RockWallet Exposed: A Review of the Crypto Exchange Dedicated to BSV
Recently, I wrote about how BSV has always been doomed from the start. Due to reasons analyzed in that article, BSV leadership appears to have utilized a number of tactics in an attempt to slow BSV's decline. One of the life support measures appears to be ensuring access to a BSV-fiat exchange through the company: RockWallet.
Today, I will analyze RockWallet and show how its activities are highly similar to other BSV companies like Lightning Sharks, which only seem to pretend to serve the greater crypto economy.
A BSV company under the hood
RockWallet, like other BSV companies in the "ecosystem" may appear like a normal crypto company to your average investor, until you dig deeper. Let's take a look at RockWallet's website to better understand.
Seemingly to maintain a sense of neutrality and keep the business afloat, RockWallet offers support for Bitcoin in addition to altcoins other than BSV. This also allows RockWallet to push BSV to unsuspecting investors who choose the wallet to store other coins.
This appears to be a front for their only dedicated audience, which is BSV. To keep their support of BSV strongly evident to its customers, they even styled their social media buttons using roughly BSV's color:
I’m seeing a lot of tweets about #BSV being delisted etc… I can categorically state that @rockwallet we will never delist #BSV. We see the value in offering a service our customers want, it’s not any more complicated than that.
— Steve Bailey COO @RockWallet (@sjbailey1970) August 16, 2023
Strikingly, the COO of RockWallet flat out stated on X that their team would never delist BSV from their app. Conveniently, the COO has never made this commitment to the various other coins listed, like Bitcoin.
RockWallet's dedicated support for BSV is further shown in its first press release:
"As a multi-asset platform, RockWallet supports popular digital assets such as BSV which expedites nano payments anywhere in the world for less than a hundredth of a cent per transaction. BSV can be securely transferred without confirmation (zero-conf) to facilitate instant peer-to-peer payments and global remittances."
The RockWallet team only went in depth on BSV, saying that it is an example of a "popular digital asset." This is a blatant marketing attempt for BSV, since no one in crypto views BSV as a contender. Also, the real Bitcoin was listed above for wallet support, and it is the most popular coin in existence.
RockWallet is a young company in the crypto industry. Since BSV is near the end of its life, it appears likely that RockWallet only listed it because BSVers are in charge. RockWallet's decision to list BSV instead of more popular altcoins like Avalanche is hardly explained by any rational business reasons.
A finicky exchange shilled by Faketoshi
Major crypto exchanges in the world have a duty to provide reliable 24/7 functions to their customers. If there is downtime on these platforms, customers are almost always aware because the companies provide advanced warning for maintenance. If the problem is a random occurrence, developers typically patch it quickly.
There is little point in using a crypto wallet/exchange if there are major issues with functionality. In the past, troubling experiences with RockWallet's exchange function have been reported, which is the major attraction for BSVers:
RockWallet's exchange function was so finicky that the above user though it was an issue with their credit card. Since RockWallet is a small app, the chances of issues arising without developers noticing possibly are high.
One positive about RockWallet is its open source nature; however, this good point is outweighed by the fact you must perform KYC (know your customer) to utilize the exchange/swap functions.
Craig Wright is a con artist pretending to be Satoshi who seeks to do nothing but mislead his followers. Naturally, Wright highly recommends the unstable app that RockWallet is to his followers (who voice their concerns):
Calvin Ayre appears to have influence
RockWallet COO Steve Bailey decided to go on a CoinGeek Weekly Livestream show with Kurt Wuckert Jr to discuss the prospects of RockWallet and the BSV ecosystem. If you're on this podcast to begin with, and Chief BSV historian Kurt Wuckert Jr is blindly agreeing with you, it is likely you are a BSVer.
Also, there appears to be supporting evidence of Calvin Ayre (behind CoinGeek) having influence in RockWallet. Ronnie Tarter is an acquaintance of Ayre, and happens to reside in Ayre's country of residence: Antigua. Tarter is the person with significant control of RockWallet:
Earlier this year, RockWallet was used to pay Craig Wright's legal bills. Since RockWallet appears to support BSV strongly, it makes logical sense that a company like it would be used to pay Faketoshi's court fees:
Hey @rockwallet, are you paying Craig Wright's Kleiman v. Wright legal bills for Calvin Ayre? pic.twitter.com/jSXBePwsPl
— *WuCoin* (@hascendp6) April 20, 2023
RockWallet's PR team = Lightning Sharks
One of the most prominent BSV investigations I have performed involved Calvin Ayre's personal marketing firm, Lightning Sharks, which was shown to be the in-house marketing firm for most of the BSV ecosystem. Although, did you know that RockWallet uses Lightning Sharks for their PR needs?
As shown in the above press releases, RockWallet and the BSV Association have the same Lightning Sharks employee running their PR outreach. This is not surprising, given they are the most well known BSV marketers in the very small ecosystem.
Conclusion
RockWallet is a wallet/exchange that does support Bitcoin among altcoins other than BSV. However, this appears to be a front for the true purpose of being a dedicated BSV exchange and mechanism for paying Faketoshi's legal bills.
RockWallet was possibly launched because BSV has been delisted by most reputable exchanges, and a dedicated BSV fiat ramp is useful. It is logical for serious investors to avoid RockWallet. There are no sensible reasons why anybody not holding BSV would use RockWallet, since there are an indispensable number of solid wallets/exchanges for Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Article Disclaimer: The information in this article is based on research and represents the author's opinion, not established fact. Readers should evaluate independently.
