I have received a reply from Trocador. I will describe it in detail tomorrow as a modification to this post.
Edit:
My email:
To whom it may be of concern,
I'm NotATether - administrator of BitMixList. My services have helped users find the safest mixers and exchanges to use since 2023. It is my pleasure to share that of all the private exchanges, your service is listed at the top as the most trustworthy.
However, given recent social media posts by users, I am concerned about your continued partnership with FixedFloat. As you are most likely aware, FirxedFloat had been hacked back in February 2024.[1] The hackers stole over 26 million dollars. It was during this time that FixedFloat's reputation started going downhill. Apparently, they started freezing users' funds[2] and demanded many different kinds of unique verification from their clients[3]. On many occasions, their funds were not unfrozen even after providing the requested documents[4]. Consequentially, the exchange has received an avalanche of negative reviews from angry customers on Trustpilot[5] and BestChange[6]. In addition to that, their service has an abysmal score on kycnot.me[7], the most authoritative internet resource on no-KYC exchanges.
Furthermore, it appears that FixedFloat does not actually isolate frozen funds, but sends them to other customers.[8] For a company claiming to be following AML procedures, this is an obvious violation of MiCA regulations drafted by the EU.[9]
In light of these egregious consumer violations by FixedFloat, I respectfully ask you to reconsider your partnership with them. Trocador is a very reliable and trustworthy service, but the partnership with FixedFloat erodes user trust, especially considering that FixedFloat is one of the first partners that appears when you select a rate at Trocador. Even though it already has a (C) rating on your website, I believe that in that case you are unwilling to remove them from your website, it at least should be given a lower grade, along with a warning about the selective scamming that FixedFloat has been conducting recently. Or it should not be so close to the top of the list of providers where a user could inadvertently select it.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Best Regards,
NotATether
https://bitmixlist.org---
[1]
https://decrypt.co/218077/fixedfloat-hack-26-million-bitcoin-ethereum[2]
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5543715.msg65392107#msg65392107[3]
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5482815.msg63584939#msg63584939 The customer was asked to "Please send a video recording where the order page is open on the screen in the background, we can see your face, and you with your identity document in your hand pronounce your full name, the order ID and confirm that you have sent the funds for this order." in addition to bank statement, source of funds, proof of address, etc.
[4]
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5119443.msg64577272#msg64577272[5]
https://www.trustpilot.com/review/ff.io?stars=1 contains many negative reviews where clients were asked to provide Source of Funds and other documents but never had their funds returned.
[6]
https://www.bestchange.com/fixedfloat-exchanger.html has a similar situation.
[7]
https://kycnot.me/service/fixedfloat[8]
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5482815.msg63578891#msg63578891 , post quoted:
---
'Quote from: fixedfloat on January 27, 2024, 11:46:43 AMFunds from our hot addresses are automatically consolidated to our main addresses, as funds are sent from us only from our main addresses. Thus, law enforcement agencies see that the funds have been transferred to the addresses of our service.
Following the above transactions, it looks like you've "mixed" OPs funds with other funds and consolidated them into bc1qns9f7yfx3ry9lj6yz7c9er0vwa0ye2eklpzqfw. Aren't you concerned that those funds you deemed criminal are now in your own address, meaning anyone that receives Bitcoin from your exchange now receives some of those criminal funds? It shows once again that "taint" is only made-up BS.
Quote
The funds remain frozen at our addresses, and when the frozen funds are seized by the authorities, they are also sent from our addresses.
That's not true. You say the funds "remain frozen", but that can't be since you've mixed them already.
The first transaction was mixed in this transaction and that same output was used to sent to another address. The second transaction was mixed in this transaction and also sent to another address. None of the funds were frozen in your wallet, you're normally using them to pay other people.
To summarize: if those funds came from criminal activity as you claim, you've now sent it to other innocent users who now own those "tainted" Bitcoins.
It sounds very much like you only care about "taint" when it's convenient for you.'
---
[9]
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32023R1114Their reply
Hey!
Sorry about the delay in replying, we were in transit, returning from MoneroKon. We can't really vouch for anything that happens outside of Trocador, as we have no way of actually knowing the specifics of each case, but at least for swaps done through Trocador we can say that FixedFloat has a very good past(and current) history. Their AML block rate is actually under 0.01% and we see no signs of selective scamming, as the very few cases of blocking we saw weren't of specially big amounts. Like we said, we can't know what happens outside of Trocador, but at least for Trocador users they've been working reliably and perhaps even better than expected for a C rated exchange.
So, the only point that we're not sure about is the moving of blocked funds, we'll ask them about it. Nevertheless, even if they actually used those funds to pay other users that doesn't mean the received funds would be tainted, as having them being sent from one of FixedFloat's main addresses basically 'cleans' them.
Thank you for the thorough explanation and interest in our platform! We'll let you know if we manage to get an answer from them about the moving of funds.
Best Regards,
Trocador Team
Trocador.app
What I infer from this:
- Trocador is not vouching for FF.
- FixedFloat's AML block rate
when used with Trocador is less than 0.01%, which is less than I expected.
- There was no mention about the outlandish KYC requirements of FF and basically asking for more and more documents, because of the no-vouching thing, but this is something users wouldn't be comfortable with. How many of those manual cases are actually solved by FF? Well FF's not going to tell us for obvious reasons, so people are going to guess.
- However, they did say that they don't see evidence of scamming. But like I said above, FF's risk control department or whatever it's called makes users feel the opposite.
- They don't really know why FF is co-mingling coins together, but said that it basically cleans the AML score.
I can't really agree with this because FF would still have an obligation to not process those coins based on local laws, regardless of whether or not it wants to clean them.
This is why other swap services opt to return your coins if they fail the AML check.
Considering that all crypto addresses' AML scores are determined by a handful of blockchain analysis companies, it doesn't surprise me so much that they would mark it as clean, but it does raise the question of how much taint can it receive before they downgrade its AML score. They can basically change anyone's AML score at a whim (and of course the board members'
own services get near perfect AML ratings, innit)
Summary:
Trocador thinks that FF's operation is alright, but also didn't comment about ever-increasing amount of KYC info that it asks for to release blocked funds (
that are mixed up with other people's funds in the meantime, so from where does the refund get obtained from?).
