Zodl, the Zcash-focused self-custody wallet formerly known as Zashi, has removed claims that swaps through its integrated NEAR Intents service are "trustless" after a user said roughly $589,000 has remained inaccessible for more than seven weeks under a compliance review.
- The user, who posts as Timtech on the Zcash Community Forum, said they used Zodl on July 20 to swap 1,120 shielded ZEC into about $589,000 of USDT through NEAR Intents, a cross-chain trading system that matches users with independent liquidity providers.
- The initial ZEC-to-USDT swaps completed successfully.
- Timtech said they moved the resulting USDT through two newly created self-custody addresses before, about eight hours later, sending the same funds to a fresh NEAR Intents deposit address for another swap.
- The deposit confirmed on Ethereum but was never credited, according to the user, who published the addresses and transaction hash used in the transfer.
- NEAR Intents support initially described the issue as technical before telling him that the funds were subject to an administrative review.
NEAR Intents publicly says every swap quote goes through automated compliance checks using its own AML database as well as data from Binance, AMLBot, PureFi and TRM Labs.
Its documentation says transactions can be blocked when screening identifies certain risks.
- The Coinformer reached out to Zodl and NEAR Intent for comments and will update the story if the companies respond.
Compliance cleared, then reopened
On July 23, according to screenshots posted by Timtech, support said the compliance review had been "successfully concluded" and said the associated funds would be released.
The user then provided a refund address and support confirmed that a refund request had been raised.
The refund never arrived.
After weeks of follow-ups, NEAR Intents said on Aug. 26 that the transaction was instead subject to an ongoing compliance review with no definitive release timeframe.
A day later, support said additional verification had returned the case to pending status and that the refund couldn't be executed until final clearance, according to correspondence published by the user.
NEAR Intents didn't identify in those messages what had changed after the July clearance or when the review was reopened.
Zodl rewrites its 'trustless' claim
The dispute also exposed a change in how Zodl describes the swap service built into its wallet.
An archived version of Zodl's support page from Aug. 7 said swaps used the NEAR Intents "decentralised exchange," making them "trustless" and independent of a centralized third party.
The current page no longer makes either claim, Th Coinformer noticed.
Archived (top) Zodl Swap description vs new one (bottom). Source: Zodl
It instead says independent market makers compete to fill orders and that settlement is enforced on-chain by smart contracts. Zodl also added a warning that swaps are subject to NEAR's Terms of Service.
- Zodl acknowledged the change after Timtech raised the case publicly.
- "Zodl does not hold or control the assets involved in the transaction," the wallet team said on the forum, adding that it had escalated the case with the team supporting its NEAR Intents integration.
- Zodl also said it couldn't discuss the transaction while the compliance review remained ongoing, but confirmed that it had changed its documentation and public language "to describe the NEAR Intents integration more precisely."
- The distinction is particularly relevant for Zodl, whose team includes former Electric Coin Company developers behind Zcash and the original Zashi wallet.
- The company says its mission is to bring private, shielded ZEC to billions of users while opposing mass financial surveillance.
- As of the latest public update, there was no indication that the roughly $589,000 had been returned.