ZERO TRACE

What it is. A swap aggregator with a hard privacy filter — sorts exchange quotes by KYC rating (A=never, D=can freeze funds) and log policy rather than by price. Listed at Grade C because the KYC-awareness UX is genuinely useful but the tool has zero legal pages, zero operator disclosure, zero peer-directory footprint, and swaps execute through Trocador.app rather than its own infrastructure.

Background. ZERO TRACE (NULL_ROUTE) is a sub-page of cetoc.org — a German/English bilingual site operating under the title 'NULL_ROUTE · Krypto Insider' (operator-published). The tool lives at `/zero/zerotrace.html` rather than on its own domain, which means it shares cetoc.org's hosting, DNS, and infrastructure. No `/about` page exists (404), no founder or founding date is published, and no operator contact channel is discoverable. The page footer describes the tool as 'a privacy tool from cetoc.org' with swaps executed 'through Trocador.app' (operator-published, page footer). The domain `cetoc.org` uses the `.org` TLD, typically associated with non-commercial or community projects, but nothing on the page confirms non-profit status.

What you trust.

• No KYC, no account, no name. The page states 'Kein Account. Kein Name' (operator-published, homepage DE text). No signup flow exists — no account, no signup, no login. Usage is anonymous by design.
• KYC-rating filter — the core trust signal. Exchanges are not ranked by price; they are ranked by a four-tier KYC rating: A (never KYC demanded — full anonymity guaranteed), B (KYC only on suspicion or large amounts), C (KYC possible — check exchange policy), D (can freeze funds until verification). This is the strongest privacy UX feature in any swap aggregator in this directory — the tool doesn't just list exchanges, it rates them by how much they know about you.
• XMR Bridge for on-chain privacy. The tool offers a two-hop route: Source Coin → XMR → Destination Coin. Two separate swaps through Monero break the on-chain link between the source and destination addresses. The bridge description: 'Maximum On-Chain-Privacy: no direct link between source and target coin' (operator-published, homepage).
• Log-policy awareness. Beyond the KYC rating, the page claims to surface each exchange's log policy (operator-published, homepage: 'Du siehst KYC-Rating und Log-Policy jedes Anbieters'). Users are presented with privacy metadata before choosing an exchange — a meaningful departure from price-only aggregators.
• Swap status tracking without account. Completed swaps can be tracked via Trade ID lookup on the same page — no account, no login, no session persistence required. The Trade ID search is exposed as a public endpoint on the page.
• Operational dependency — Trocador.app. The page footer states swaps are executed 'through Trocador.app' (operator-published, page footer). Trocador is a well-known KYC-free swap aggregator (separately listed in this directory), but Zero Trace's trust profile is inseparable from Trocador's — if Trocador is unavailable or changes its API, Zero Trace ceases to function.
• No policy pages — complete opacity caveat. No privacy policy, terms of service, AML statement, contact page, about page, support channel, or security disclosure exists on the host. Every other listing in this directory publishes at least one of these. There are no operator-published terms, no privacy policy, no acceptable-use policy, no AML statement, and no contact channel. This is the most opaque listing in the directory.

Operational specs.

• Site. `https://cetoc.org/zero/zerotrace.html` — a single HTML page, not an SPA. The page functions as a standalone web app despite being a single file.
• Languages. German (DE) and English (EN) — toggle at top of page. The default language appears to be German (from the inline data-de/data-en attributes).
• No Tor mirror advertised. No `.onion` address and no `Onion-Location` header detected. Clearnet-only.
• No independent domain. The tool lives as a sub-page of cetoc.org — it does not have its own domain, subdomain, or independent hosting. DNS, hosting, and TLS infrastructure are shared with the parent domain.
• Swap modes. Two modes: (a) Direct Swap — standard A→B, all pairs available; (b) XMR Bridge — A→XMR→B, two separate swaps via Monero for maximum on-chain privacy with no traceable link between source and destination coins.
• KYC rating system. Four tiers: A (never KYC, guaranteed full anonymity), B (KYC only on suspicion or large amounts), C (KYC possible — check exchange policy), D (can freeze funds until identity verification). The page filters available exchange routes by the user's selected minimum KYC tolerance.
• Swap provider. Trocador.app — all swaps execute through Trocador's infrastructure. The page does not connect to exchanges directly; it uses Trocador as the single swap-routing backend.
• Pricing. No fees charged by Zero Trace itself. Exchange rates and any spread are determined by Trocador.app and the underlying exchange. The page does not display a fee schedule or commission structure.
• No public API surface. The page interacts with Trocador's API internally but does not expose a public API of its own.
• Domain. `cetoc.org` — `.org` TLD, typically non-commercial. No WHOIS or jurisdiction information recoverable from the page or DNS.

Operator philosophy. The page's tagline — 'ZERO TRACE ist kein normaler Swap-Aggregator. Hier wählst du nicht nach Preis. Du wählst nach Privacy.' (operator-published, homepage DE text — translation: 'ZERO TRACE is not a normal swap aggregator. Here you don't choose by price. You choose by privacy.') — captures the project's thesis: privacy ranking as the primary UX differentiator in a market where every other aggregator sorts by price. The KYC-rating filter (A→D) and XMR Bridge feature are thoughtful, non-trivial privacy infrastructure. The tool's weakness is that it's a thin UI layer over Trocador.app with no discoverable operator behind it — the philosophy is well-articulated on the page but there is no person, team, or legal entity standing behind it. The bilingual DE/EN presentation suggests a German-speaking operator or target audience.

Grade rationale. Listed at Grade C — the lowest grade in the current directory — because while the privacy UX is genuinely well-designed and the KYC-rating filter is unique among swap aggregators, the listing is opaque on every other dimension. Grade D is not assigned because the tool demonstrably works (the page renders a functional swap UI with live rate fetching from Trocador), the privacy model is articulated in the UI rather than hidden, and the XMR Bridge feature is a non-trivial privacy enhancement. However, the gap between this and Grade B is large: (a) the site publishes no privacy policy, no terms of service, no AML statement, no contact channel, no about page, and no operator identity — every other listing in this directory publishes at least one of these — this is the most opaque listing in the directory; (b) zero peer-directory matches; (c) the tool is operationally dependent on a single third-party swap provider (Trocador.app) — if Trocador changes its API, pricing, or availability, Zero Trace breaks; (d) no Tor mirror; (e) the tool has no independent domain — it shares cetoc.org's infrastructure, DNS, and TLS. Path to a higher grade: publish at minimum a privacy policy (even a one-paragraph statement about what data the page itself collects — likely nothing, but state it), a terms-of-service disclaimer, and a contact channel (email or Matrix). An independent domain or subdomain, a Tor mirror, and at least one peer-directory listing (monerica or kycnot) would address the trust-footprint gap. Peer signal: the cetoc.org/NULL_ROUTE team has accepted xmr.club into their directory, which is a small but real reciprocal-listing trust signal — both directories have agreed to surface each other to their respective readers.

Useful when:

• You want to swap between cryptocurrencies and you care more about which exchanges see your transaction than about getting the absolute best rate — the KYC-rating filter lets you screen out exchanges that demand identity verification.
• You need maximum on-chain privacy for a swap and are willing to pay the extra spread of a two-hop route (BTC→XMR→LTC or any A→XMR→B pair) — the XMR Bridge breaks the direct on-chain link between source and destination.
• You want to check a swap's status without creating an account or logging in — the Trade ID lookup works without any session or signup.
• You're comparing exchange privacy policies and want a tool that surfaces both KYC rating and log policy for each provider before you commit a transaction.

Caveats.

• Complete policy vacuum. This is the most opaque listing in the directory: no privacy policy, no terms of service, no AML statement, no contact page, no about page, no support channel, no security disclosure — Every other listing in this directory publishes at least one policy page.
• Operational dependency — Trocador.app. All swaps execute through Trocador.app. The tool is a UI layer, not a swap engine. If Trocador changes its API contract, pricing model, or availability, Zero Trace stops working. Users who want to understand the swap execution path need to read Trocador's own policy pages, not Zero Trace's.
• No independent domain. The tool lives at `/zero/zerotrace.html` on cetoc.org — it has no subdomain, no independent DNS, no separate TLS certificate, and no dedicated hosting. This makes it harder to verify the operator's control over the infrastructure and easier for the parent domain's configuration to affect the tool.
• No operator discoverable. No name, no pseudonym, no email, no Matrix, no Simplex, no X/Twitter handle, no GitHub, no PGP key. The page footer says 'cetoc.org' but cetoc.org itself has no `/about` page (404). The operator is entirely anonymous — not pseudonymous, but absent.
• No peer-directory footprint. Zero matches across all six probed directories (monerica, kycnot, orangefren, web3privacy, monerofail, privacyguides). The tool appears to be undiscovered in the broader Monero and privacy-tool ecosystem.
• No Tor mirror. Clearnet-only. A privacy-swap aggregator without a Tor-accessible endpoint is an accessibility gap — users who route all browsing through Tor must use a clearnet exit node to reach the page.
• Single HTML page — fragile. The entire tool is a single `.html` file. While this is technically elegant (no server-side state, no database, no backend), it also means the page's functionality depends on cetoc.org's web server configuration, TLS setup, and the continued availability of the Trocador API. If the HTML file is moved or deleted, the tool disappears.