Bitcoin Forum

What happened to Xapo?

It's been a few years since i've been into the wallet I have there and now they have no record of my wallet or account. What shit!? Fortunately I only had dust in there, but it's still a shitty move on their part.

On top of that, in the process of remobilizing their mobile app they require I take a selfie for "added security".

When did this wallet turn into a joke?

it probably has been said a million times:
with bitcoin if you don't control the private keys you don't control the funds.

and you need to contact support and see what has happened. :)
these are just third party new services that are bound to have bugs and problems like this.

This is valid for Coinbase and other services as well, simply don't store your funds there anymore (take Electrum instead) and If you don't have a decent amount, I wouldn't recommend giving your identity in exchange for the funds stored there.

No matter how big the service, how popular or how long they've been in use, the only way to ensure you always decide what happens to your coins is if you control them. Good advice from OmegaStarScream. Use Electrum or Jaxx. If you REALLY just want something you can always access on the web, use counterwallet.

Many old wallet are now disappointing me. But Electrum is still the safest.

Maybe you just forgot your account info, my old account that I mainly use for faucets is still accesible but I lost the phone that had the authenticator. Why do you even want to go back and use xapo? There are much better bitcoin wallets to choose from other than xapo.

Xapo was never great, but hey, it was for free.
Now it's even worse because there are more and more regulations that force everybody that works with money to get your identity.
And since it's not for free either ... yeah, not appealing anymore.

As people said, get a local wallet, keep your seed/private keys safe and your life will become easier.

Local wallets may also be a pain in the ass

Indeed, it is assumed that you store your keys encrypted in some safe place (say, printed on paper as well as in your cloud storage), but if you use Windows you can never be sure that your coins won't get stolen by some malicious code. If you use Linux, you may be safe system wise (provided you know what you are doing), but you are still vulnerable to downloading some tainted code (or wallet itself) from the network and thus compromising the security of your coins as well. Cold storage seems to be a viable solution (in respect to security), but it is an even greater pain in the ass on its own. Obviously, I refer to ordinary users here, like your average Joe and Jill

I agree with Herbert!!!
online wallet and Exchange addresses are really risy!!!
if you have bitcoin debit card and Exchange accounts, remember: Leave there just the minimum balance you need.
The other funds need to stay where you can control the private jkeys...

IMO XAPO turned into a joke when they started. Then a big joke with the unbelieveble fees. and now even a bigger joke as they strugle to be serious.

DISCLAIMER: not a fan of XAPO wallet.

Since the day xapo turned into a costlier service, i decided to emit its use and then never been there again.
But, if you want to store small amount of btc's, then you need not selfie verification. You can simply bypass this window by pressing back button. Selfie verification is not compulsory until you transact more than $200 simultaneously.

I am not aware of xapo much but checked in the Google search for low transaction fee wallet and changed my wallet.
After I gave that to campaign manager last week then I noticed transaction fee in 0.0012 btc as standard fee in xapo. This is ridiculous then Coinbase and blockchain also.

Sad to say XAPO's days are over, at first they were for free when bitcoins value was still low but when it skyrocketed its transaction fees went to the moon as well. I had a couple of btc's left in my xapo but I'm still thinking twice withdrawing them and transferring them because of the mining fees they changed just recently.

Yes, there are some exchanges which required customers photo due to kyc regulation I guess.
If its an exchange in your country and don't mind about it, it doesn't matter. But, for people who like their privacy and don't want to give such thing to exchange, get out and find another exchange to convert your bitcoin. But, what happened to Op was really bad if there is no explanation about it.

Xapo and coinbase, both are centralized payment gateway rather than a true bitcoin wallet that give you full access/complete control over your bitcoin addresses.

Take a selfie so that authority can easily catch you if they think you are involved with some shaddy darkweb business.  ;D ;D

2 bitcoins is not a small amount

So you say that Xapo's days are over but you still can't decide whether to withdraw the coins or not? If you do think that Xapo is going down, I don't really understand what you are waiting for. If something bad is going to happen and Xapo starts blocking the accounts of their clients under contrived excuses or just outright scams one day (which is possible with any web wallet out there), the fees will be your least concern. I for one moved my coins from Coinbase right after they had started to charge transaction fees (and didn't ever regret that decision)

I experience bad thing both xapo and coinbase but i feel more trust in coinbase than xapo. base on my experience in xapo my account can't never login i mean i contacted the support but never receive any email from them because i'm having delayed verification or 2fa when i am logging in before i contacted them many times via email but didn't receive any email responds to me i am looking for a solution to solve the issue about the delay confirmation code and when receiving the confirmation put them always receive error. .
Like other said if you don't had control about your private key its not safe.. after experience bad thing in xapo i stop using it until now i switch to both multi hd and electrum wallet. its more safe to me than to use any online wallet.

I never had good experience with them before and will not recommend anyone to use xapo as their bitcoin wallet. They are just like paypal and your account can be frozen/blocked overnight without any notice.

It's not about the private keys. We are talking exchange features here. Of course it's obvious that if you don't have your private keys, you don't control your coins, it's a basic mate (like you said million times) and for OP he knows that already as per his rank in this forum.

The question here is about how is that happened. You can't erase the fact that buying, selling and withdrawing bitcoin are most convenient when you use an exchange service. Did your offline, desktop, paper wallet etc can do withdrawals? No. That's why we must be concerned for web exchanges features because we are using them and OP's concerned is important. So telling their shitty support is important and hopes for an answer so that we are clear why the case is happened for our future references.


Web exchanges are not bound to be your wallet. You must know that. Just use their service instead when you need it.

I never used xapo, even when they were paying fees for user's withdrawal. i don't trust wallets/services like those. i always use a wallet which i have full control of and everyone should do the same.

Xapo was from the very beginning a wallet service that attracted mainly faucet farmers, due to the free external transactions that they offered as benefit.

This wallet service made sure that people could easily spend their faucet dust, but now free external transactions are no longer part of the deal, these cheapskates have to look for an alternative.

People that really value their coins, take care of the storing aspect themselves, and thus don't need centralized wallet services to do it for them ~ that's why these services attract mainly noobs.

As per my use of capo wallet I haven't faced any problem  with my account yet. Withdrawals are very fast and the app make it more handy and useful.

Op think you should try and contact there customers care in other to find out what really happened to your wallet as I know xapo is a reliable wallet provider and i have never have problem with their services. As we all know xapo is in usa and usa is have alot of financial regulations laws this days.

Here's what happened.  There were at least three micro wallet services and they did various things, but after some time there main focus became catering to and even hosting the faucet world.  After a while the faucets became less and less popular because there really wasn't any money there, the payouts were tiny and worthless and too hard to deal with.

One micro wallet site held out for some time and then finally shut down, before that they offered a few new services, but the new traffic was not there.  Xapo held out became what they are now to try to stimulate the faucets again and make money in any way they can.  A few other sites built upon the faucet concept and added new bells and whistles and brought a lot of traffic back. 

Expect that on online wallets. Im using Xapo wallet for months but decided to use SPV wallets. Atleast on SPV wallets, i can assure my funds are in my control. What i hate about online wallets. You have no control on your private keys. Also be a victim of selective scamming. I've read a lot of incidents of selective scamming. That's why i stay away from them.

Its bad that xapo turned into shit like that. Heard that it was amamzing wallet at a glance and here i xome and read abou its shit terms. Lolz. No problem just leave it and switch to many others out there before wasting time.

You claim to have a couple of bitcoins in your xapo wallet and yet you are hesitant because of the mining fees they are charging,hope you know that they are charging around 0.002 btc as network fees  :P which is like a couple of dollars worth of coins,make things straight dude,you are making me crack.
I am using it for a long time and apart from the high network fees they are charging i never had a problem,till then i am happy to store a few dollars worth of coins.

There is no need to use online wallets anymore. In the past when Coinbase and Xapo offered free bitcoin transaction it was understandable that some users preferred this option.
Now, when bitcoin transaction fees are ridiculously high and no online wallet would be able to pay them for their users, there is no need to use Xapo anymore.
Why do you need to use Xapo when there is mobile version of Electrum available in the first place.

Fees are important but they are not the only factor at play here

Web wallets provide ease of use, but please don't tell me that desktop wallets are as easy. That will never be the case. You have to install them, you have to back up them, you have to learn them, after all. With web wallets all these things are hidden from the user and done by someone else. The user just needs to remember his login and password, and if he uses Internet, this is what he is already used to. I don't even mention the security of web wallets. Yes, they can scam and they can get hacked, but I'm dead sure that an average user cannot secure his desktop to safely use a desktop wallet