lenoirfoundation.org

Posting this because a buddy got burned last week and I keep typing the same thing into DMs.

Before you send a single sat to a new site, here's what I actually do. Takes maybe ten minutes.

Look up the license and then ignore the badge, click it. A real one links to a regulator page where the operator is listed by name. Curacao and Anjouan are both common and both pretty light touch, so the license alone tells you almost nothing. It's a starting point, not a stamp of approval.

Find the cashout terms. Min withdrawal, daily and monthly caps, and whether KYC kicks in at deposit or only at withdrawal. No KYC at signup just means less friction to start, email and password. It does not mean you stay anonymous forever, they can still ask for ID on a big or risky withdrawal.

Then I send the smallest deposit allowed and immediately try to withdraw most of it. The test cashout tells you more than every review on the internet.

What's on your checklist that I'm missing?

Good list. I'd add the fairness check if they advertise provably fair. Don't take the badge at face value, open the verifier. You should be able to see the server seed hash up front, set your own client seed, and after the round reveal the server seed and confirm the hash matches.

If there's no verifier or the seeds aren't user settable, it's just marketing. Takes two minutes and it's the one thing you can actually mathematically confirm instead of trusting.

Test withdrawal is the single best tip here, can't stress it enough.

One more: check what networks they support and what the fee is on each. A place that only does ETH mainnet and eats a chunk of a small cashout in gas is annoying. I look for TRC-20 or Solana for USDT specifically, fees are basically nothing and it lands fast. Saw a site once quietly charge a flat withdrawal fee on top of network cost, found it only because I read the cashout page first.

honestly half of this is overthinking it for the average person but the test cashout and reading the cap is the part nobody does and it's the part that matters.

min deposit in, win or just turn it over once, pull it. if it lands clean you learned more than a year of reading reviews. if they suddenly need a utility bill for a 50 dollar withdrawal you found your answer cheap.

All solid. The one I'd push harder on is proof of reserves, because everything else can look perfect on a site that's quietly insolvent.

A test cashout works great until the day a lot of people try at once. If an operator won't show a wallet you can watch on chain or any third party attestation, assume they're running on float and don't keep a balance there. Vet the withdrawal, sure, but also vet whether the money is even there to begin with.