Xapo: why you should stay away!
Avoid the Xapo wallet!
Xapo wallet's claim to fame is their instant transactions to other Xapo wallets. This feature does work, however the trouble only starts when you intend use the other services by Xapo.
Let's start with buying bitcoin from Xapo, this is a long and arduous task! first you have to send them your money by International wire transfer. This process can take up to 4 business days, costs a large amount in fees and has medical links to Alopecia.
Once this process has happened, you have to manually convert your balance into bitcoin. This process is tedious also and can take upwards of a day to happen.
Once this process has happened, and you have had an extra 2 inches of beard growth, you can now spend your bitcoin. If you intent to send this balance to another Xapo account you are in luck and your waiting has ended, however, if you are unlucky to have to send this balance to another wallet (Exodus for example) you are in for another wait.
Now I am fully aware that sending Bitcoin at the moment over the blockchain is time consuming, however on all my other wallets if I add higher fees It usually gets done within an hour or two. Not with Xapo, I have a transaction that has high fees on it that is almost 4 days old and its still processing. I have another transaction that is 2 days old. This is ridiculous and I can only assume the additional waiting time is due to some Xapo issue not the blockchain. You might be asking yourself why I don't simply check the transaction progress on the blockchain? well you can't with Xapo! one of their "security features" is to pool addresses, meaning none of your transactions can checked on to see their progress.
I have had other issues too with their app, such as the 2 factor authenticator not working, meaning I have to get a text message sent every time I want to log on. Fun times! and an amazing way to waste time! Love it.
Conclusion
I usually buy my bitcoin from BitPanda, but every once in a while I like to check out other services. Xapo was one of these experiments, and would have had more success as a thalidomide in a pushup competition. after the huge fees, psychiatry bills and loss of time, i simply cannot recommend Xapo.
Please leave your feedback! Have you had good or bad experiences with Xapo? please share them.
***UPDATE****
The transaction has now been pending for 6 days!
Stay safe and happy mining!
Viking
guess with the high fees and confirmation of the bitcoin takes long time...understood. not xapo then.
I have been using Xapo for some time now. The main reason I use them is because I can add funds (USD) using Neteller and then buy bitcoins.
As I out of SEPA Area (EU) I don't have a Neteller card and this is the easiest way to withdraw money from there.
In my experience what the author said is only partially true.
I never did a wire transfer to them, but, my Neteller deposits are processed instantly.
Buy bitcoins using USD (after the money is there) is done instantly as well (it's called transfer from 'USD pocket' to 'BTC pocket')
Withdrawing BTCs is a bit trickier... They allow you to choose the fee (next block or next six blocks), what is good, but... sometimes, with transfers bigger than 0.05 BTC, it gets blocked until their security team check if everything is fine. This can take some time. I had one transfer that took 2 days to be validated by their team one month ago, but today I transferred to 0.1 BTC to my external wallet and, after it got blocked to verification, they reviewed it under 30 minutes.
Yes, I get anxious as well, specially when I want to sell those BTCs on my local exchange (I'm in South America), but still the best and safest way I could find to buy BTC using Neteller.