eXch to shut down

[NotATether]

Just a heads up, if you use this exchanger they are going to shut down on May 1st. That is in less than 2 weeks.

They have confirmed this themselves on Bitcointalk:

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

It's time, friends.

eXch will officially shutdown its operations effective May 1st, 2025.

Almost all of you know that eXch started as a project aimed at demonstrating to the community that alternatives can exist during times when there were none. We have never had any financial goals with this project and rather, we conducted an experiment that was unexpectedly successful.

Recently, we received confirmation of information we had previously, thanks to some friends we have even in the state intelligence sector, that our project is the subject of an active transatlantic operation aimed at forcibly shutting our project down and prosecuting us for "money laundering and terrorism."

Even though we have been able to operate despite some failed attempts to shutdown our infrastructure (attempts that have also been confirmed to be part of this operation), we don't see any point in operating in a hostile environment where we are the target of SIGINT simply because some people misinterpret our goals. Starting from the date of the merger with a new management team this month, and as a result of some urgent meetings, the majority of us voted to cease and retreat instead of going against strong winds, because none of us want to cause any harm to innocent people or this forum.

The goals we certainly never had in mind were to enable illicit activities such as money laundering or terrorism, as we are being accused of now. We also have absolutely no motivation to operate a project where we are viewed as criminals. This doesn't make any sense to us.

Originally, we were just a team of privacy enthusiasts with main areas of interest quite distant from cryptocurrency, where we saw the absolutely unfair happenings. This project was an attempt to restore balance in this industry.

Our project has demonstrated that an instant exchange done properly can be more effective than any centralized mixer in terms of privacy, which is why it has been referred to as "a mixer" many times by third parties, even though we have continuously rejected this label.

Our project has shown that it's possible to operate without abusing customers with nonsensical policies, unlike projects that will accept this announcement as a "weight lifted off their shoulders" that pretend to believe the false idea that confiscating crypto from customers somehow prevents "money laundering", who rely on random and unreliable scoring systems created and operated by companies that are parasites aiming to extract money from their governments by providing consulting based on the segregation of the crypto space and blockchain data. If we were to look at these projects from the perspective of "preventing money laundering and terrorism financing", any instant exchangers that screen their customer deposits using third-party APIs and appeal to nonsensical AML/KYC terms are far from preventing money laundering and terrorism. If they were serious about this, they would need to stop hiding behind shelf offshore companies and start conducting strict due diligence on every customer, which none of them do in reality. The absurdity is compounded by the absolute uselessness of the address score reporting APIs they use, as any of these screening mechanisms can be easily bypassed.

Our project will also demonstrate that even without it, this space will continue to have ways and instruments for those engaging in illicit activities to effectively "launder" their funds. Thus, the goal of stopping eXch under the belief that it may stop all money laundering in the world is ridiculous.

Meanwhile, our project effectively provided privacy to all our customers and even anonymity to most. However, there are still far more effective ways to achieve it, thanks to these flagship projects that exist nowadays:

- Monero, with its total privacy, although not without some recently discovered issues that are serious and should be fixed with the Full-Chain Membership Proofs implementation
- Litecoin, with its optional privacy (MWEB)
- Dash, with its optional privacy
- Tornado Cash
- Bitcoin CoinJoin protocols

Another distinctive project that does not betray its mission is Thorchain. Even under the immense pressure that the whole industry had to deal with due to the irresponsible actions of those at ByBit, Thorchain was the only decentralized protocol that resisted the pressure to implement screening mechanisms at the protocol level, proving itself to be absolutely reliable. Even though all Thorchain trades are transparent on-chain, privacy and even total untraceability can be easily achieved when combined with some of the privacy-enabling projects mentioned above, when used correctly. However, the Thorchain network currently has a very limited choice of good interfaces, aside from Asgardex and MMGen wallets, and none of them are privacy-preserving, but we hope this can change.

Bitcoin privacy remains, however, in the midst of a notable crisis given the collapse of all important projects and protocols that had significant liquid CoinJoin-like pools. The most interesting and convenient of them in terms of usability remains WabiSabi; however, it needs some lightweight client implementations to achieve greater popularity in order to effectively prevent serious risks associated with Sybil attacks. We certainly know that most people in this space prefer lightweight solutions to heavy software solutions, and this factor can significantly affect the popularity and usage of any good project.

Given this, we are announcing a 50 BTC open-source fund to support any FOSS projects aiming to enhance the availability of privacy solutions. We hope we can still make a difference. Here are examples of the projects we will support:

- Bitcoin wallets and protocols aiming to preserve user privacy
- Lightweight clients for WabiSabi
- Thorchain wallets aiming to preserve user privacy
- Bisq Light Client
- Ethereum wallets and smart contracts aiming to preserve user privacy (an example of such might be a "non-rigged" fork of Railgun smart contracts and wallets allowing users to operate in Tor)

Unfortunately, we will not support projects that are written in Java, NodeJS, Go, or C#, especially developers who don't take module chain supply attacks seriously and believe they're some kind of "conspiracy theory".

There will be other projects that will hopefully take our place as the industry leader in privacy-oriented centralized exchanges, and we wish them success.

Our partners will still have access to our API for a limited time, but what happens after May 1st will depend on our new management team, who will be in possession of all access to our infrastructure. Thus, we recommend launching their own liquidity pools to guarantee seamless operation. We will provide consulting and recommendations to them.

Privacy is not a crime.

[thread locked for a few days for propagation]

While it is very frustrating to see a proejct of this calibre shut down, it looks like it was inevitable after the Bybit hack occured a few months ago. So you will need to search for alternatives.

[ABCbits]

While it is very frustrating to see a proejct of this calibre shut down, it looks like it was inevitable after the Bybit hack occured a few months ago. So you will need to search for alternatives.

In addition, let's not forget Bybit used to discriminate coin from eXch (which affect eXch customer) before they ask for eXch help. As for alternative that have optional/no KYC, people could try aggregated list on https://kycnot.me/ and https://orangefren.com/.

[Freemind]

Well, I don't know what I can say that I haven't said countless times already... The rulers do not want freedom for citizens, they only want control and oppression to a greater or lesser extent. While they continue to make laws that suit their interests and those of their powerful friends, the rest of us are branded as terrorists simply for wanting privacy in our lives, that is very unfair.

Thanks to all members of the eXch team for showing the way forward.

The fight never ends.

[rdluffy]

The complications of the Bybit hack are getting pretty big, even now affecting the closure of a major service that was not to blame for anything
It's bad news for the crypto world and for those who want and need privacy

But there is still hope that they can continue the service with a new management team. What do you think?

[Hatchy]

It was very sad to see another big privacy exchange like this go down. I've used their services a few times in the past and it all went smoothly. I just hope and wish this would be resolved, but with how the case is linked, I don't think there's coming back. I wish them and their management good luck.

[bitterguy28]

Well, I don't know what I can say that I haven't said countless times already... The rulers do not want freedom for citizens, they only want control and oppression to a greater or lesser extent. While they continue to make laws that suit their interests and those of their powerful friends, the rest of us are branded as terrorists simply for wanting privacy in our lives, that is very unfair.

Thanks to all members of the eXch team for showing the way forward.

The fight never ends.

they obviously used the hack on bybit to finally do what they all wanted to do back then which is shut down many platforms as much as they could and now they were given a reason to do that the community knew this would happen and we are right that they are being more strict and there could be unjustifiably shutting down of many platforms

[salad daging]

It is very unfortunate that eXch will close its service, even though I already know this announcement from Bitcointalk but still can't forget this service.

Because now every time I pay from my usual mixer I immediately exchange at eXch and now they will be closed in early May this is really sad.

Maybe I will look for other alternatives instead of eXch.

[Charles-Tim]

While it is very frustrating to see a proejct of this calibre shut down, it looks like it was inevitable after the Bybit hack occured a few months ago. So you will need to search for alternatives.

In addition, let's not forget Bybit used to discriminate coin from eXch (which affect eXch customer) before they ask for eXch help. As for alternative that have optional/no KYC, people could try aggregated list on https://kycnot.me/ and https://orangefren.com/.

According to what I read, they wanted the transaction fee used by Lazarus group. I do not think it can be of any significant amount if compared to the hack.

Also eXch said only small amount did Lazarus group transact on the exchange and not the $35 million dollar that investigators claimed.

[gunhell16]

For years, this exchange has helped the crypto community by making transactions in or out using their platform and now it has suddenly ended up like this,
which is sad to think about.

However, for those who went through this, they still showed their utmost gratitude to all those who trusted the service of this exchange to their users. Because they still gave a reminder to their clients before they completely closed down.

[PX-Z]

Sad to see eXch shutting down. It was one of the last no-KYC exchanges that respected user privacy, this feels like another step toward a more surveilled crypto world. Not everyone seeking privacy is a criminal, some of us just value freedom.

[albon]

This is why i never put funds in an exchange account because most of the time the exchange gets hacked and then shuts down. This is really a shame i have used their services a few times in the past and it all went smoothly. If we want we can use the best exchanges like binance and kucoin because their security is very good. I have seen that top exchanges do not face much hacking problems. eXch has completely shut down, it is sad for everyone. I wish them and their management all the best so everyone will be more careful.

[Azharul]

The complications of the Bybit hack are getting pretty big, even now affecting the closure of a major service that was not to blame for anything
It's bad news for the crypto world and for those who want and need privacy

But there is still hope that they can continue the service with a new management team. What do you think?

I think that unfortunately it must be a vary bad news for all cryptocurrency world. So i believe that in this reason cryptocurrency market maybe fall off bad effect. Because we know that before occurred in incidents to bybit hacked, which could done many platform shutdown. I think that unfortunately it must be bad news for all crypto lover person.  So eXch exchange also be hunt same level of bybit, which can be finish many important activists in this reason. Because we know that privacy security is one of the important issue for any exchange. I think that within a shot time this problem will solve.

[Asiska02]

The complications of the Bybit hack are getting pretty big, even now affecting the closure of a major service that was not to blame for anything
It's bad news for the crypto world and for those who want and need privacy

But there is still hope that they can continue the service with a new management team. What do you think?

This is indeed a very bad news for the crypto space and those of us that value privacy more than anything in the crypto space. The exchange must have passed through a lot in this short time of them having some misunderstanding with Bybit exchange just during their hack. I don’t know how they came about to have concluded to be shutting down their services, but hopefully a new management takes over and make things work again because I saw in their statement like some other new management will take over the activities of the exchange.

[tabas]

But there is still hope that they can continue the service with a new management team. What do you think?

With a new name and if that includes a new management, possible. But I think they will lie low for a while because they could be monitored.

[Z-tight]

Yeah, i read it on bitcointalk. What more can i say, it is so sad, eXch is a wonderful service, what they stand for is exactly what we need in the community. However, i am a sure a lot of us knew the authorities will be serious in going after them and prosecuting those behind the service, they had no choice but to take this hard decision, and there we go, we lose another great privacy-oriented service.