Internet Security Blog - Hackology

WCX Exchange – The Best Exchange but it doesn’t Exist

Someone shared a link to an exchange namely WCEX (WCX) i opened the link and registered and went on exploring, the initial impression was great but when I started digging things turned out much like the Segwit2x Scam

What WCX Exchange Offers

Before I start with my own research i will list down the features as presented by WCEX.CO

  • Tiny Fees. Up to 10 times cheaper than what’s already out there. And if you’re a market maker (a trader who places limit orders on the book), you’re paid, instead of charged, when your orders are filled.
  • Team. Comes from Apple, IBM, Deutsche Bank, and has a lot of experience building scalable services.
  • Security. 98% of funds in cold storage. Segregated server infrastructure. Deep security expertise on the team.
  • Scalability. A trading engine built by Wall Street veterans. Field tested for years. Relays 1M+ transactions, no pressure.
  • Global. Trading is open to people around the world.
  • Revenue sharing. Share in the profit the exchange makes (see below).

When will WCEX Exchange go Live ?

The Initial post by WCEX staff was made on 17 July 2017 that Exchange will launch on 10 Oct 2017 but its not live till today while they kept on postponing, a tweet on 31 Dec 2017 shows that the exchange will be launched on 17 Feb 2018. These are not new tactics and its just a way to get hold of more money through their ICO.

Postponed till Eternity ? WCEX Exchange new date of Launch

To hide the amount which they have raised they issue new wallet addresses so that the raised amount can not be known. WCEX also offered a private alpha test of their exchange which was go to online on Sept 2017 but it never happened.

WCX Whitepaper

A whitepaper which is suppose to be a technical breakdown and shows a road map and how the product will be is just a webpage which lists bunch of made up stuff with no support or technical breakdown whatsoever.

  • A webpage with not technical explanation of their product
  • No GitHub code or reference
  • The signup claims are high and not backed with any evidence or proof

    WCX Exchange demand seems unnatural
  • Purpose of exchange as per their whitepaper is “To become the largest (and most loved) digital currency exchange in the world.” After keeping in view the number of delays and loopholes doesn’t seem likely nor it is part of a whitepaper
  • They promote a tiny fee structure of 0.01% which is the sole point which got everyone excited but how they will work that out is unknown because the delays and lack of an actual “exchange” makes that highly unlikely aswell.
  • Superior User Experience: There is a mention of superior user experience in their whitepaper stating they will have highly-performant charts that cater to both beginner and advanced traders can be customized with over 300 indicators and guess the image they placed in this section ? well its not even close to any 300 indicators :
  • 1 million transactions per second: No explanation on how this exchange will be able to handle 1m transactions per seconds while other credible exchanges can not even cope up with half of this. Their Whitepaper is more of a presentation given to businesses while trying to pitch in their sale, not realizing in ICO they have to make the things work.
  • Pre Sale ICO: The pre sale ICO is WCXT ERC20-Token based over Ethereum which is sitting with 200,000,000 WCXT tokens all held in 11 addresses while the 99% tokens are in 3 addresses. Making an Ethereum token is kids play nowadays so this does not make it legitimate.

    WCXT Token distribution
  • Working Product before ICO : Their whitepaper states that there will be a working product which users will be able to test and see the system so they are confident as what they are buying but again there is NO WORKING EXCHANGE and the ICO keeps getting prolonged to siphon in more money.

By the time the ICO begins, WCX will have a fully functional product, so you’ll know exactly what to expect before deciding whether or not to participate in the token sale.

The Team behind WCX Exchange

Credibility of any ICO / Exchange / Coin is judged by the team and their is none. There is no mention of any actual names not even alias as many shit-coins even do that nowadays.

Initial claim of WCX was that the team includes people from Apple and Wall Street while their whitepaper states silicon valley folks being part of it

WCX Exchange Team claims are tall

In on of the posts by wcxofficial they mentioned Fran Stajnar who will take care of the ICO Escrow and hold the coins safe while ensuring everyone gets them when ICO is over but his LinkedIn does not support the claim.

John Reyes uploaded a Roadmap on Trello, but the problem is the same John Reyes could not be searched or linked to a person with any links to WCX .

History of Domain

The clever folks of WCX exchange managed to disable any archiving service to work even Google Cached service if you open their domain through Way Back Machine or Google Cache you get an error stating “Couldn’t find a template named “not_found” or “notFound”. Are you sure you defined it?” . It is their luck as this is happening due to a linked .js file on their site.

WCEX Exchange Website Archive

WCX Exchange Working Demo

On 6 September launch of Live Beta Exchange tweet was made by WCX while another tweet on 11 Oct 2017 was made stating that the exchange is Live. There is no exchange nor there was any, all those claims are fake and it was a mere API call from probably TradingView.com as there are no orders and trading is empty. You can see the Template Exchange is still the same blank. Nor you could “Create Account” or Sing In , as both returned some error.

WCX Exchange Beta Live

Progress on WCX Exchange Roadmap

As per the product roadmap given on their own website they are live with their exchange and all the basic features of an exchange are working and “apparently” people are using their exchange.

WCEX Exchange Product Roadmap

WCX Support Community and Users

WCX Exchange Support Community which is currently filled with spam posts by spammers (do scammers attract spammers ?) and the last reply by the support team was 4 months back might give you an impression that people are actually using it and asking for queries to sort out minor issues. But do not be fooled, if you notice their usernames , you will find the same variation of 1 name e.g. Daniel Ifeanyi Ogalue & daniel etc . While same sorts of posted are made by only 8 registered members. A new exchange is bound to have more member where they show such high numbers in their whitepaper since day one.

My Verdict – Possible Scam

They have tried hard to preserve anonymity and to pretend to show a legit ICO even created a TOKEN. While constantly delaying the presale and not informing their investors what it is about indicates its a plausible ICO Scam 

As always, do your own research and remember – this is my opinion based on research (in which I tried to be just). I will update the post if WCX is able to show that they are a legit exchange but I doubt that would happen

I recommend proceeding with extreme caution until and unless WCX Exchange is able to show that they have a working product and a team. You should NEVER send your money to anyone you don’t trust, especially a plausible ICO scam.
I do suggest that you share this post as it is for the benefit of the blockchain and it would save alot of people from being scammed and lose their hard earned money. 

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