StereoSwap

Privacy-first no-KYC swap exchange with their own liquidity, Tor v3 reachable, Oblivion Mode for ephemeral swaps, and published live reserves. Grade B held only by lack of operating history — every other front-door bar (no-KYC, transparent fees, no logs, real Tor mirror) is cleared. Recommend small-first-trade pattern until we run the 90-day re-test.

Background. Single-brand operator with their own liquidity pools (not a meta-aggregator routing through CN / FixedFloat / SimpleSwap). End-user flow is anonymous — no signup, no email, no auth of any kind. The operator describes the project as *"a refuge — not a product"* and positions Monero explicitly as "a foundation for private value exchange."

Operator philosophy. Their own framing — *"We are not a company. We are not a brand. We are an autonomous mechanism."* — *"We operate pseudonymously and communicate only via encrypted channels. Not because we're hiding — but because your trust shouldn't depend on people. It should depend on code."* — *"Why should you trust us? You shouldn't. You should trust math, code, and your own due diligence."* This is unusually direct: most operators ask for trust; StereoSwap explicitly refuses to. The directory respects that posture and grades accordingly — we don't credit anonymous teams negatively when the architecture (non-custodial, no logs, Oblivion Mode, published reserves) carries the trust weight.

Oblivion Mode — headline feature. A 15-minute in-memory swap mode where nothing is persisted — per the operator, *"even we can't recover it."* The swap exists only in volatile memory and self-destructs at the 15-min mark. Real zero-state mode is rare among aggregators; most no-KYC instant-swap competitors retain at least the order metadata for support purposes. If you're using StereoSwap for sensitive flows (whistleblowing, journalism, OPSEC-sensitive personal trades), Oblivion Mode is the differentiator to lean on.

Live reserves (transparent). The operator publishes a live-reserves panel showing real-time balances per supported coin (SOL, XMR, etc., "Open reserves. Closed identity."). Transparent solvency telemetry is rare among instant-swap operators — most refuse to publish reserve data because it exposes liquidity ceilings. StereoSwap publishing this is a credibility move: solvency-floor visibility lets a user upper-bound the size of trade they should attempt against the published reserve.

No-log claim. Regular (non-Oblivion) mode stores "only the minimal technical data required to complete your swap" — explicitly no IPs, no cookies, no fingerprinting. This is a published claim, not curator-verified; small-first-trade pattern still recommended.

Tor. Onion v3 mirror: `arrzkvly4x4gmw6yaigypafexqqxnckmsk2lidudqmngsl7oqb53ieyd.onion`. Reach matters for users in restricted networks.

AML posture (disclosed). Inbound funds are address-screened. When the operator flags a deposit as terrorism-financing or stolen funds, they refund the sender (not freeze, not report). Same shape as ChangeNOW / FixedFloat / SimpleSwap. Surfaced here because users with reuse-flagged wallets should expect a refund-and-retry-from-clean-wallet flow.

Operational specs.

• Coverage: 1500+ coins (per their landing copy), with self-described "deep reserves in privacy coins, especially Monero"
• XMR confirmations: 10 standard, 5-7 for small orders (progressive — better than the flat-12 most aggregators run)
• Order expiration: 30 minutes
• Spread: ~0.8-1% (fees included in the rate — no separate platform fees or withdrawal markups shown to the user)
• Fees included in rate — operator explicitly claims "no hidden fees"
• Partner API: OpenAPI 3.1 spec at `/partner/openapi.json`, X-API-Key auth, calculate / create / status endpoints. Partner-API access requires email signup (integrators only; end-user swap stays accountless)
• Support: Matrix (`@stereoswap:matrix.org`), Simplex (`StereoSwap`), Telegram (`t.me/stereoswap`, community `t.me/stereoswap_community`), email (`support@stereoswap.app`)

Independent, no VC. Per the team, *"no VC, no outside control."* That's a curator-relevant trust signal — incentives aren't externally pre-shaped by an investor-return clock.

Grade B. Held at B because we have no operating-history observation window yet. They cleared every front-door bar — no KYC, transparent fees claim, real OpenAPI surface, Tor mirror, privacy mode, Matrix support. What's missing is time. A requires ≥6 months observable uptime, no major complaint signal in monitored channels, and at least one independent peer listing.

Useful when:

• You want a privacy-first no-KYC swap and Oblivion Mode matters to your threat model (whistleblowing, journalism, OPSEC-sensitive personal flows)
• You want an operator with their own liquidity (not a meta-aggregator) that publishes commission structure, fee policy, and live reserves upfront
• You need a Tor v3 reachable swap with no log retention

Caveats:

• New listing; no track record on the directory yet — start with small trades
• Single-source trust signal (operator's own communication + FAQ). No independent peer listing yet
• Address-screening can trigger refunds for funds from reuse-flagged wallets — fund from a clean wallet to avoid friction
• "No hidden fees" claim not yet curator-verified; pending test trade
• Legal-page gap: footer links to "Terms of Use" and "Privacy Policy" but `/en/terms` and `/en/privacy` currently 404. Curator flagged for operator follow-up — substantive policies need to be published, not just linked