XT.com – 7.8 million users strong? Or a 7.8 million reasons to tread very, very cautiously? Look, I’m not saying it was a rug pull for sure…but I'm not not saying it. I’ve seen a better executive picture than this. It’s difficult to be confident in an exchange ranked 20th for volume that appears to have the security apparatus of a toddler protecting a cookie jar.
Top Exchange or Top Concern?
Okay, okay, so they've got the volume. They're rubbing elbows with the big boys. CoinMarketCap loves 'em, apparently. This is a huge but (and I cannot tell a fib), certik gives them a #64 security ranking. #64! That's like being the 64th best surgeon – you're technically a surgeon, but are you my surgeon? Absolutely not.
It is like that scene when the main character realizes the villain has been hiding in plain sight the whole time. Are we so avaricious that we can’t see the flashing red flags? The siren song of 125x leverage hardly seems worth losing literally everything, does it?
NFTs: Art or Just…Stuff?
Now, let's talk NFTs. XT NFT, their NFT marketplace. Oh boy. So I dove in, hoping to at least find a few hidden gems. What I expected Crash of the Titans to look like What I discovered was…well, let’s just say my grandma could likely produce better digital art with MS Paint. We're talking a sea of hastily-made meme coins, jpegs that look like they were generated by a bored AI, and enough pixelated apes to make your head spin.
Is there legitimate art? Maybe. But cutting through all the other noise, that’s like searching for a diamond in a landfill. And that makes me wonder: are they actively curating quality, or are they just listing anything that pays the listing fee? Are they prioritizing growth over quality?
I just have difficulty not wondering where the wash trades or inflating prices are. It’s a sad state of affairs, kind of like the blind leading the blind. The world is on fire and everyone is convinced that they’re going to get rich off of finding that next NFT.
No KYC? Freedom or Red Flag?
They don't require KYC. On one hand, that makes dogma about freedom and decentralization really sing! On one hand, it seems a wonderful decarbonization strategy. On the further hand, it just screams money laundering and regulatory evasion. I have to admit that this absence of KYC begs the question of whether it was a feature or a bug.
The United States, Cuba, Canada, Mainland China, North Korea, Singapore, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Crimea are officially under embargo or blockade. These areas are under immense constraints. Without a strict KYC policy, users from banned countries can continue to use the service by connecting through a VPN. Still, this practice is highly problematic and illegal because it poses a legal threat. Is it worth it?
In no way am I suggesting XT.com is for sure a bad actor. They’ve got a mobile app, staking, futures, copy trading. They're trying to be everything to everyone. As the cliche goes, in crypto, when you try to be everything to everyone, you end up being…nothing to anyone.
So, is XT.com a scam exchange with a weird meme-obsessed alter ego? Or is it a rug pull waiting to happen, masked as a go-to, trendy, self-service platform? The truth is, I don't know. And that's the scariest part.
Do your own research. Tread carefully. And for the sake of Satoshi, please don’t invest money you can’t afford to lose. Since as we all know, in the crypto wild west, you can be just one sticky meme from doom.
