In an period the place centralized exchanges dominate cryptocurrency buying and selling, Vexl stands out as a peer-to-peer (P2P) utility designed to attach Bitcoin customers inside their private networks for direct, non-custodial trades. The app facilitates shopping for and promoting Bitcoin with out intermediaries, emphasizing in-person conferences for money exchanges whereas additionally supporting fiat transfers organized privately between customers.
As Viliam Klamarcik, CEO of Vexl, defined in an interview with Bitcoin Journal, “we’re an utility that helps individuals to purchase and promote Bitcoin immediately with one another, with none intermediaries, with out KYC. Vexl works with out custody, so peer-to-peer, however what’s most vital is that it’s at all times inside your personal neighborhood, that means we’re not a world market. We’re mainly a peer-to-peer discover board the place you’ll be able to join along with your first and second-level connections.”
At its core, Vexl prioritizes privateness, functioning as a high-trust discover board inside your private social community, reasonably than an change. It doesn’t escrow Bitcoin or fiat, it doesn’t maintain person funds, nor retailer balances, messages, or private knowledge. All communications happen through end-to-end encrypted chats, and trades occur off-app, putting accountability on customers to confirm counterparts. This design aligns with Vexl’s mission to assist non-KYC Bitcoin acquisition and native economies, as confirmed on the app’s official web site, which states, “We don’t retailer any private data or any of your messages, interval.”
Consumer connections in Vexl are constructed on a web-of-trust mannequin, drawing from imported cellphone contacts to create a personalised order e book. Affords are seen solely to first- and second-degree connections—your contacts and their contacts—enhancing liquidity whereas sustaining excessive belief by way of shared social hyperlinks. This limits publicity to strangers, decreasing rip-off dangers, and usernames stay nameless till customers mutually reveal identities. Klamarcik famous, “The most important distinction between Vexel and the opposite purposes is, to begin with, its net of belief, which implies you don’t commerce with customers; you commerce with individuals with whom you might be related by way of actual social hyperlinks.” The app’s privateness measures embrace hashing contact knowledge and separating parts like profiles, chats, gives, and contacts into microservices that converge solely on the person’s machine, guaranteeing no centralized database exists.
To allow this technique, Vexl requires a cellphone quantity for registration, serving as proof of humanity to discourage bots and facilitating contact imports. Privateness issues are addressed by way of encryption and hashing; as the web site affirms, “Your chats at all times stay encrypted, whereas the cellphone numbers are hashed.” Klamarcik acknowledged imperfections however emphasised its necessity: “The cellphone numbers are a giant matter, and we’re conscious of that. And it’s not good, but additionally it’s in all probability the perfect resolution that now we have on the market to construct belief upon that.” This mirrors mechanisms in apps like Sign and main social networks, primarily as a spam-prevention and authentication instrument.
For customers hesitant to import full contacts—notably in privacy-focused areas like Germany—Vexl gives “golf equipment,” curated teams managed by native moderators, usually meetup organizers. These act as public rooms the place members can view gives with out broad community sharing, although belief shifts to the moderator. Entry requires a one-time code or QR scan, regenerable for safety, offering an onboarding enhance for newcomers till they construct direct connections.
Vexl is accessible on each Android and iOS, however iOS customers face restrictions. The app will not be formally listed on the App Retailer, restricted to TestFlight beta slots or sideloading within the EU, attributable to Apple’s claims of “reckless conduct” for encouraging in-person trades (Tinder, nonetheless, stays in iOS with out restrictions). Android gives seamless entry through Google Play or APK downloads, making it the optimum platform for unrestricted use.
Vexl runs below a non-profit basis mannequin, accepting donations and grants to protect its privateness and peer-to-peer ethos. On the subject, Klamarcik stated, “From the very starting, Vexl was meant as a present to the Bitcoin neighborhood: an open-source instrument constructed to assist individuals transact peer-to-peer, with out custody, surveillance, or extracting worth from customers. The mission operates as a non-profit with an important aim in its core – to maintain bitcoin usable in on a regular basis life and accessible to anybody, anyplace. Funding by way of donations and grants permits Vexl to remain targeted on constructing easy, resilient instruments for freedom. As an open-source mission supported by SatoshiLabs, the creators of the Trezor {hardware} pockets, Vexl follows an extended custom of constructing infrastructure first.” Vexl is totally open supply and is a mission by Satoshi Labs, the creators of the Trezor {hardware} pockets.
The non-profit mannequin has grow to be more and more widespread amongst privacy-focused initiatives, as for-profit incentives are inclined to result in knowledge assortment enterprise fashions like commercial, whereas Bitcoin-specific privateness apps have been actively prosecuted on the idea of monetizing “cash laundering”. Samourai Pockets’s founders have been accused of cash laundering conspiracy, although in the end have been solely imprisoned for unlicensed cash transmission prices, after facilitating over $2 billion in transactions through a non-custodial Bitcoin pockets. Twister Money confronted U.S. sanctions in 2022 for billions in quantity, below comparable prices for a service that profited from giving Ethereum customers fundamental monetary privateness. These circumstances spotlight how privacy-focused entities are being focused by governments.
Wanting forward, Klamarcik signaled growth: “This yr is hopefully going to be the yr after we really go abroad and in addition give attention to markets exterior of Europe when it is sensible.”
