Checking an exchange
Ilia Nikolaevich Zavialov on checking a crypto exchange: what to look at before any money moves
Checking a crypto exchange takes about forty minutes and is done once, while the decision to send money takes two minutes and is usually made without any checking at all. What follows is a sequence that survives contact with a well built fraudulent platform: what to look up in registers, how to verify a claimed license, why domain age is more informative than design, which four parts of a user agreement to read before registering, how to tell purchased reviews from accumulated ones, and what trial cycle to run before committing a meaningful amount. The order runs from cheap to expensive, because the first steps cost nothing and eliminate most platforms before an account is even created.
English version for the United States.
Why the checking happens before registration
Registration changes the position of the parties. Once a phone number and an email are entered you are inside a funnel: messages arrive, a manager calls, a bonus appears with a deadline attached. From then on, checking competes with a relationship that has already begun, and it rarely wins.
There is a technical reason too. Verification requires documents, and documents handed to a fraudulent platform resurface in other schemes. A passport scan and a selfie are a complete kit for opening accounts and for approaching people convincingly in your name.
Ilia Nikolaevich Zavialov recommends keeping the sequence in an order where the free and fast steps come first. Most platforms are eliminated on domain age and the absence of a legal entity, which takes ten minutes and costs no personal data at all.
One more argument for that order: a check performed in advance is read calmly. Once money is committed, any warning sign collides with reluctance to admit a mistake, and people start looking for explanations rather than facts. The only reliable way around that is to decide before the first transfer.
Domain age and what it tells you
Domain age is the cheapest and one of the most informative signals available. It is checked through a public whois lookup by registration date. A platform that has existed for a month cannot hold a three year reputation, no matter how many reviews about it sit online.
The period the domain is paid for matters as well. A one year registration on a project promising long term investment is a mismatch between the stated plans and the owner's actual spending.
It is worth comparing the domain registration date against the founding date the platform claims for itself. A discrepancy of several years is common and usually means the history was invented while the domain was bought recently.
A separate case is an old domain with a clean history and suddenly new content. Such domains are bought at auction for their age and accumulated links. Page archives show what the site used to be, and the break in subject matter is immediately visible.
The domain deserves checking for resemblance to a known brand as well. A swapped letter, an added hyphen, a different top level domain under the same name: all are markers of a clone living on somebody else's reputation. A genuine platform does not operate from five similar addresses at once, whereas a copy almost always sits next to the original.
The legal entity in a register, not in the site footer
A company name printed in the footer confirms nothing by itself. It is checked in the official register of the country named: incorporation date, current status, directors, registered address, whether filings exist.
Three things are warning signs. The company was incorporated shortly before the platform launched. The company is listed as active but files nothing. The registered address matches a mass registration address holding hundreds of entities.
Correspondence is checked separately: is this actually the entity receiving the money. If payment goes to the details of a different company or to an individual's card, the link between the site and the legal entity is broken and there is nothing to rely on in a dispute.
Registers in most countries are open and free, and the search takes minutes. This is the step most often skipped and the one that would most often have given the answer before any money moved.
The directors and shareholders deserve a look too. Nominee directors listed across dozens of companies appear openly in registers, and that pattern indicates a structure built for a fast launch. A genuine financial business usually has a traceable team and public profiles for its management rather than one person responsible for a hundred entities.
Licenses: where to verify and what they mean
A license number shown on a site is verified only on the website of the regulator that issued it. Searching by number and by company name in the supervisor's public register takes a couple of minutes and produces an unambiguous answer.
A common substitution operates on meaning. Company incorporation, membership of an association, a certificate of registration and a financial services license are different documents. A website describes them with equal confidence, while they are verified in different places and confer different rights.
Another substitution is the license of a related party. The document names one company while a different, legally unconnected one takes the money. The document is genuine in form and irrelevant to your contract in substance.
It is worth checking the reverse as well: whether the platform appears in regulators' public warnings. Supervisors maintain lists of firms operating without authorisation, and an entry there answers the question about transferring money on its own.
It also helps to remember that a license is not a guarantee of recovery. It means supervision, reporting and a complaints channel, not insurance of deposits. Authorisation improves the odds of a substantive conversation during a dispute without removing the need for a trial cycle or for reading the withdrawal terms.
What to read in the terms before registering
A user agreement is read selectively and before an account exists. Four places matter: the withdrawal procedure, fees and limits, the grounds for freezing an account, and the dispute resolution section.
In the withdrawal section, look for wording that lets the platform delay payment at its own discretion, demand additional verification at any moment and change limits without notice. That wording is the legal foundation of the block that comes later.
In the dispute section, look at the country of arbitration, the choice of governing law and any waiver of class actions. Those clauses determine where you will go if a conflict arises and what it will cost.
The agreement is saved in the version in force on the date you register, together with the date and the page address. Texts are edited retroactively, and without a saved copy the content of an earlier version is nearly impossible to prove.
Reviews: telling accumulated from purchased
Purchased reviews are recognized by their distribution rather than their content. A genuine platform with history has reviews from different years, of differing length and differing tone, including unhappy ones. A purchased set is typically clustered by date, uniform in length and almost free of criticism.
The authors matter. A real person has activity beyond a single review. An account created in the same month that left exactly one review confirms nothing, even when there are a hundred such accounts.
Matching phrasing is its own marker. Identical turns of phrase in reviews on different sites indicate a shared source text. Taking one distinctive sentence and searching for it in full is usually enough.
Critical reviews are read more carefully than positive ones, looking for a repeating storyline. When several people independently describe the same sequence of a blocked withdrawal and a demand for an additional payment, that is a description of mechanics rather than coincidence.
The platform's replies under reviews are informative as well. Genuine support answers on the substance and offers a reference number, while an identical template posted under every critical review shows the reply exists to dilute the picture rather than to resolve anything.
The technical side, without special skills
The site certificate is checked for who it was issued to and when. A fresh certificate is normal in itself, but combined with a recent domain and a new company it completes the picture of a project launched days ago.
The domain's mail records show where the platform's email lives. Corporate mail on a free provider at a financial business is a mismatch with the scale of the activity claimed.
It is worth checking whether many similar platforms sit at the same address. Public services list neighbors by address, and finding a dozen exchanges with different names and identical structure answers every question at once.
An app in the stores is checked by publication date, install count and developer. A developer whose only app was published recently matches a platform launched recently, regardless of what the website says.
Store reviews from the past month are another accessible step. They are moderated differently from aggregator sites, and descriptions of real withdrawal problems surface there more often. A low rating alongside many installs, or a wave of identical top marks over a few days, are equally informative.
A trial cycle before committing
A trial cycle is not a first deposit but a complete loop: a small amount in, a minimal operation, and a mandatory withdrawal back to your own details. What is being tested is the return rather than the credit.
The amount is one whose loss you would accept calmly. The point is not the money but completing the withdrawal procedure in full and seeing which requirements appear: extra verification, a fee, a minimum threshold, a delay.
Timing is recorded. The stated withdrawal period is compared against the actual one. A difference of several times over is a signal even when the money eventually arrives.
A second, larger trial withdrawal is made before committing the main amount. The scheme of early successful payouts is designed precisely around the assumption that checking will stop after one small loop.
A pause of several days between trial cycles is sensible. Fraudulent platforms operate in short windows, and the difference between behavior in week one and week three is often noticeable: delays appear, conditions change, additional verification is suddenly required.
Markers that end the conversation
Any demand for payment before a withdrawal closes the question on its own. Tax, an unlocking fee, an insurance deposit, topping the balance to a threshold: no genuine platform works that way, and tax is paid to a state on income received.
Guaranteed returns and a promised weekly percentage are claims incompatible with running an exchange. An exchange charges fees on trades and promises no profit, and a guarantee of income belongs to a different kind of construction entirely.
A personal manager who handles you in a messenger and hurries you is a role in the scheme rather than a service. Genuine support answers questions and does not call proposing that you increase a deposit before the day ends.
And finally, time pressure. A bonus that expires, a rate that will move, a window about to close. Haste is the instrument that switches off checking, which makes it the most reliable indication that checking is exactly what the situation requires.
What to keep in case of a dispute
The checking also builds an evidence file. Keep the register extract for the company, the regulator page showing the license search result, the whois data for the domain, the user agreement in its current version and the page setting out withdrawal terms.
Everything is saved with a date, the page address and the time zone stated. An archived copy on a third party service adds an independent witness, and that is exactly what turns out to be missing later, once the site has been switched off.
Payment documents are kept separately and in original form: bank statements, exchange office confirmations, transaction identifiers and recipient addresses. This part survives the platform's closure and originates from third parties.
Material gathered before a transfer weighs more than material gathered after a loss. Evidence captured before any conflict cannot be accused of being assembled to fit, and it is what makes conversations with a bank, the police and a lawyer concrete.
Keep it away from the device you used with the platform and away from the mailbox the platform can reach through password recovery. A separate cloud folder with a date in its name and a copy on external storage settles the matter.
The order of checking, from free to expensive
| Step | What is examined | What it eliminates |
|---|---|---|
| Domain age | Registration date and paid period | Platforms under a year old claiming long histories |
| Company register | Incorporation, status, address, filings | Missing legal entities and mass registration addresses |
| Regulator register | License number and company name | Invented and borrowed licenses, supervisory warnings |
| Withdrawal terms | Grounds for delay and for freezing | A right to postpone payment at the platform's discretion |
| Dispute section | Arbitration, governing law, class waivers | Jurisdictions where a claim is economically pointless |
| Reviews | Distribution by date and the authors | Purchased sets with no criticism in them |
| Address neighbors | Other sites on the same server | A production line of identically built platforms |
| Trial cycle | A full withdrawal of a small sum, with timings | Platforms where withdrawal accumulates conditions |
Questions and answers
- How long does a proper check take?
- About forty minutes for the free steps: the domain, the company register, the regulator register, four sections of the agreement and a look at how reviews are distributed. A trial cycle with a withdrawal adds one to three days depending on the stated processing time.
- The site displays a license. Is that enough?
- Not until it is found in the regulator's own register by number and by company name. Check also whether the licensed company is the one receiving your money, because a related party's license has no bearing on your contract.
- The platform has run for two years and has many reviews. Is that reliable?
- It is a reason to look more closely rather than to relax. Check how reviews distribute across years and whether criticism exists, and check the domain in a page archive: an old domain can be bought at auction and refilled with new content.
- How much should a trial cycle use?
- An amount whose loss you would accept calmly. The sum is not the point, the complete loop is: deposit, operation and withdrawal back to your own details, with the actual timings recorded. A second, larger trial withdrawal comes before the main deposit.
- What if an additional payment is requested before withdrawal?
- Stop depositing and switch to capture. A demand for payment before withdrawal is not a platform procedure, it is the mechanism of the scheme. Next come the bank or payment provider, a police report and an approach to the receiving exchange if the final address is known.
- Should identity documents be handed over for verification?
- Only after the register checks are done. Documents given to a fraudulent platform are later used to open accounts in your name and to approach others as you, which is why verification belongs at the end of the sequence rather than the beginning.