Is it still worth trusting the services of Xapo?

[angaper]

I am one of those beginners whose initial choice to get my first satoshis were the faucets. At that time Xapo was instituted as the wallet preferred by beginners because it did not charge fees, allowed very small transactions and was the most popular wallet among faucet managers.

But over the course of this couple of years all those attributes that made it advantageous have been gradually disappearing and has become an expensive and especially risky wallet since Xapo is the sole owner of our private keys. The disadvantage of this matter has now come to light more than ever because it has not given us options to collect our portion of the corresponding Bitcoin Cash.

That is why I wonder if anyone in the forum still sees some advantage for which it is convenient to continue depositing our coins in Xapo?

[maeusi]

At the moment I only see the advantages of xapo in its debit card. It is just easy to fill it with bitcoin and pay with bitcoin.
I think, the services were to get customers for their services. So if I would need a debit card that could be filled up with bitcoin, I probably would choose xapo. Xapo can't anymore offer free transfers, because fees are so high at the moment.

[exstasie]

I am one of those beginners whose initial choice to get my first satoshis were the faucets. At that time Xapo was instituted as the wallet preferred by beginners because it did not charge fees, allowed very small transactions and was the most popular wallet among faucet managers.

But over the course of this couple of years all those attributes that made it advantageous have been gradually disappearing and has become an expensive and especially risky wallet since Xapo is the sole owner of our private keys. The disadvantage of this matter has now come to light more than ever because it has not given us options to collect our portion of the corresponding Bitcoin Cash.

That is why I wonder if anyone in the forum still sees some advantage for which it is convenient to continue depositing our coins in Xapo?

If you use the debit card, then maybe it's worth it. Personally, I don't see any reason to do that; I am a long term holder and don't have any interest using my BTC for day-to-day purchases.

I'd ditch them for a more user-friendly wallet (like Electrum) where you control your own private keys. Not being able to collect your BCH showcases why you should always control your private keys. If you don't, it's not your money, and you can't complain.

Anyway, I tried out Xapo a couple years ago and immediately trashed it. Never liked the UI. There are much better options now.

[Iranus]

At this point it's normal for even online wallets to offer access to your private keys at some point and less trust in their services.  Services such as Green Address, BitGo and Blockchain.info offer you at least some access to your private keys.

The only wallets that shouldn't do this are exchanges and wallets which try to interact with fiat in other ways (such as Xapo's debit card).  However, these things should be opt-in features which are distinct from the wallet service which they should be providing.

As for faucets, I suspect that they acted similarly to a "faucet cache" in that sense - receiving larger transfers of BTC at once from the faucet, and then adding the tiny amounts to users' accounts from the money they had already received from the faucet.

In that sense they would still be acting the same with faucets today as they were before, and they have become no less trustworthy.  The only difference is that the BTC transaction fees are now too high for them to cover on their own while still having a profitable business model.

[Rahar02]

No, it's not worth anymore as you have mentioned the reasons.
Unless for newbies who trying to earn bitcoin through faucets which connected to xapo or has been suggested to use only xapo wallet. Consider high fees compare to other wallets that offer low fees such as blockchain, breadwallet, or electrum, it's not suitable for newbies to get decent amount from faucets.
But, high fees problem could be solved by segwit right now, I am not sure whether xapo has launched an update that support segwit or not. The most important thing is private keys, as most exchanges hold bitcoin private keys and nothing you can do about it. I prefer to use a wallet which has a feature to export the private keys just in case I need it.

[LTU_btc]

I'm in same boat as you. I also used Xapo to receive payments from faucets.
It's right that in past Xapo had more advantages. But then they started to charge fees for receiving small transaction. Later Xapo started to charge miners fees from their users. I had part of my btc on Xapo, but I left Xapo. I moved all my btc from Xapo before hard fork. Now I don't see any reasons to use Xapo wallet.
Their debit card is more expensive than other Bitcoin debit cards. Only their small advantage is free Xapo to Xapo transactions.

[illyiller]

I am one of those beginners whose initial choice to get my first satoshis were the faucets. At that time Xapo was instituted as the wallet preferred by beginners because it did not charge fees, allowed very small transactions and was the most popular wallet among faucet managers.

Ah, the same reason i used Inputs.io back in 2013. I guess that was before your time, but it was a hard lesson about using a wallet where you control the private keys vs. a web wallet where you don't. I, too, was using my Inputs.io wallet to collect lots of small transactions to avoid paying so much in fees. Then Inputs.io was hacked for 4100 BTC, and that was the end of that chapter.

Switch to a wallet where you control the keys. At the very least, use blockchain.info instead (which comes with its own security risks). Core, Armory and Electrum are all very good choices.

[xaxistech]

Xapo is a good wallet and it has a nice design too. The only thing that i dont like about that site is that they have ridiculous fees. I have a friend who uses wallet because he has the debit card, but he told me that when he wanna send btc to another wallet xapo charges him 0.002 fees per transaction. That is ridiculous, almost $10 per payment.
A lot of people are stoping using xapo because of that.

[batang_bitcoin]

This should be on the service discussion or web wallets section. Well I find it not worth anymore to use their services. We have the same beginning in terms of claiming satoshi's I have my own xapo wallet too because it was advised by the tutorials. And now the fees are very high and I started to condemned them when the announced fees, their fee is unjustifiable for me unlike blockchain.info.

[jhenfelipe]

I stopped using Xapo for a while now, honestly it is because of the fee as well. It is just that it's not my main wallet and it will cost too much to send especially when you have small amount because you only get the coins from faucets. I did not encounter any problem with security and I still trust the service, though yes you don't control the private keys and can't get bitcoin cash.

If you are using their debit card as others have mentioned or it is your main wallet, I think it is still okay, but if it is not like in my case and you will use it for faucets only, you'd rather use your main wallet & faucets that are sending directly to wallet or through micropayment sites.

[Tipstar]

I too was an initial user of XAPO but stopped them due to their fees and limitations.
What I've realized after using a bunch of online is that, if you don't have the private keys, you are not the real owner.

[sunsilk]

I understand your concern with xapo as I was introduced to that web wallet too.

But since I dont want to pay higher fees, I stopped using them for awhile.

Xapo is trusted and worth for it but to use them with the current fees it's a different issue for me.

[erikalui]

It's a 3rd party wallet and till now it's operating fine and even though users are facing issues with their support, they solve the problems pretty soon unlike coinbase that gives you no second chance. Also, they verify the account making it more secure compared to blockchain which has your private keys but protection is only through 2FA. The fees are a big issue but besides that, they are safe to hold small amounts of BTC below 0.5. More than that amount should be only saved on offline wallets like trezor or ledger. No online account is good enough. Anyways these days every exchange is charging a fee of 0.002 and hence ultimately we have to pay high fees for most transactions to get confirmations soon. Paying below 400 sats/byte is not even recommended for transactions if you cannot wait for hours.

[winspiral]

I use now Xapo only for sending satoshi to Xapo members...It's interesting for small amount.

[illyiller]

The fees are a big issue but besides that, they are safe to hold small amounts of BTC below 0.5. More than that amount should be only saved on offline wallets like trezor or ledger. No online account is good enough. Anyways these days every exchange is charging a fee of 0.002 and hence ultimately we have to pay high fees for most transactions to get confirmations soon. Paying below 400 sats/byte is not even recommended for transactions if you cannot wait for hours.

Their fees aren't really out-of-line, especially considering the way many of their users use the wallet (to collect many low-value inputs). The real problem is that users should control their own keys. A good lite wallet with good dynamic fee calculation where you control your own keys is Electrum.

I use now Xapo for sending satoshi to Xapo members...It's interesting for small amount.

Yes, this is a legitimate case. Coinbase is the same -- free transfers between Coinbase accounts. But since Xapo controls the private keys (same as Coinbase), I wouldn't risk holding much in their wallet.

[boyptc]

I use now Xapo only for sending satoshi to Xapo members...It's interesting for small amount.

I guess most of the wallets when transferring to the same provider they won't require any fee. But try to send smaller amounts to not xapo wallets and for sure you will be having an headache with it, why? The fee is much higher than the amount you are about to send.

[TrumpD]

Xapo demands for all sorts of identity verification info, I don't use it and will advice to steer clear. The coins in "your" wallet are not yours as you don't control the private keys.

[iv4n]

I use xapo, xapo wallet is safe to use, its hear for year, they expanded their business long time ago. Its not problem in trusting them, its problem in their fees. Couple times I said here how their fees is ridiculously high, and just because of that I plan to change that wallet. It was very good for daily use, with no fees, its OK they have a fee but 3 mBTC fee is definitely too much for me.

[erikalui]

The fees are a big issue but besides that, they are safe to hold small amounts of BTC below 0.5. More than that amount should be only saved on offline wallets like trezor or ledger. No online account is good enough. Anyways these days every exchange is charging a fee of 0.002 and hence ultimately we have to pay high fees for most transactions to get confirmations soon. Paying below 400 sats/byte is not even recommended for transactions if you cannot wait for hours.

Their fees aren't really out-of-line, especially considering the way many of their users use the wallet (to collect many low-value inputs). The real problem is that users should control their own keys. A good lite wallet with good dynamic fee calculation where you control your own keys is Electrum.

Not many users collect dust bits in their wallet and especially after they started taking the fee from users, the number of small transactions has reduced as people have to pay a fee bigger than the amount they are sending. even though one doesn't own the private key, if I need to use any online wallet, I would prefer xapo as any issue is resolved by their support team unlike blockchain/coinbase that never reply. I prefer only electrum, trezor or ledger when it comes to owning a bitcoin wallet.

[MAbtc]

I use xapo, xapo wallet is safe to use, its hear for year, they expanded their business long time ago.

Same with plenty of other services. BTC-e was running smoothly for six years and then boom, the money was gone. Now users are hoping for some resolution to recover some funds. Perhaps Xapo's services are less likely to see them targeted for money laundering conspiracies, but they are a centralized (trusted) service just the same. If they get hacked, the coins are gone.

even though one doesn't own the private key, if I need to use any online wallet, I would prefer xapo as any issue is resolved by their support team unlike blockchain/coinbase that never reply.

Blockchain is superior in that you control the private keys, though. Even if their service is down or compromised, you can import your seed into another wallet that you control. Not so with Xapo and Coinbase.