Directory
What we check before listing anything
Every submission is read by a person and answered either way. This is the list it is read against, published so that a no comes with a rule attached rather than a shrug.
One thing governs all of it: we check what a submission claims against the pages you publish, and where the two disagree we go with the pages. That is not suspicion. It is the only way a directory that writes its own listings can describe a hundred products it does not operate.
What belongs here
Five categories, and a submission has to sit in one of them:
- Hardware wallets — Devices that keep your keys off the internet.
- Software wallets — Apps that hold your keys on a phone or desktop.
- Exchanges — Where crypto is bought, sold and — usually — custodied for you.
- Tax tools — Turning a year of transactions into something you can file.
- Security — Contract checks, monitoring, and recovering from mistakes.
We put a product in the category we think it belongs in, which is not always the one the submission proposes. Outside those five we say no, and that answer is about the size of this directory rather than about your product.
Who may submit
Somebody connected to the product. We write listings partly from what an operator says their product does, and we need to know that account came from them. A submission from an unconnected third party is declined, though it is welcome as a suggestion — say so and we will look at it in our own time.
One submission per product. Sending the same one from three addresses does not speed it up and is the fastest way to be read as spam.
What every listing has to state
Four facts. We will find them ourselves if they are published; if they are not published anywhere, we cannot list you, because every one of them ends up on the page with your name on it.
- Who holds the keys or the funds. See below — this is the one we care about most.
- What personal data you collect, at what point, and how long you keep it.
- What you charge. A published fee page, not a range quoted on request.
- Terms and a privacy notice, readable without an account.
Who holds the keys
Every card in this directory carries a custody badge, because it is the question that decides what happens to a reader on the worst day. It is also the claim we see stated wrongly more than any other, usually in good faith.
The test is simple and it is not about how a trade is matched: can the operator move a customer's funds without the customer? If the answer is yes, the product is custodial. That stays true when trades are matched peer to peer, when no identity documents are collected, when the service describes itself as decentralised, and when funds sit in an internal ledger rather than a named account. Matching is not custody. Possession is.
A submission whose custody claim its own terms contradict is declined on that ground alone, however good the rest of it looks.
Claims we check word by word
These carry a specific meaning to someone deciding where to put their money, so we verify each one before repeating it. Use them where they are true and the check costs you nothing.
- Non-custodial — the operator cannot move user funds at any point.
- Open source — a public repository with a licence, matching what you ship.
- Audited — a named auditor, and a report we can read.
- End-to-end encrypted — you cannot read the contents yourself.
- No logs — set out in your privacy notice, saying what is and is not kept.
- Proof of reserves — a published attestation, not an intention.
- Insured — a policy, an insurer, and what it actually covers.
A claim that does not survive the check is not a wording problem. Somebody may deposit money on the strength of it, so we treat it as a reason to decline rather than a detail to tidy up in the edit.
If you hold customer funds
Then we also need to know who you are: an operating entity or named people, and the jurisdiction whose law your terms run under. A terms page that defers to “the jurisdiction in which we operate” without naming it does not answer this.
Custodial and anonymous is the one combination we will not list at any tier. It is not an accusation — it is that we would be sending readers to hand money to a party nobody can identify, and there is no version of this directory where that is worth the click.
Enough of a record to write about
Our listings say what a product is good for and what to watch out for, and neither sentence can be written about something with no users yet. A service with no meaningful history is usually a not-yet rather than a no. Tell us when that changes and we will look again.
It has to work when we look
We go through the flow a reader would go through: sign-up, the main screen, and whatever the product is for. If we cannot get through it, we cannot describe it. Broken pages, dead links, a market with nothing in it, placeholder copy left in production — any of those end the review, and all of them are fixable.
What happens after you send it
- You get an acknowledgement straight away, from a form and not a person.
- A person reads it and replies either way. We do not leave submissions unanswered.
- A yes creates a free listing, which we then write. You see it before anyone else and can correct a fact.
- A no names its reason and links the section of this page it came from.
- Most reasons are fixable. Put it right and send it again — we would rather look twice than have you assume the answer is permanent.
- One resubmission per 30 days, and only with the cited items actually addressed. A resubmission that repeats a declined claim unchanged is closed without review.
The thirty days are not a punishment. They are how long it takes to publish a terms page, name an operating entity, or get a month of trading behind you — and a resubmission sent the same afternoon is almost always the same submission with a different tone.
The Verified badge
A listing carries Verified when we have checked it against this page and it held up. It is not a tier and it is not for sale at any price — a sponsor and a free listing are equally able to earn it, and equally able to lose it.
It lapses after twelve months unless somebody checks again. That is deliberate: a verification that never expires is a statement about a company as it was, printed indefinitely as a statement about the company as it is.
You cannot apply for it and there is no fee to ask about. It is the ordinary outcome of a review that went well.
What none of this can be bought past
Nothing on this page is waivable for money. Paid placement moves a listing that already exists up its own category page, for as long as it is paid for, and that is the entire product — what sponsorship buys and what it cannot. We decide whether to list you before placement is ever discussed, so that the money is never what decided it.
These standards apply to every listing including the ones that pay us, and to listings already published: if something here stops being true of a product, the listing changes or goes. Last revised 21 September 2026.