible that there is such a difference, where Pegasusswap offers 1.13 XMR, while eXch only 0.017 XMR

https://talkimg.com/images/2025/03/17/0B5Zd.png

A few minutes before that I was on the eXch page and at that moment there was less than 1 XMR in the reserves, so I assume that your application recognized the maximum available.
This may be technically all right, but probably at that moment some hint should be given to the user so that he knows the reason for such a difference, otherwise, it may create the wrong impression that one exchange is significantly less favourable than the other.

It might be worth splitting the project into two. One for the current purpose, another that is designed to be community maintained, open source, and for all popular/official services (list maintained by its community).

If OrangeFren aren't able to do this please let me know so I can find someone is interested in working on this, or if someone who is interested sees this, PM me!

We'll be removing this. This is a vestige from when we initially wanted Intercambio.app (http://Intercambio.app) to do multi-part multi-hop swaps. For instance you could swap 2 XMR to BTC on LN by doing 1 XMR straight to BTC on LN and 1 XMR to LTC on eXch and then LTC to BTC on LN on FF. And all of this would be abstracted away for you. We ultimately abandoned the idea, because trade creation was too prone to various failures.

However, one cool remnant of this is that Intercambio.app (http://Intercambio.app) will make a trade for you that involves a single hop. For instance if you want to swap BTC on LN to Wownero - there are no exchanges that have both. So Intercambio will create a BTC on LN to XMR swap, with say eXch, and then a XMR to WOW swap with Majestic Bank. All in one go. You only need to send coins to the first deposit address and the rest will happen behind the scenes.

This is a good idea, although it seems complicated to have full functionality.
What I noticed is that if the deposit is not made immediately after creating the order, there is no option here to update the price and possibly change the relationship. Normal refresh is also non-functional.

Also, it is unclear to me here how the problem would be solved if at some point one of the exchanges asked for KYC, and I, as a user, do not want to provide any additional information. What happens in that case?

This is an interesting issue. We might be able to solve it. Although not every exchange shares their current rate to us. Some only show the only that was current when the swap was created. I'll see what can be done.

Regarding the KYC - we allow users to select "never-KYC" exchange that promise to us that they will either not require KYC or allow a user to get a refund without KYC.

Are there any exchange service listed on OrangeFren allow customers to first check their address before sending?
This sounds like a better option than first sending to exchange, and than later waiting and hoping they will return coins back to you, minus the fees.
 

Yes there are are!
QuickEx, PegasusSwap, Swapuz and Exolix. Just make sure to tell them you're an OrangeFren user, otherwise they might decline it.

Very useful and cool.
I just checked rates for all exchanges you mentioned on orangefren and they all have written notice:
xxx support can provide a free AML score check before you deposit
So it's probably better to give advantage to previously mentioned services when someone is concerned about coin freezing and score rating.

⚠️ eXch has migrated to a new TLD of .net 

We've already rolled out the new TLD on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com), Intercambio.app (http://Intercambio.app) and in our Chrome Extension (http://github.com/orangefren/OrangeFren-Plugin/releases/tag/v0.2 (http://github.com/orangefren/OrangeFren-Plugin/releases/tag/v0.2))   

👉eXch.net (https://exch.net/?ref=B0EbA4c7)

Source: link (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=577207.msg65217181#msg65217181)
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/03/28/lNVwW.png

With all due respect to Orangefren and your effort, but such features should be available to everyone without any calls to someone's name. Also, this feature should be emphasized more, so that other KYC exchangers will be pressured to implement a similar thing. In the end, it is additional security for the end user.

I certainly agree. The whole chain analysis thing is odd. There is no public list of UTXOs considered dirty (aside from for instance a brief list published by OFAC). Yet a significant part of the industry assumes that it is illegal to receive or process tainted UTXOs. This is akin to having secret laws the violation of which would land people in jail.

Presumably this is partly why under Common Law it is considered perfectly legal to accept "tainted" cash.

Important thing is that onion link remained the same, but big changes are surely coming in eXch.

You can't force exchanges to do that if they don't want it.  :P

I am sure this was just one more way to attack bitcoin with cooperation of big exchanges, maybe using some blackmail techniques,
and sadly most people accepted this as truth, making bitcoin almost non-fungible in reality.

Of course not. That goes against their business model of stealing and confiscating money from random people for arbitrary rules that no one knows except for them and their partners in crime. They will not willingly give up such a lucrative pocket-filling technique and help the general public.

Oh no, seems like your coins are dirty. How unfortunate. But don't worry! We will just take them from you to keep you safe. Please come back any time you want. We are here for you 24/7. 

We, as the crypto community and users of exchange services, have let them dictate the rules of the game for too long. It would be good if we could impose certain features and rank exchanges based on that. Unfortunately, one shitty airdrop is enough, and a large number of people will accept even the worst conditions.

Most people will always be willing to trade security, privacy, and control for convenience. That's why centralized exchanges can get away with anything. They are convenient to use but they constantly attack the three pillars I mentioned. If a CEX noticed a significant outflow of customers and big drop in revenue, they would rethink their latest actions and change the way they operate. But that's Imaginationland. Reality is quite different. 

We're happy to share we've rolled out a new badge to let you know how long each services has been listed on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) for.
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/04/07/xaSjT.png

In addition, services listed for less than two weeks, still get a yellow warning about being listed for such a short time.

This particular issue is quit disheartening because there is consensus that broadly agrees with your sentiments but there is no structure in place to make it in to a mass movement. If there was a strong movement to push back against centralisation it would have forced certain centralised exchanges to adapt to the needs and desires of their customers/clients otherwise face the consequences of a falling income stream.

If a service such as OrangeFren can operate long term without any external meddling, it will remain an important entity to inform people about alternatives to centralised exchanges.

I think it's worth pointing out that for instance in the case of coins from eXch Coinbase and Binance will accept them, but then FixedFloat and all the WhiteBit resellers won't. I imagine Coinbase and Binance made this decision, because they understand they can be replaced.

The same is true for FixedFloat and WhiteBit. They can easily be replaced and aren't nearly as important nor do they have the market share of big CEXs. Coinbase and Binance are much bigger players than the other two mentioned services and their partners. It's all about self-interest. Coinbase/Binance can quickly change their stance if they decide it's in their own interest to do so. That goes for FixedFloat and WhiteBit as well. 

Binance and Coinbase have probably taken a decision based on self-interest. I see no reason why they would have zero problems with accepting deposits from eXch when the transacted values would not be large enough to warrant the response. A worry/fear of losing out on those potential customers does not seem to be the reason.

Together with kycnot.me (http://kycnot.me) we have written a review of silent.link (https://silent.link/?ref=orangefren) - the anonymous eSIM provider

Our rating: ★★★★★

Read it here: https://blog.orangefren.com/p/review_silentlink (https://blog.orangefren.com/p/review_silentlink)
Or here: https://blog.kycnot.me/p/silentlink-review (https://blog.kycnot.me/p/silentlink-review)

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/04/08/xA7Vq.jpeg

On the first sight this could confuse some people to think those dates are related with creation of specific exchanges.
I know hovering over date explains what it means in more details, but maybe you could add few more words or just OrangeFren logo with word ON.

I think I saw Bitrefill offering similar eSIMs, but I didn't test them myself.

Good point! I'll see if we can come up with a better way of presenting this info.

I think Silent.link is better for almost everyone, because they're prepaid and global with a balance that doesn't expire.

We've made a few changed to OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com)

Firstly we've added a button to quickly swap currencies around
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/04/14/xvD6J.png

Secondly we've greatly upgraded the algorithm for calculating average swap fees that we use for the table on the homepage. It now includes fixed fees (typically originating from onchain tx fees). We assume a swap of around ~$300 which is quite typical, especially for users in a hurry. For larger amounts a lot of the exchanges appearing lower in the table will actually offer a much better effective fee, so please use the search functionality to find suitable providers for those sums.
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/04/14/xvOjC.png

This second update with fees being visible is great, we can save a lot of money by choosing exchanges with lower fees.
Is this data showing live fees that can change accordingly, or those are fixed fees shown?
Mempool fees for bitcoin are minimal now, but that can easily change in future.

Yes! The data is updated every time we refresh our rates info, so every few minutes.

We're helping organize & are sponsoring the 3rd edition of the Bitcoin Film Fest happening in Warsaw 🇵🇱 between 22-25 May

Get a 10% ticket discount with code:
👉bitcoinfilmfest.com (http://bitcoinfilmfest.com)
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/04/17/x7Fuz.png

Stats for searches on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) in March 👀

XMR: 40.87%
BTC: 25.83%
LTC: 14.42%
ETH: 10.91%
USDC: 2.79%
BTCLN: 2.11%
USDT: 1.87%
SOL: 0.32%
XRP: 0.08%

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/04/18/xgl8T.png

Happy Easter Frens!

We've added some new features to OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com)!

The table on the homepage with current exchange fees now has a switch at its bottom to pick whether you're swapping a small amount (~$300) or a large one (>$3000). This allows you to very quickly preview what the best services are for your trade size.
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/04/20/xqzG5.pnghttps://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/04/20/xqTqd.png

Below the table we've added a "Best for privacy" banner to let you know which service currently has the lowest fees if privacy matters most. To appear there a service must never require KYC, have a Tor Mirror and work without JavaScript.
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/04/20/xqNb2.png

The info in the tables and the "Best for privacy" banner are updated every time we fetch new rates (every ~5 minutes).

There was a time when it seemed the future was bleak for Monero because exchanges were de-listing it in order to get accreditation or licences in various jurisdictions. Looking at the 40% figure in the image clearly shows there is a massive market for XMR because of the anonymity factor.

Buying Monero on KYC-exchanges doesn't make sense. Without centralized exchanges, Monero's price is based more on it's actual usage instead of speculation, which makes it all the more impressive it's still worth this much.

Considering there was (and probably still is) immense pressure on exchanges to de-list XMR, the price it is currently trading for is extremely impressive. According to Coinmarketcap, it is 68th in the list by virtue of the largest 24 hour trading volume and 27th by market cap. These are impressive numbers under the circumstances.

Not just that, but also most instant exchanges are having a very hard time keeping Monero in stock. If anything the price should be at least a bit higher to match the demand.

With the help of FixedFloat (https://ff.io/?ref=1wypt6tc) we're organizing two meetups in two weeks‼️

Neuchâtel 🇨🇭
Join us on May 8th in Neuchâtel 🇨🇭 in coworking Neuchâtel (https://coworking-neuchatel.ch/en/coworking-space-neuchatel/) - a Bitcoin coworking hub

👉 Sign up here: OrangeFren.com/event/22 (http://OrangeFren.com/event/22)
👉 Or here: Meetup.com/fixedfloat-com-meetup-organised-by-orangefren-com/events/307455556 (https://www.meetup.com/fixedfloat-com-meetup-organised-by-orangefren-com/events/307455556)
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/04/24/U2CkCC.jpeg


Lisbon 🇵🇹
Join us on May 9th in Lisbon 🇵🇹 in The Block (https://www.theblocklisboa.com/) - a crypto coworking hub

👉 Sign up here: OrangeFren.com/event/23 (http://OrangeFren.com/event/23)
👉 Or here: Meetup.com/theblock/events/307374617/ (https://www.meetup.com/theblock/events/307374617/)

🍕 We'll have FREE pizza and FixedFloat gadgets for all
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/04/24/U2CsOJ.jpeg

⚠️ We've been informed there are accounts on Telegram impersonating us and asking for payments. These accounts are fake. Please report them and DO NOT send them any coins 🙏

To contact us use our live chat on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com), email or SimpleX 🧡

I see you removed eXch from the monitoring even earlier; at least I don't get them in the results anymore. (They are still not found in this mobile ticker, while the link is to a non-functional exch.net domain.) Ok, that's understandable considering the current situation with this exchange.

However, we may not follow others enough, so we don't know much about their status. I would suggest that you have a page, for example, where you will enter a log with all the changes you make to the service. It might be informative for users

Yeah, we opted to remove them early to avoid any issues with stuck coins as they go offline.

Good idea with the status page, we already de facto use our SimpleX group chat for that purpose, because it's the only way we have to put out messages into the world when away from keyboard.
Link: SimpleX Group (https://simplex.chat/contact#/?v=2-5&smp=smp%3A%2F%2FUkMFNAXLXeAAe0beCa4w6X_zp18PwxSaSjY17BKUGXQ%3D%40smp12.simplex.im%2F6NNydd1b6LUipCKHKDHk2Zbd2He98JX7%23%2F%3Fv%3D1-2%26dh%3DMCowBQYDK2VuAyEA_IIQ8aiopmvj4ZpTlRKvESD20TYIKNtKmtCPzQujdXM%253D%26srv%3Die42b5weq7zdkghocs3mgxdjeuycheeqqmksntj57rmejagmg4eor5yd.onion&data=%7B%22type%22%3A%22group%22%2C%22groupLinkId%22%3A%22qei_DO94SsiIiY_OHSmgbg%3D%3D%22%7D)

---

Stats for April
Stats for searches on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) in April 👀

Collapse of LN searches correlates with the empty mempool⚡️

XMR: 43.79%
BTC: 24.88%
LTC: 11.80%
ETH: 7.68%
USDT: 3.55%
USDC: 2.86%
SOL: 1.34%
BTCLN: 0.93%
TRX: 0.34%
DAI: 0.24%
ZEC: 0.22%
XTZ: 0.18%
TON: 0.18%
BNB: 0.18%
BCH: 0.16%
XRP: 0.14%
ARB: 0.10%
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/05/13/UU4CE8.png

---

Charlotte meetup
We're proud to support this meetup!

It's taking place in Charlotte, North Carolina🇺🇸 on the 26th of July☀️

Sign up: https://orangefren.com/event/24 (https://orangefren.com/event/24)
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/05/30/UXRDrq.jpeg

Question for OrangeFren, can you tell us what exchange is mostly used via OrangeFren service after departure of eXch?
Many people are still looking to find best alternative no-kyc exchange.

Total collapse of Lightning, and I honestly never liked it so I don't miss it.
Something strange is happening with the mempool, especially when this is happening in the same time with new bitcoin ATH.

In the past few days the most popular exchanges are:

• by amount of swaps: FixedFloat (https://ff.io/?ref=1wypt6tc)
• by volume: Exolix (https://exolix.com/?ref=Ep5YHVaJ25iEHvRU)

Bare in mind this does change quite often, until very recently Majestic Bank (https://majesticbank.sc/?ref=mgzySX) was the most popular in terms of volume.

Speaking of LN... Our node is processing a huge amount of routed payments this week. >500.
https://talkimg.com/images/2025/05/31/UXEjEI.jpeg

I use Orangefren these days, and I assume that the reason why these two exchanges are the "most popular" is that the aggregator recognizes them as the most favorable.
Unfortunately, FF has a very bad reputation, but such warnings do not exist on Orangefren. Also, I contacted Exolix directly and did not get any guarantees from them that they will not freeze funds and require KYC.

I'm glad you're using the site!

I'm not sure what you mean, we've had a warning for FF for years now. (Notice the dark yellow text).
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/06/01/UX3n4I.png

Exolix guarantees never-KYC only to users that use our link. It doesn't mean they'll definitely process whatever coins are sent to them, but they will offer a no-KYC refund if they don't like them.

What I mean is the numerous accusations here on the forum. For example,
fixedfloat holding my funds $1000 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5543715.0)
🚓 🚨 FixedFloat Scammed Me Too 🚨 🚓 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5541660.0)
Fixedfloat is scamming me for 8000+ EUR IMPORTANT PSA! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5482815.0)
FixedFloat.com stole my funds (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5492679.0)

For Exolix, I experienced their KYC policy differently after direct communication.
I wrote about it in another discussion.

I'm familiar with all, but one of those cases.

• in one the user got refunded
• in another the user didn't follow FF's ToS and had their client deposit straight into FF
• and in the last one I'm familiar with the user simply sent stolen coins to FF and is lying

Generally whenever we hear of situations like this we reach out to the exchange in question and try to get the full story. We do this even when the user isn't one of ours. In fact we do this so often that many services are quite tired of it :D. It's also not uncommon for us to delist them as we wait for a reply. As a result we receive information that isn't public, incl. communications with law enforcement agencies.

To be clear - none of the services we list advertise that they will process coins they believe have been stolen. Some will freeze and ask for info (for instance FF - hence the warning on our site), some will refund you without any questions asked.

BTW we recently asked FF for a guarantee that they won't freeze $5M coinjoined BTC from one of our users and they provided that guarantee and processed the funds with no issues. So even coinjoined BTC is (sometimes) (if you get our help first :)) OK.

Did Exolix know you were one of our users?

So you're also familiar with the fact that FF is lying?
That's blockchain evidence.

No, sorry, I meant the user is lying in this case. Thanks for pointing it out, it wasn't clear on my part.

FF, not unlike many other services, doesn't freeze a specific UTXO, rather they freeze a specific amount (and hand over to LE). They can do this because any coins coming out of their BTC address are marked clean by the chain forensic services. Not unlike what eXch used to be able to do with their aggregate address.

Is there any way to see similar stats directly on Orangefren website?
Maybe adding additional information in Exchanges section, in addition to supported coins, fees, kyc and OF Guarantee amount.

One more question is about FinchPay exchange.
Are there any OF guarantees and NO-kyc up to 500 euros when purchasing coins with fiat currencies?

Government addresses are also always magically ''clean''  ;)

There is! Some exchanges have a green tag to mark them as popular among our users in recent weeks, but that's only on the result page:
https://talkimg.com/images/2025/06/02/UXcgHf.png

Unfortunately, no.

Good point! :D

I listed only some random cases. I've seen many similar accusations in other places, such as Reddit, X, etc...
I don't see that they have gained enough trust for me to give them personal information, even if we add the case that LoyceV points to, it can be considered as not a very good choice for exchange.

Of course, that's just my opinion. And I just conclude that the reason they are the most popular with you is that they generally always offer the best rate, so they are the first result in the search on Orangefren.

I know that there are privileges for your users, but I intentionally accessed as an ordinary, random user. Their support seemed rather uncertain to me, because I received some conflicting information from them. OK, they corrected themselves later, but things like this shouldn't happen.

Also, if it is possible on the basis of cooperation with you, to approve the transaction without KYC or at least to return the funds if the user does not want to give them KYC, why don't they apply this to all users?
I have nothing against your deal, it's a great thing, but obviously, their arbitrariness is a KYC requirement, not some kind of obligation according to the law

If you have suggestions on how we could fine-tune the warning to make it clearer to our users what to expect then I'll be happy to do so! :) I'll add that with our current warning that we have - most complaints regarding FF are from people who aren't our users. Meanwhile our users are doing thousands of swaps with FF and either getting almost no issues or opting not to tell us about them for whatever reason.

"Ordinary" users get a different rate, different limits and different liquidity from Exolix. The site even takes longer to load for them :D. The rate our users get is slightly worse on most days, but still half of the next-best never-KYC option. When we reached our agreement with Exolix we reached a conclusion that having no shotgun-KYC was more valuable to our users than a slightly better rate which would match FixedFloat anyways and thus offer no tangible benefit to our users. This extra fee is what allows them to return coins they don't like.

At the risk of being slightly off-topic, and assuming you don't mind the bump: this is an interesting observation! I'd say we can even stretch it a bit further, and make "taint" disappear exactly the way it does in fiat money: if a criminal has gained a $100 bill by criminal means, that money becomes clean the moment he spends it in a restaurant for a meal. Nobody would blame the restaurant owner as long as he doesn't know he's doing business with a criminal.
Back to the above: by this observation, the "dirty" Bitcoin becomes "clean" the moment it hits an exchange. If we extend that a bit, I'd argue it becomes clean the moment it's received by someone who has nothing to do with any crime. That's how fungibility works, and that's how it should work in Bitcoin.

I agree and to some extent this is already how AML checks in BTC are done. For instance if you send tainted BTC to FF and they freeze the swap and ask where you got it and you show them you bought the BTC on Bisq then FF will return you the coins.

---

Stats for searches on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) in May 2025

XMR: 41.94%
BTC: 24.34%
LTC: 11.19%
ETH: 7.25%
USDT: 4.84%
USDC: 3.67%
SOL: 1.60%
BTCLN: 0.90%
ZEC: 0.76%
DAI: 0.47%
TRX: 0.37%
BCH: 0.30%
XRP: 0.29%
TON: 0.21%
SUI: 0.19%
BNB: 0.15%
ADA: 0.12%
ZANO: 0.12%
DASH: 0.10%

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/06/05/UXp23c.png

I wonder what would happen if everyone started using Silent Payment addresses and PayJoin V2 (both available in Cake wallet) when sending and receiving Bitcoin?
It would be much harder for anyone to enforce silly AML rules, so smaller exchanges and services need to help with adoption.

Even poor buggy s0l is used more than Lightning Network  :P

I don't think Silent Payments matter: that only increases privacy when you publish the address in public. If you deposit to a Silent Payment Address on an exchange, the exchange will still know your address because that's where your deposit ends up on-chain.

It's the first time I read about Payjoin. It sounds a lot like Coinjoin, but with different input and output amounts instead. Didn't some exchanges assume funds from Coinjoin are "bad" already? Even though it's good for privacy, it makes it much harder to answer the questions they might ask.

That's correct. Silent Payment "addresses" look like this (it's actually our donation address):
You might notice this is not a Bitcoin address, but it's all the info a sender needs to calculate the actual Bitcoin address using their own UTXOs they want to send. And since every donor has their own UTXOs they'll all calculate different Bitcoin addresses.

Payjoin txs aren't identifiable as such on the blockchain. They appear as "normal" 2-in 2-out txs.

I was expecting N-in M-out, right? And in that case, if one of the M-outs goes to an exchange, and they work their AML-magic on all N-ins, they'll ask questions about addresses that aren't even yours.

Let's you have 2 BTC in your wallet. I have 3 BTC in mine. If you send me 1 BTC using payjoin then we will together create a tx where:
Even though I'm a receiver my coins are on the inputs side too, not just yours. Then your change is sent back to you in the outputs, and my balance is returned to me there too.

Without using payjoin the tx would be:
The first output going to me, the second being your change.

I'm assuming we both have a single UTXO each for simplicity's sake.

Notice that I, as the receiver, got coins from you in both cases, and got coins from myself in the payjoin case. So there's no "extra" UTXOs I have to explain away.

Thanks for this example, I assumed there would be more than 2 depositors (like a coinjoin), but that's not possible yet (https://payjoin.org/docs/how-payjoin-saves/). In this example though, I see a privacy problem: I now know you owned a 3 BTC input. With a normal transaction, all I'd know is you now have 1 BTC that came from me.
It is for sure an interesting way of sending transactions. I learned something new today :)

Correct! And you as the sender, now will have my 3 BTC in your inputs of your tx which you might have to explain away!

Do you know how Silent Payment actually work?
They have totally different format (sp1...) compared to regular Bitcoin addresses, and that means that you can't alwys make connection between sender and receiver.
Every time you receive bitcoin on same Silent Payment address coins are received in different Bitcoin address.

I created a topic about PayJoin V2 wallets few days ago, and this could be a game changer.
This is NOT the same thing as CoinJoin, but you can read more about it here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5545699

I do :) Do you? :P

There's a difference between a random observer, and the sender. If I send Bitcoin to your Silent Payment address, I know exactly which on-chain Bitcoin address I send to. But anyone else who sees the Silend Payment address has no idea which Bitcoin address I sent money to.
Which is why it doesn't make sense for an exchange: there are no "observers" to hide from: nobody sees which Bitcoin deposit address they give you. Silent Payments only add privacy when "an observer" can see the address, for instance when the address is posted online in public, or even if you give the same address to different people.

That's correct. But the sender knows which Bitcoin address he sends to.

Exchanges should be just a vehicle for more Silent payment adoption, and I am not expecting any privacy from them.

I didn't say that using only Silent Payments you are magically going get privacy like when using Monero.
Silent Payments is just a tool if you don't want to receive all coins into one single address, and yes I know that sender will know receiver Bitcoin address.

Last month we recorded a record amount of payments routed through our LN node (https://mempool.space/lightning/node/02935477addfaa40661e10fdd67cb08bf5f64ff7a8bc71b058fc8e5e505e09bbf1)⚡️

June is already in 3rd place and it's only the 7th of June!
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/06/07/Ud2vNm.png
You can buy a channel from our node on Amboss (https://amboss.space/magma/offer/ff761814-e9df-422d-822f-9128ed4bc3ed). We've sold 23 already.

I'm confused about this. I noticed pegasusswap is tagged as "guaranteed never-kyc" but looking into this exchange's terms of service, they have the typical KYC/AML policies that says otherwise.

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/06/22/Uus4uv.png

Snippet:

Is this information outdated or you have an exclusive deal with them for your users? though I did see you mention it if it's exclusive in another exchange. 🤔

I'd like to warn you about an issue you may be not aware of.

Yesterday I exchanged small amount of USDT (on Tron network) for BTC and used OrangeFren for exchange rate comparison.

First option was CCE.cash exchange with best exchange rate. But on their website, the exchange rate was different and MUCH worse.

So there is possibility that some exchanges manipulate data to display better exchange rates on OrangeFren than they actually  use.

I acted in haste and didn't check but I lost few dollars, on the other hand someone else could be burned pretty bad.

Our users definitely won't be forced to do KYC with them :)

Thank you so much for the report and I'm sorry that you took a loss! We'll be sure to investigate. They're a new service and could be playing tricks on us. If they fake their rate we'll delist them.

Please tell me if you need any additional info (screenshots or session ID), I can provide it, so you can have more proofs.

There was a warning that it is a new service, but I acted recklessly without double check.

Yes, please DM me whatever you have. Either here on BTT or email (contact@orangefren.com) or on SimpleX

---

‼️With the help of WizardSwap (http://wizardswap.io/?ref=820391743d) we're organising a meetup in Bucharest 🇷🇴 next week!

Join us on the 3rd of July in Bucharest🇷🇴

👉 Sign up here: OrangeFren.com/event/25 (http://OrangeFren.com/event/25)
👉 Or here: Meetup.com/bucharest-wizardswap-crypto-meetup/events/308666545/ (https://www.meetup.com/bucharest-wizardswap-crypto-meetup/events/308666545/)

🍕 We'll have FREE snacks for all 🧛‍♂️🧙‍♂️

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/06/25/Uucz7Z.jpeg

This is interesting. The opposite happened to me. When I was redirected to the exchangers site, the swap rate was a little more favorable to me compared to what Orangefren was showing. Now I can't say with certainty which service it is, because I attributed it to the real-time rise in the price of Bitcoin.

btw. I've checked, swapping 0.01 BTC to USDT (ERC20), the first two "best" results are OctoSwap and Hellex. However, in real exchanges, they offer a much worse exchange rate.

Suggestion: When I search to exchange a certain amount, you link to the site with a referral id. But what's missing in the link is the trade pair I'm looking for, so I have to enter it again on the site. Could you add the trade pair to the link? That's what your competitor does.

Suggestion: your drop-down menu with coins has many duplicates: BTC is in there 5 times, LTC 4 times, and more. That list should be a lot shorter.

I checked just now and they seemed ok, I'll keep an eye out for it.

We already do that for some exchanges, but most don't support it. We'll reach out to their teams and ask if there's an undocumented way of doing it.

Ah, you're right! That's odd. On it.Fixed!

Check this, for example.

https://talkimg.com/images/2025/06/26/Uu7J2f.png

At the same time, on their website (using your referral link), it appears that they are trying to gain an advantage over other exchangers during the search process.
https://talkimg.com/images/2025/06/26/Uu7VRZ.png

I am finding the same issue with some exchanges as other members reported before me.

In this example I checked rates on OrangeFren and Swapuz exchange gave me the best rates,
but when I was redirected to Swapuz website I found different rates, and I refreshed page several times to confirm.

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/06/27/Uu8CB9.jpeg

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/06/27/Uu8nkw.jpeg


It's interesting that sometimes I am getting better rates than it was reported on OrangeFren wesbite.
For example this happened with Hellex exchange, I selected swap from BTC to XMR.

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/06/27/Uu8MFa.jpeg

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/06/27/Uu8GdN.jpeg

So maybe there is some issue with OrangeFren, not with exchanges trying to trick anyone.

It is also noticeable that the exchange rate differs for each trading pair. For example, USDT on the TRX network always has a less favorable exchange rate compared to the ERC20 token. Regardless of whether it comes via the OrangeFren calculator

Thanks for the findings but for me i believe these inconsistencies are usually due to the aggregator OrangeFren data refresh speed and the fast-moving nature of crypto prices, rather than intentional manipulation by the exchanges themselves.

What i can say is always double-check rates directly on the exact exchange site before making a trade to ensure you’re getting the best deal.

I've seen such inconsistencies too often to blame it on data refresh speed.

Whenever I use a site to compare rates at instant exchangers, I'm looking for the one that gives me (say) 0.2% better rates. If there's a 1% variation between what's shown and what I get, it's kinda pointless.

It's not just Orangefren, I remember seeing something similar on Bestchange and exchanges listed on there.

To test one of the exchanges, for example, Swapuz. I downloaded their affiliate widget and added it to one of my sites. Here is how the conversion of 0.1 ETH to USDT (trx) looks on my site and their official site

https://talkimg.com/images/2025/06/29/UuqS9m.png

vs official:
https://talkimg.com/images/2025/06/29/UuqnaW.png

At the same time, the difference in the current rate for the ETH/USDT pair is obvious, which adds further confusion.

Big thanks to everyone who reported the rate differences!
We've had a closer look over the weekend and decided to impose a 1% correction on fees we get from Swapuz.

Currently we check for new rates as soon as we fetch the previous batch.
Bare in mind we also interpolate, we can't query every amount, after all. It also wouldn't be a good design for user privacy to send a request for a quote every time a user searches for a pair, because if any of the exchanges we list had their query history compromised it would make it possible to timing-attack our users. Even if they didn't use that particular service.

Crypto prices have nothing to do with this since I am looking to exchange crypto for crypto,
and I refreshed my browser and used it at different times to confirm rates are not very accurate.
And it's not a small difference to have almost 2 XMR extra in my wallet.

Maybe you can add information for users that rates can be different than shown on orangefren website,
this should prevent support having to answer similar questions in future.

That makes sense. But still, dkbit98's example showed a 4.5% difference. It makes me wonder how often you check those rates. According to CMC, XMR went up 0.91% in the past hour. If you checked more than an hour ago, your estimate could be almost 1% off already. Which makes me wonder if you check different exchanges at the same time per trading pair. If you checked XMR-BTC on exchange A an hour ago, and check it on exchange B now, there's a 1% difference already and you may show the wrong one for the best rate.

We check rates slightly more often than once per 5 min.

---

Stats for searches on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) in June

XMR: 40.20%
BTC: 25.23%
LTC: 9.99%
ETH: 7.17%
USDT: 5.58%
USDC: 2.49%
SOL: 2.10%
ZEC: 2.00%
BTCLN: 1.19%
TRX: 0.55%
XRP: 0.50%
DAI: 0.37%
BCH: 0.36%
BNB: 0.24%
ZANO: 0.15%
FIRO: 0.13%
TON: 0.10%

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/07/07/UwYNlH.png

Hello @OrangeFren

I have encountered something with minimum order requirements.

https://talkimg.com/images/2025/07/07/UwJI6a.png

For example, OrangeFren.com showed a rate for swapping 1.0 LTC to XMR via Hellex, but when i contacted Hellex, i have learned that they have a minimum swap limit of 3 LTC.

https://talkimg.com/images/2025/07/07/UwJNlN.png

i believe it would be helpful to display minimum order limits alongside search results, so users can immediately see if their wanted swap amount meets the requirements of each exchange.

Thank you for the report!
Our searches always take into account the mins and maxes for each service.

We've delisted Hellex and will re-add them when either they fix their responses (they previously had a good min amount field) or until we put together a conservative estimate of their min amounts ourselves.

Hello @OrangeFren

I believe the issue with Hellex is still ongoing. When I perform a rate search on Orangefreen, I get this result.

https://talkimg.com/images/2025/07/10/Uw9dnw.png

However, when I use the referral link to check the rate on the Hellex, I get this result.
https://talkimg.com/images/2025/07/10/Uw9uk9.png

and then when I enter my XMR address after viewing the rate
https://talkimg.com/images/2025/07/10/Uw9wgN.png


all the results are diffferent.

Thank you!!!
We've removed them, this isn't acceptable.

It's no surprise for me to see BTCLN still hovering around 1%.
Same thing is happening on all other websites that accept Lightning, Bitcoin and other coins, LN is always around 1%.

Maybe users should have the option to manually exclude services they don't want to use via OrangeFren.
Adding user feedback directly on OrangeFren for listed exchange services could also be good.

They already have it partially implemented; they just need to expand the selection. For example, in addition to "show only never KYC", I would also add the possibility of narrowing down the selection to only those with "own liquidity". Obviously, all exchangers that use third-party liquidity at some point have a problem with KYC requirements, because it does not depend exclusively on them.

We've tried so hard to promote LN though... Sponsored and helped organize the Bitcoin Film Fest, paid for Satograms to deliver ads to every LN user, we have an LN node, we sell channels from it on Amboss. We have direct channels with exchanges that support LN which we list as well as companies we often collab with (for instance Cryptosteel). The table on our homepage marks BTC, XMR, USDT and BTC on LN support for every exchange. :-\

Good idea. In the past we tried launching a forum, but it wasn't a success.

Good idea! We'll work on that.

---

We've added filters!
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/07/11/UwpNHm.png

I know, it's not your fault, Lightning is just a failed project, but people refuse to accept that.
My prediction is that in 10 years LN won't even exist anymore.

Just add quick feedback with stars rating, and maybe short text, but it's not going to be easy to prevent fake reviews.

Yes, most communities in this field industry don't enjoy lightning, who would have thought of that? Of course, what most people are used to is what they will always use.

Lightning is not talked about much anymore unless there is something new that can get the attention of the community here, the winds can still change.

Preventing fakes is a major issue. Even if we required a valid swap ID then it's very simple for an exchange to provide however many it takes to flood the reviews.

There was some recent attention regarding LN when Tether announced they'll launch USDT on LN using Taproot Assets. However, I've noticed that although they happily reply to my comments praising the technology they seem not to notice any of my comments asking about whether there will be a freeze-function. Must be some weird internet issue where some comments get through, yet others do not. Maybe they're routing the comments over LN, hence why same fail to reach them.

Currently USDT has a freeze-function on all platforms except one - Liquid.

I'm not sure how feasible it is in the case of Orangefren, but for example, Exolix has the option of adding an email address for sending order information. Only after the transaction is completed, you will receive an additional email to evaluate the service.
If nothing else, fake reviews are avoided, even for users who have not used the platform at all.
I assume that such a thing is very difficult to do as a partner aggregator.

The issue I'm concerned with is the employees of an exchange making swaps and then spamming reviews. I'm not sure how to resolve this.

That's a risk every online review site has. It's not great, but no reviews at all isn't great either.

I've come up with a solution! Thank you for the brainstorming guys! <3

It's not ideal, but it will be very expensive to manipulate. And I think it's a better solution, than what anyone has.

We'll get it implemented asap.

According to the Dutch Cryptocast (https://www.bnr.nl/podcast/cryptocast/10578337/de-groei-van-bitcoin-en-het-lightning-network-zit-in-afrika-386-b), LN usage is growing in Africa. Not in number of nodes, but in adoption. As an example they mentioned Pick n Pay (https://www.pnp.co.za/money-mobile/services/ways-to-pay/crypto) that accepts LN in 2000 physical shops. It's going through a payment processor, but that doesn't matter from a customer's perspective.

In my country, LN is still only accepted by a few enthusiasts. But that's because the banking payment infrastructure is quite good, and inexpensive (especially when compared to creditcards). Don't get me wrong, I don't like the way banks do business, but paying in shops works well with barely any downtime.
For the unbanked who have smartphones, LN could work.

Can we think of ways to manipulate it before you implement it?

Hmmm, that is interesting.
I didn't know that L-USDT coins can't be frozen, and that is a good thing, but Liquid is Federated Network, so I don't fully trust them.
Still is it is solid alternative, especially knowing that Liquid transactions are confidential.

Good luck to them, but I have zero hopes coming from Africa, and I am sure they are all using custodial wallets.

We're keeping it secret for now  ;)

---

92% of Lightning payments we routed went through a hub

• 2953 payments routed over 1.5 years
• 24 channels sold to plebs
• Fewer than 1 in 13 payments were between plebs!!

The rest? Their previous or next hop was a hub🐇

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/07/19/UAvmF9.png

Let's be patient and wait for year 2140 when last bitcoin gets mined... I am sure Lightning Network will be more adopted than, and LN will be mega-private payment option :P

PS
I don't know anyone heard about this, but another small exchange just closed their business, this time it was MajesticBank:
https://github.com/monero-project/monero-site/issues/2496

I've never seen an exit strategy like this:

A lot of very valuable services have shut down recently. AgoraDesk, eXch, now Majestic Bank.
Majestic Bank definitely had their issues, but they'll still be missed.

As far as I remember, rates at Majesticbank were not very competitive and their fee was significantly higher compared to some other 'small' swap services. I remembered them because I was always the first to reject their offer.
It's certainly a shame if an established service shuts down

Interesting. Majestic Bank used to have a much better rate than other never-KYC, no JS, Tor mirror, type services. Their base fee was 2%. eXch for instance started at 5.5% for anyone buying XMR. Xchange has 3.6% as of writing.

As far as I remember, at the beginning of eXch, the fee for XMR trade was below 2%. Later, they raised it to 5+%, after XMR was delisted from many big CEX, so eXch was one of the few options that offered XMR in any relation and that led to a great demand for this coin on their service.
Also, there is a matter that has already been discussed here in recent days. An exchanger can represent a very low service fee, and at the same time have completely different relations in the real offer.
For example, I always check other alternatives, hence the note that MB was a bit more expensive.

Initially, I think the rate was even better (0.5%). But after the XMR delistings they changed where they got their rate and started using Bisq as an oracle.

The rates we show on our homepage are relative to CoinGecko. Of course an exchange might be lying about their rate, but in that case we take action against them. Nowadays the best service, if you value a Tor mirror, no JS, and a promise never to KYC the users tends to Xchange.me (https://xchange.me/?invite=013c8aa2-9873-4d78-a9fb-3f0b947e01ca).
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/07/28/UHClGj.png

---

Reviews
You can now leave a review for a service you used on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com). We will start displaying the reviews once we've collected a few.

https://talkimg.com/images/2025/07/30/UHt5L1.png

Just create an account here (no email required, just save the URL to your dashboard):
https://talkimg.com/images/2025/07/30/UHt7qm.png

---

Stats for July
Stats for searches on OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) in July👀

Alts have never been lower

XMR: 41.95%
BTC: 28.83%
LTC: 8.53%
ETH: 7.08%
USDT: 5.08%
USDC: 1.73%
SOL: 1.61%
ZEC: 1.34%
BTCLN: 0.98%
TRX: 0.35%
XRP: 0.34%
DAI: 0.32%
XLM: 0.17%
BCH: 0.17%
DOGE: 0.15%
ZANO: 0.14%
BNB: 0.10%
https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/08/01/UHYWiZ.png

I wanted to check this out and write some reviews fir services I use, but your websites is not accessible for me.
This is not browsers related because I tried opening with different browsers, and results are the same.
Maybe you are also getting DDoS attacked like many other crypto related services.

OrangeFren onion links is working fine at the moment:

You should add official onion link in first post of this topic.

Apologies. Yes, we've been DDoSed a bit today and they manage to knock OrangeFren.com (http://OrangeFren.com) offline briefly. We should be online once more.
Thanks for the suggestion regarding the onion!

---

Mempool.OrangeFren.com
In partnership with PrivateAlps.net (https://privatealps.net) we've launched our own instance of mempool.space available at Mempool.OrangeFren.com (http://Mempool.OrangeFren.com).

PrivateAlps.net (https://privatealps.net/) are a privacy-focused VPS provider and accept Bitcoin and Monero.

https://talkimg.com/images/2025/08/13/USrkHj.png

I'm not sure what the ultimate goal is to have something like this on an exchange aggregator, but I welcome any initiative for improvement. Otherwise, it seems that it does not show relevant information, it is quite different from what is on the real mempool

https://talkimg.com/images/2025/08/14/USLr8N.png


As for the link to the hosting service that you set up, according to the rules of the forum, it is not allowed to leave affiliate & referral links in the post

The purpose is that we very often need to find some tx to do arbitration between a user and an exchange. So far we've used external block explorers, but now we'll be using our own trusted ones.

We'll get the sub-1-sat txs asap. DONE!

Thanks for point out the ref link - removed.

Hi Orangefren, I just wanted to ask a few questions about your service. In next few months I plan to exchange my funds from stablecoin to BTC and I would like to use your service.

I saw that FixedFloat has best exchange rates in my case, and also that you offer guarantee against them scamming.


I see that in "Scams and accusations" section there are many claims against them, and I would like to know beforehand what would happen if they would freeze my funds during exchange?
How long would I have to wait to get to my funds and how would you clarify if they really try to scam me or they froze my funds legitimately?

Usually they'll ask questions about who you are, where you live, how you obtained the coins you sent them and proofs for all of the above. Generally all of this takes about a week. Whenever such cases are reported to us we always request FF send us whatever proof they have on their end that the coins they got were tainted.

If you're planning on swapping a large sum with FixedFloat, and are not in a hurry, then please consider reaching out to me or our customer support and we can generally get a prescreening from FF to ensure a guaranteed no-KYC from them. By that I mean they'll check your address before you deposit. This takes a few days to do usually and it's a courtesy on their end for us and our users so they can always decline doing it, but so far they've always done so.

This is a good idea, but it appears there is some color bug (or intention) showing red color instead of green for almost empty blocks.
I know this is only visual and it's not a big deal, but I saw something strange and compared it with main mempool.space website.
You can see this in screenshots posted below:

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/08/18/UZUgM1.jpeg  https://www.talkimg.com/images/2025/08/18/UZU9ql.jpeg


I would not recommend that exchange to anyone, and you should also double check rates on all exchanges shown in OranegFren.
There were some issues in past showing incorrect rates.

It's intentional. I think OrangeFren decided to use two completely different color themes, while mempool.space just used different shades of green to represent the zones. According to my understanding, the transactions in the "unconfirmed blocks" or mempool are divided into two. Those that have a fee rate of 1 sat/vbyte and above represented by green, and those that have a fee rate of less than 1 sat/vbyte to zero represented by Red.

You're right about the colours, but it wasn't intentional. This is a bug from the latest release of mempool.space and the official instance fixed it. We could fix it too, but it does fit quite well, because most nodes and miners won't accept <1sat/vB txs, so they are a bit risky to rely on.

That said, we made sure our node is connected to other <1sat/vB nodes, so if you want to broadcast such a tx you can do so here: https://mempool.orangefren.com/tx/push (https://mempool.orangefren.com/tx/push) and it ought to reach the miners that accept such txs.

---

Monero public node

After launching mempool.orangefren.com (http://mempool.orangefren.com) with PrivateAlps.net (http://PrivateAlps.net) we're now happy to share we've launched a public Monero node that you can connect to from your mobile wallet (ex: Cake Wallet).

The node is available at xmr-node.orangefren.com (http://xmr-node.orangefren.com) and is reachable on port 18089

https://talkimg.com/images/2025/08/19/UZwC49.jpeg

I understand, and it's not a big deal, but red/green color is showing how full or empty blocks are, not how risky something is ;)
And if transaction is sent with RBF than fees can be updated later.

Very nice! I am bookmarking this one.
I still can't get used to sending coins with such low transaction fees, but this tool can be very useful.

FixedFloat supports LN, it seems not from the website.

Please remove FixedFloat from OrangeFren.com

I do not trust FixedFloat to handle high-value exchanges successfully without suspending the trade for infinite KYC.

It would be less hassle for you and your clients than hounding their customer support for refunds.

+1 for this suggestion.
In addition to KYC, they may also require proof of SoF (source of funds). I really wouldn't risk getting into a situation where I explain to Fixedfloat the sources of my coins.
I guess they are generous in the affiliate program, so that is the reason why they are promoted on many platforms.

Orangefren guarantees for FF in some part. It would be good to get an explanation in which exact cases the user can refer to this guarantee. For example, can I ask for refund coins instead of passing KYC, and that OF will guarantee me for such a thing

Better then removing it, just add near it a big warning about the kyc risk, but also add that it supports LN.

Our currency support table is dynamic and refreshes every few minutes. If FF isn't shown as supporting LN then it's because they briefly disabled it :)

They have by far the worst affiliate program as far as we're concerned, because they have the lowest fees. However, they are a favourite for most people.

On that note, I wish more services had LN. eXch was a very attractive alternative to FF, because they had LN and just as low fees, while having no KYC.

Good suggestion. I'll make sure we clarify it. And no, only if a never-KYC service demands KYC from you will we cover.

We have a warning :)
https://talkimg.com/images/2025/08/24/UZJcvj.png