Live hacks, exploits, regulatory pauses, and operator-flagged events for services we list. Incident state is point-in-time; grade is long-term posture. They coexist — an A-grade provider can still be in incident mode. Read the curator advice on each before acting.
Active exit-scam confirmed. Operator identity verified via documented DM history with xmr.club (@xmrescrow X account was the real operator, since deleted). Victim BTC loss $6,000 with 3 verified on-chain txids. Moderator-abuse pattern (ban+mute+delete) in Monero Society TG. Coincident scrub of public contact surfaces (X delete, GitHub whitewash commit, /about reactive "no social media" line). Site still taking new escrows. Grade dropped C → F 2026-08-05. Evidence preserved to Internet Archive.
Do not initiate a new escrow with xmrescrow.app under any circumstance. Do not send funds to any address in an in-progress escrow. If you were also scammed by the same operator, submit via /tools/xmrescrow/reviews with evidence — a cluster of reports may support recovery.
Server compromise on 2026-06-08: an attacker gained root access (local privilege escalation) to OpenMonero's main server and stole ~200 XMR. The operator stated all funds are gone. This is a repeat event — "hacked again" — not a first-time breach.
Do not deposit new funds or hold balance on OpenMonero until a public post-mortem AND independent audit AND a sustained no-incident window are on record. Withdraw anything still accessible. Note (2026-06-28): the operator published a recovery post announcing 90 XMR refunded on 2026-06-24 to affected users — a partial recovery against the ~200 XMR loss reported by OrangeFren, not a full make-whole. The service is back online with hardened infrastructure (server rotation, new onion, wallet isolation, hidden backend IP), but the repeat-compromise pattern is the reason for the D grade — one refund does not reset that track record.
v1 trade protocol exploit — missing validation on negative network-fee values let an attacker drain ~11.59 BTC from active/open offers. Bisq halted trading via emergency version flag until patched in v1.9.x+. As of 2026-05-25: DAO compensation vote scheduled (reimbursement in BTC or BSQ from DAO reserves under discussion).
Update to the patched Bisq v1.9.x+ before trading. Bisq Easy (Bisq 2) is the safer current path. Verify signed releases before running. Affected users: a Bisq DAO compensation vote is in progress as of 2026-05-25 — monitor official Bisq channels for the vote outcome.
kycnot.me SCAM case 2026-07-27: hide.cash took a 49.35 SOL (~$4k) deposit on 2026-07-17 and sent no XMR back. kycnot ran their own test swaps — three of four deposit addresses returned by hide.cash's own site have prior transaction history and drain to the same wallets that took the victim's money. Operator publicly denied the deposit address; blockchain evidence contradicts.
Two independent peer privacy directories have publicly taken action against OctoSwap on 2026-07-19: (1) one published a 'Scam' status classification on its OctoSwap listing (screenshot on file); (2) OrangeFren.com removed OctoSwap from its aggregator, cutting real user-routing traffic to the service, and posted publicly on Bitcointalk (as OF Sr Member, Merit 807) that they confronted the operator directly — the operator's on-record response was that 'no such swap ever took place'. The trigger is a Bitcointalk thread opened 2026-07-18 by BTT Hero Member Trvoid ('Be Cautious: OctoSwap Scam Warning') carrying a report of a user allegedly losing $30,000 with funds stuck in 'processing' status for weeks and both Telegram + email support unresponsive. Multiple thread participants converged on 'exit scam' language and pattern-matched the frustrate-to-abandonment shape. Trvoid's user review (#60) approved simultaneously on curator side. Trvoid's prior warning from 2026-06-18 on kycnone.com had already flagged OctoSwap as high-risk on the strength of an unusually high $7K minimum-order requirement and observed service malfunction. Curator disposition: not first-party-verified on-chain and the operator disputes it, so grade dropped B → D with an open incident rather than Grade F (shame-list). A prominent warning-lead paragraph has been prepended to the review body in all four languages; readers should treat any deposit as materially at-risk pending (a) operator statement + refund evidence, (b) a tx-hash confirming the deposit was received, or (c) both peer-directory classifications retracted. Follow-up wake armed for +7 days.
SafePal disclosed on 2026-08-16 (blog: "Unauthorized Access To A Subset Of Customer Order Information") that a flaw in their order-tracking plug-in led to unauthorized access to customer information for approximately 39,798 customers who placed orders between 2025-03-02 and 2026-04-11 — a 13-month window. Exposed data: full names, email addresses, shipping addresses, phone numbers, and purchase details. Wallets, seed phrases, private keys, and wallet passwords are not affected — the exposure is entirely on the fulfillment / order-tracking supply chain. The reader-facing risk is not phishing (SafePal's own framing) — it is physical: confirmed crypto-holder home addresses in the hands of any buyer of the leaked data is home-invasion / stalking / $5-wrench-attack territory. Affected customers notified individually by email; verification available at safepal.com/scam-protection using order ID + shipping country. This is the second major hardware-wallet supply-chain PII exposure in 5 days (Trezor 2026-08-13 exposed 11,742 customers over a 90-day window). See /guides/old-iphone-cold-storage for the shipping-address opsec response.
A third-party shipping provider used by Trezor was breached, exposing full names, phone numbers, email addresses, and shipping addresses of customers who ordered in the 90 days prior to 2026-08-08. Trezor's own count: 11,742 customers with full exposure + 1,947 with partial (name + city + email). Affected countries: US, UK, Sweden, Colombia, Brazil, Italy, Portugal. Trezor's public statement leads with 'our devices remain secure' and frames the risk as phishing. The reader-facing reframe is physical: shipping addresses of confirmed crypto holders in the hands of any buyer of the leaked data is home-invasion / stalking / $5-wrench-attack territory, not inbox phishing. Trezor firmware and devices are unaffected by this incident — the exposure is entirely on the fulfillment supply chain. See the curator guide for the operational response.
First-party verified shotgun-KYC event: on a swap exceeding \$10k the operator sent the user a KYC-verification link mid-flow, contradicting the previously-marketed "Anonymous" posture. Operator explained the trigger as LE-flagged funds; the detection logic is not published, so from a user perspective the KYC pipeline is unpredictable pre-deposit. Completing KYC does not guarantee funds are returned — in the shotgun-KYC pattern observed elsewhere, funds are frequently lost regardless.
For swaps under \$10k, StealthEX still operates as anonymously as before. For amounts >\$10k or funds with any complex prior chain-analysis history, treat as at-risk for fund loss — completing KYC does not guarantee your funds are returned. If the amount matters, route via a different engine.
Operator change verified — AzireVPN's `/about` page now reads: "AzireVPN is owned by Malwarebytes, a global leader in real-time cyber protection, based in Santa Clara, CA, US." That is a material trust-story shift for a service originally listed as a Sweden-based independent no-logs VPN. Simultaneously, the `/pricing` page no longer lists Monero (or Bitcoin) as a payment method — XMR has been dropped. The no-logs claim was substantively part of the original Grade-A rationale; under Malwarebytes ownership it requires re-verification via an audit specifically conducted after the ownership change.
Grade downgraded A → C on 2026-07-02. Existing customers should treat the no-logs claim as under-review, not confirmed. Users specifically avoiding US-jurisdiction VPN providers (CLOUD Act, subpoena, national-security-letter regime) should rotate to a peer VPN with disclosed ownership outside the US. Path back to B requires XMR reinstated + published post-acquisition no-logs audit. Path back to A additionally requires verifiable operational independence from Malwarebytes's US legal exposure.
Maintainers advised market-makers (eigenwallet-makers Matrix) to shut down their ASB (Atomic Swap Backend) on 2026-05-25 due to an actively-exploitable vulnerability. A 2026-05-29 developer correction states the impact is worse than first reported: a malicious swap can net the attacker the full XMR while the maker recovers only ~10% of their BTC. Mitigation has since shipped — v4.7.9 (2026-05-29) makes the ASB refuse cooperative XMR-redeem requests when the BTC received is <75% of the BTC sent into the swap; the latest release is 4.7.10 (2026-06-02). Still no public CVE or formal post-mortem.
Don't run an ASB / market-maker right now. Taker-side swaps may still be possible against makers who are online, but trade volume has dried up while operators wait for the patch. We'll update this entry the moment a fixed release ships or the maintainers publish a post-mortem. Track github.com/eigenwallet/core/releases and the Matrix room linked from eigenwallet.org.
In Q4 2024 Njalla silently relocated from Nevis (1337 Services LLC) to Costa Rica (njalla.srl) with no customer announcement. Costa Rica's RTBF registry makes UBO information shareable to government entities and foreign court orders are more enforceable than in Nevis — a weakening of the offshore offsets that defined Njalla's privacy posture. Founder brokep's public profiles (Mastodon, Bluesky, X) went dormant in the same window. Njalla support's response to user inquiries has been take-it-or-leave-it. No malicious behaviour or domain seizure is documented in the cited source; the issue is opacity + a quietly weaker threat-model offset.
Existing pseudonymous domains paid via untraceable methods appear unaffected at the time of writing. Reconsider Njalla for new high-risk registrations (politically sensitive, pirate-adjacent, abuse-attractor content); the jurisdictional offset is now thinner than the marketing implies.
In Q4 2024 Njalla silently relocated from Nevis (1337 Services LLC) to Costa Rica (njalla.srl) with no customer announcement. Costa Rica's RTBF registry makes UBO information shareable to government entities and foreign court orders are more enforceable than in Nevis — a weakening of the offshore offsets that defined Njalla's privacy posture. Founder brokep's public profiles (Mastodon, Bluesky, X) went dormant in the same window. Njalla support's response to user inquiries has been take-it-or-leave-it. No malicious behaviour or domain seizure is documented in the cited source; the issue is opacity + a quietly weaker threat-model offset.
Existing pseudonymous domains paid via untraceable methods appear unaffected at the time of writing. Reconsider Njalla for new high-risk registrations (politically sensitive, pirate-adjacent, abuse-attractor content); the jurisdictional offset is now thinner than the marketing implies.
In Q4 2024 Njalla silently relocated from Nevis (1337 Services LLC) to Costa Rica (njalla.srl) with no customer announcement. Costa Rica's RTBF registry makes UBO information shareable to government entities and foreign court orders are more enforceable than in Nevis — a weakening of the offshore offsets that defined Njalla's privacy posture. Founder brokep's public profiles (Mastodon, Bluesky, X) went dormant in the same window. Njalla support's response to user inquiries has been take-it-or-leave-it. No malicious behaviour or domain seizure is documented in the cited source; the issue is opacity + a quietly weaker threat-model offset.
Existing pseudonymous domains paid via untraceable methods appear unaffected at the time of writing. Reconsider Njalla for new high-risk registrations (politically sensitive, pirate-adjacent, abuse-attractor content); the jurisdictional offset is now thinner than the marketing implies.
FixedFloat publicly confirmed it runs source-of-funds / sanctions screening and will SUSPEND funds for additional verification — explicitly naming CEX-origin funds (Huobi/HTX) after sanctions developments. This is the same hold-and-verify behavior that strands privacy users mid-swap.
Treat FixedFloat as a screening exchange, not a no-questions swap. Do not route funds that touched a CEX (esp. Huobi/HTX) or any flagged address through it. For maximum privacy, prefer an A-grade route; if you must use FixedFloat, use clean, non-CEX-origin coins only.
Operator alignment concern — Wagyu's founder (@PerpetualCow) publicly self-identifies as a hype-aligned operator using XMR as instrumentation, not a privacy-aligned operator on a Monero mission. His X bio reads: "$HYPE maximalist. not loud about it, just patient. Contributing to @HyperliquidX and XMR through Wagyu.xyz." In a 2026-05-29 post he stated: "Aside from $HYPE there's nothing worth owning in crypto anymore. As sad as it is." That includes Monero — said by the founder of a Monero swap. Adjacent project ($COW community on Fwog.fun) was abandoned via missed deadlines, post-hoc denial of leadership, and Telegram community deletion on 2026-05-18. Wagyu the swap continues to operate (~$320M cumulative / ~$30M monthly volume); the April DPRK-pause incident remains documented below.
Use the swap if you need to (volume confirms it works), but don't park balance and don't size larger than you'd be willing to absorb if the operator decides to walk. Grade adjusted B → B- (2026-05-30) to reflect the structural alignment mismatch. Further movement depends on Wagyu-side stress events.
Partner-API broken-access-control disclosed by RasterSec on 2026-05-28. JWT keys embedded in public partner repos + Android APKs allowed anyone to dump all partner swap records — ~355,944 swaps / $39.5M of metadata (addresses, tx hashes, timestamps, user IDs) from Jan 2025 → May 2026. Affected partners: Edge, Exodus, Monerujo, BTCPay Server, Temple Wallet, EGToken.io. Exolix patched via WAF rules (not by fixing the underlying access control) and initially characterized the issue as "a feature." Past user swap trails are permanently exposed; new swaps unaffected.
If you swapped via Exolix or any of the affected partner integrations between Jan 2025 and May 2026, assume your deposit + withdrawal addresses are now in third-party datasets (searchable, downloadable, immutable). For NEW swaps, Exolix still works as advertised — the WAF fix prevents further dumps. But weigh the operator's initial "feature" framing before routing sensitive flows; A-grade peers (SageSwap, StealthEX) had no such disclosure.
Paused XMR swaps for ~6 days (resumed 2026-04-28) when ~$290M DPRK-linked KelpDAO exploit funds began routing through Wagyu via THORChain as a fast XMR exit. Resumed with explicit OFAC / DPRK address blocking.
Wagyu will pause routing if state-actor laundering flows are detected and now blocks OFAC-sanctioned addresses. Privacy posture tightened post-incident — fine for retail no-KYC swaps, expect rejection on flagged inputs.
Two verified changes on the trust-story axis since the initial B-listing: (1) BuyVM was acquired by Cloudzy in January 2025 — founder Francisco stayed on and told the community at the time there would be "no change in pricing… no reduction in resources… no downgrades in hardware." (2) In May 2026, BuyVM announced its first-ever price adjustment, effective 2026-07-01, of roughly 15-25% across all KVM Slice plans (e.g. 4 GB slice $15→$17 for existing customers, $20 for new). The operator's stated reason is >15% upstream DC and bandwidth increases over the preceding six months. The pricing move breaks the letter of the acquisition-time promise, though the reasoning is disclosed publicly.
Grade held at B — the operator's transparency in explaining the price adjustment plus the fact that post-hike pricing stays competitive with the peer set keeps this above C. The "independent VPS" framing has been dropped from the tagline. Existing customers on affected plans should expect the new pricing on their next renewal on/after 2026-07-01. Path to A now requires: three years of clean operation under Cloudzy ownership without a second broken commitment, plus a peer-directory listing corroborating the current trust story.
Hidden 3.06% swap spread + 141% withdrawal-fee markup above network cost found in live audit (0.2 XMR test). Support admitted partner-side slippage on small orders and offered manual refund.
Use only if you tolerate ~3–6% effective fee for the multi-wallet split convenience. Quote-vs-fill gap is not surfaced before deposit.
The public 'Recent Bets' feed on xmr.bar shows entries dated 10-11 weeks ago as of 2026-07-04 (external observation by @exitnode_). Site is online, betting endpoints reachable, but the on-page activity metric appears frozen since ~April 2026. Could be a backend/data event (widget wiped or disconnected from live data), or a genuine decline in traffic. Neither the operator nor the site has publicly explained. Interpret as an information-worthy signal, not a shutdown.
SMSPool.net publicly announced on 2026-07-17 (via @smspoolnet on X) that it can no longer accept direct Monero payments. Fuller reasoning in a follow-up post 2026-07-18 06:28 AM names the specifics: as an EU-based company subject to MiCA + incoming AMLR (which will formally ban privacy coins like Monero from EU-regulated platforms from July 2027), the immediate trigger was banking-partner de-risking — their bank refused to keep the account open while they continued accepting XMR directly, and alternative banks declined for the same reason. XMR remains available through the reseller channel — indirect but preserved. This is a regulatory-compliance-forced change disclosed transparently by the operator, not a shame-list event. xmr.club dropped the grade A → C to match reader expectation: our Grade A signals default-choice for direct XMR support in a category, and SMSPool no longer clears that bar. Curator advice: readers who need direct XMR should check the remaining Grade A providers in the sims category (sort /sims by grade). Readers who accept the reseller layer can continue with SMSPool at C. The July 2027 AMLR deadline is on file as a directory-wide watch signal for other EU-based active listings facing similar banking-partner pressure — regulation-driven so it does not warrant a periodic re-check on this specific listing; a change here would require either an EU regulatory reversal or SMSPool relocating out of the EU.
A xmr.club user made a RUNE (THORChain-native, memo-required) deposit to PegasusSwap with an incorrect memo. The operator's default recovery process — before curator intervention — required the user to (a) send a second RUNE deposit from the same address with the correct memo, (b) provide payment-proof screenshots of both transactions displayed on the same page, (c) accept a 4-5 week processing window, and (d) pay a processing fee "for certain types of uncredited deposits." The user rejected the process; kyc.rip compensated half the loss to signal editorial position. On curator pushback ("put yourself in the user's position; this reads as disguised fund-taking"), the operator agreed to fully compensate this specific swap AND offered to publish a list of pairs where this failure mode is possible so kyc.rip can disable them at its routing layer. Grade held at B pending delivery of the pair list and evidence the process is patched rather than one-off-resolved. Follow-up window: 14 days.
OrangeFren.com (verified X) reported at 2026-07-15 00:49Z that BasicSwapDEX had been exploited, with 0.66 BTC (~$42k) in confirmed losses. BasicSwapDEX's own X account (@BasicSwapDEX, verified) responded within roughly twelve hours: first with an Important Security Notice instructing users to withdraw offers, not start new swaps, shut nodes carrying in-progress swaps down, and not attempt manual refunds; then, roughly nine hours later, with the v0.17.2 hardening release that fixes the underlying issue and applies automatically when a node restarts on the new version. Operator's post-patch guidance to users with in-progress swaps: update first, let the swap resume, do not force manual refunds. Curator read: textbook responsible incident response — clear acknowledgement, protective interim guidance, rapid hardening release, and post-patch continuity instructions. The exploit happened and losses are real, but the operator posture is not shame-list-shape. Recommended grade path: A → A- (mirrors the Haveno post-2026-06-exploit demotion pattern where the operator shipped a same-week fix). Follow-up wake +24h to check for updated loss figures + post-mortem.
Second distinct trade-protocol exploit in under 30 days, hitting Haveno operators including RetoSwap. Per the official RetoSwap PSA (2026-06-17), an exploit report was received at 18:02 UTC; the RetoSwap team responded by setting the minimum client version to 2.0.0 via the filter feature and banning the attacker's onion. **The May 2026 attack** worked by substituting the legitimate arbitrator's onion with the attacker's own (fake-arbitrator-ACK vector against the arbitrator-selection step). **The June 2026 attack is mechanistically distinct**: the arbitrator stays legitimate, but the attacker abuses the forced-arbitration flow itself — taking buy offers, forcing arbitration through a real arbitrator, and getting XMR released after 30 confirmations without ever sending BTC. Two legitimate Reto arbitrators are on record (`…6wi2znkfhbowtv2xxkbx63simfj3bqd.onion`, `…sriix3v2akgrzd4k5tvoqqvsfzxb6yd.onion`) — both involved in the current attack as honest counterparties, not as compromised infrastructure. Attacker buyer onion (banned, with port): `…e6wyrtdczsrhtves2jofi2qpad.onion:9999`. Scope per RetoSwap: damage appears contained to large-scale crypto offers; fiat traders unaffected. Trading halted network-wide while the protocol gap is addressed.
ACTIVE — second Haveno-protocol exploit hitting RetoSwap inside 30 days, **mechanistically distinct from the May 2026 attack**. Per RetoSwap's official PSA (2026-06-17): the team received the exploit report at 18:02 UTC, halted trading by setting the minimum client version to 2.0.0 via the filter feature, and banned the attacker's onion. **May attack:** arbitrator-substitution / fake-arbitrator-ACK against the selection step. **June attack:** the arbitrator stays legitimate, but the attacker abuses the forced-arbitration flow itself — take buy offers → force arbitration through a real arbitrator → XMR releases after 30 confirmations even though no BTC was ever sent. Two legitimate Reto arbitrators on record (`…6wi2znkfhbowtv2xxkbx63simfj3bqd.onion`, `…sriix3v2akgrzd4k5tvoqqvsfzxb6yd.onion`) — both honest counterparties, not compromised infrastructure. Attacker buyer onion (banned, with port): `…e6wyrtdczsrhtves2jofi2qpad.onion:9999`. Scope per RetoSwap: damage appears contained to large-scale crypto offers; **fiat-flow traders unaffected**. The RetoSwap team is **not compromised** — the protocol flaw is at the Haveno layer.
GG20/TSS-key cryptography flaw exploited 2026-05-11 — ~$10.7M drained from a POL vault. Trading RESUMED 2026-06-23 on non-XMR chains (BTC/ETH/SOL/TRON/XRP/etc.) after ~6 weeks offline; the Monero leg is still pending — XMR.XMR is not yet on mainnet pools (operator: "XMR soon"). ADR-028 was approved and implemented: the loss is absorbed by protocol-owned liquidity via a store migration — there is NO user refund, airdrop, or compensation program (the operator states this explicitly; the earlier 2026-06-04 'refund portal' deadline lapsed and was superseded by POL absorption). v3.18.1 patched the flaw; the v3.19 restart release entered stagenet in early June, with a full churn to fresh vaults and Monero prioritized in the DEX queue, and full trading/LP targeted ~1 week after mainnet adoption. The TSS library was temporarily closed-sourced for a Soda Labs cryptographic audit (~2-4 weeks). Restart in progress, not yet complete (as of 2026-06-04).
1984.is auto-suspended XmrBazaar (a legal Monero marketplace it hosted) without notice after weaponized DMCA/abuse complaints — part of a pattern that also took down Hack Liberty, a 4+ year customer, in March 2026. XmrBazaar was restored after public pushback.
Incident ≠ grade. A provider can keep its A while in incident mode, because grade tracks long-term KYC posture and incident tracks a point-in-time event. See the methodology.
Xeovo VPN A ★ HEADLINE Silence censorship. Protect your privacy and bypass restrictions with Xeovo VPN. No email required.
Trocador A ★ HEADLINE Long-running no-KYC aggregator. XMR-friendly, Tor mirror, broad coin support.
Cake Wallet A ★ HEADLINE Mobile + desktop multi-coin wallet (XMR, BTC, LTC, ETH) with in-app swap + CakePay.
CCE.Cash B ★ HEADLINE Non-custodial cross-chain swap router with refund-on-refusal AML policy and multi-destination split swaps. No
Ollie Swap C ★ HEADLINE Tor-only swap: BTC · BCH · DASH · LTC · XMR — no accounts, own liquidity, PGP-verified identity.
xmr.club