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For more than a decade eXch was the swap people recommended in Monero forums: no account, no questions, an onion address, pages that worked with JavaScript switched off. On April 17, 2025 it announced it would close. Thirteen days later German federal police and Frankfurt prosecutors seized its servers, 8 terabytes of data and about €34 million in crypto. eXch shut down on May 1, 2025, and it has not come back.
If you used eXch, you are looking for two things at once: a swap that still does not ask who you are, and one that will not end the way eXch did. Those pull in different directions, and the honest way to choose is to understand why eXch fell. This page sets out what eXch did better than almost anyone, what its closure taught, and how CoinVast compares, including the places where it does not.
The one sentence verdict: nothing replaces eXch exactly, because eXch screened nothing and that is what ended it. CoinVast keeps the no account, no ID part and adds a check before you send, so a bad deposit goes back to you instead of becoming evidence.
Every date below comes from German prosecutors' statements as reported in the press, or from eXch's own notices. The links are in Sources.
eXch starts operating, according to German investigators, and grows into one of the best known no account swaps in the Monero community.
After the $1.5 billion Bybit hack, part of the stolen funds pass through eXch, according to German investigators. The service draws public criticism for not stopping them.
eXch announces that it will permanently close in May.
Germany's federal police and Frankfurt prosecutors, with the Dutch FIOD, seize eXch's servers, 8 terabytes of data and about €34 million in Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin and Dash.
eXch shuts down. Its kycnot.me listing is archived as a service that no longer exists.
Frankfurt prosecutors announce the seizure, calling it the third largest crypto seizure in the history of Germany's federal police.
✓ and ✗ mark what is better or worse for you. The eXch column describes the service as it ran before April 2025. Ours describes CoinVast today.
An onion address and pages that worked with JavaScript switched off made eXch usable from Tor Browser at its safest setting. Very few swap services bother. We do not offer either today, and if that is a hard requirement for you, RoboSats and Bisq are the honest places to look.
eXch accepted and paid out over the Lightning Network, which suits small, fast swaps. CoinVast does not support Lightning.
eXch never asked for identity, whatever the amount. We do not ask either, but we do run every deposit through a risk check first, and a deposit that fails it is returned rather than swapped.
In a niche where services appear and vanish in months, eXch ran from 2014 to 2025. We launched in 2026. You should weigh that.
eXch's refusal to screen anything meant that when the Bybit hackers needed to move stolen funds, eXch was one of the routes. That put it at the center of a laundering investigation. A swap that checks deposits before trading can turn away stolen coins. One that does not becomes part of the trail.
eXch marketed itself as keeping no logs. Investigators took 8 terabytes of data from its servers. We think it is more honest to say exactly what we keep and for how long, so you can decide with real numbers. Ours is on our privacy page: order records, and server logs with IP addresses for about 7 days.
eXch gave thirteen days between announcing its closure and the raid. Anyone with coins in flight had a short window. That is the general lesson of every closure on our exchange shutdown tracker: when a service says it is closing, finish or cancel what is open that day.
Every instant swap holds your coins for the minutes between deposit and payout, eXch included and CoinVast included. Seized wallets are seized whoever the coins belonged to. Keep swaps short, never leave a balance, and do not send more than you are prepared to see sit in someone else's wallet for a while.
Our own fine print, stated just as plainly: CoinVast screens every deposit before the exchange starts. Pass means the swap runs and is final. Fail means it never starts and your coins return to your refund address minus the network fee, no documents. The one exception is a government sanctions list match, which the law requires us to hold and report.
eXch quoted its rates live and they moved with its liquidity. With the service gone, there is nothing left to check them against.
CoinVast charges a flat 2% spread on every swap, locked the moment you create the order, with the payout network fee on its own line. On a $1,000 swap that is $20 of spread, printed before you send anything. No tiers, no account, nothing hidden in a floating rate.
eXch announced on April 17, 2025 that it would close in May. On April 30, 2025 Germany's federal police and Frankfurt prosecutors, working with the Dutch FIOD, seized its servers, 8 terabytes of data and about €34 million in crypto. Investigators said part of the funds stolen in the February 2025 Bybit hack had moved through it. eXch shut down on May 1, 2025.
No. The original service shut down on May 1, 2025 and its kycnot.me listing is archived. Treat any site using the eXch name today with great caution, and never send funds to a service you cannot verify.
Investigators seized about €34 million in crypto held in eXch's wallets. Public reports do not say how much of that belonged to users with swaps in progress. Anyone who had coins in flight at the time should assume they were caught in the seizure.
It depends on what you valued. For no account, no ID swaps including Monero, an instant swap such as CoinVast covers it, with a check before you send. For Tor only use and Lightning, RoboSats and Bisq are better fits. To compare rates across several swaps at once, an aggregator like Trocador lines them up.
Yes, and we say exactly which. We keep order records (pair, amounts, addresses, transaction hashes and timestamps) and standard server logs with IP addresses for about 7 days. We never ask for identity and run no trackers. The full list is on our privacy page.
Because a no ID service that checks nothing ends up carrying stolen and sanctioned money, which is how eXch ended. We check the coins, not the person, before the swap starts. A deposit that fails comes back to your refund address minus the network fee. A sanctions list match is held and reported, because the law requires it.
Claims about eXch trace to the pages below, read in October 2026. If a fact changes, tell us at [email protected] and we will fix the page.
Monero is on the menu, the spread is printed on the quote, and a deposit that fails screening comes back to you. Test it with a small swap.
Start a swapChecked October 29, 2026. Every line traces to the sources.
| ✓ Before you send. Pass and the swap runs; fail and it never starts |
| If a deposit is flagged | Nothing was flagged, until the whole service was seized | ✓ Coins return to your refund address minus the network fee, no documents |
| Sanctions match | No check | Held and reported, the one case where we do not return a deposit |
| Coins | ||
| Monero | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes, against our own Monero node |
| Lightning | ✓ Yes | ✗ Not offered |
| Own blockchain nodes | Not disclosed | ✓ Self hosted BTC, LTC, BCH, DASH and Monero nodes |
| Track record | ||
| Operating since | ✓ 2014, eleven years | ✗ 2026. We are the new kid and we know it |
| Legal entity | Not disclosed | Operating entity in formation; details publish on /trust when registered |
This list is read from our settlement backend when the page loads, so it only shows coins we can take and pay out at this moment. Any two of them make a pair.
The point of screening first is that a problem stays small. A flagged deposit goes back to its sender. It is not traded, mixed into the service's wallets or held while someone decides what to ask of you.
Yes. CoinVast swaps native XMR to and from Bitcoin and other coins, settled against our own Monero node, with no account. We do not offer Lightning or an onion address.
No service can promise it will never be shut down, and we will not. What we can say is that the reason eXch fell, moving stolen funds because it checked nothing, is exactly what our screening is there to prevent, and that we hold your coins only for the minutes a swap runs.
