Is Uphold safe? Licences, account freezes and incidents
Is Uphold safe?
The one licence Uphold claims was not found in an issuing authority's own register. Its terms let it freeze, suspend or close an account. Its terms restrict unlawful or unlicensed gambling only. 2 primary-source incidents are recorded, dated 2023-03-31 and 2026-04-29.
Documents last checked Reviewed by CryptoGuardz Register Desk, editorial desk
Disclosure: CryptoGuardz has no commercial relationship with Uphold and earns nothing if you open an account there. Every statement below is read from a document Uphold publishes or from a public register, and each carries the date it was read. Corrections go to the corrections page.
Uphold review: the documents
This is a review of the documents Uphold publishes and of the registers that should list it, not a test of the platform: no account was funded and no withdrawal was run. The binding terms name Uphold HQ Inc. as the company you contract with, and state no place of incorporation. The record quotes 8 clauses across 7 topics, read 2026-10-08, from 11 sources. The one licence Uphold claims was not found in an issuing authority's own register. 1 further licence it claims was not confirmed in any register. A proof of reserves is published, and the public page names no signer. The terms carry a clause on what happens to customer assets if the company fails, quoted below. Its terms restrict unlawful or unlicensed gambling only. 6 points could not be verified and are listed below.
Is my crypto safe on Uphold?
Uphold is a custodial exchange: coins on the account are held by the exchange, not by a key you control. What protects them is what the binding terms say about holding customer assets and about the company failing. One clause on holding customer assets is quoted below.
Although Uphold will retain internal ledgers indicating the amount and type of Funds held by each User, Funds will not be segregated by User and will be commingled with Funds of other Users.uphold.com
Insolvency and bankruptcy language in the terms, verbatim:
In the event of the insolvency of Uphold US, or its custodial partners, you understand that your rights to cryptoassets may, depending on the user's jurisdiction and applicable law, be treated as those of a general unsecured creditor under applicable bankruptcy law.uphold.com
Digital financial assets that Uphold US controls on your behalf are held for your benefit, are not the property of Uphold US, and are not subject to the claims of Uphold US’s creditors.uphold.com
Can Uphold freeze my account?
Yes, by its terms. The clause is quoted as written, followed by the clause on suspending withdrawals. Grounds named in the text: a legal, regulatory or court requirement, suspected fraud, money laundering or a suspicious transaction, a use or business its policy prohibits and a suspected breach of the terms or the law.
In some cases we may terminate, suspend or otherwise restrict your Account and use of the Platform if we suspect your Account(s) may be connected to any Prohibited Use or Prohibited Business, for suspected violation of this Agreement or any applicable agreements or policies, where required by applicable law, or to otherwise prevent potential loss.uphold.com
Uphold US may delay, suspend, or reverse transactions where required for fraud prevention, sanctions screening, BSA/AML review, or where required by law or by our banking or payment partners.uphold.com
Sending funds to a casino is a named trigger in a clause that restricts unlawful gambling:
Partake in any transaction involving online gambling except where permitted and with our prior written permissionuphold.com
Has Uphold been hacked or fined?
2 matters are recorded, each from the primary source linked beside it. The descriptions are the record’s, with the date. Other events may exist that no primary source in this collection confirms, so this list is not proof that there are no others.
The New York Attorney General announced that she had "secured more than $5 million from the cryptocurrency platform Uphold HQ, Inc. (Uphold) for misleading investors and promoting a fraudulent cryptocurrency investment scheme orchestrated by Cred, LLC (Cred)". The release states that the investigation "found that Uphold misleadingly promoted and offered Cred’s investment product, CredEarn, to its customers, in violation of New York law" and that "Uphold will pay $5 million to harmed investors". The settlement is an Assurance of Discontinuance, No. 26-005.
The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control announced: "OFAC Settles with Uphold HQ Inc. for $72,230.32 Related to Apparent Violations of Multiple Sanctions Programs". The enforcement release refers to 69 apparent violations of the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations and 25 apparent violations of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations, and also covers Venezuela-related transactions.
Uphold support and scams
The official domain in the record is uphold.com. Type it yourself rather than following a link from an ad, a search result or a message, and reach support only from inside the account you signed in to there.
Real support never asks for a seed phrase or for remote access to your device. An exchange account is opened with a login, not a recovery phrase, so a request for one is a request for a wallet you hold elsewhere. A request to install a screen-sharing or remote-desktop app hands the caller your signed-in session. Either one ends the conversation.
If money has already gone, the next message offering to get it back is the commonest second loss. The FBI, the FTC, the CFTC and the UK FCA have each published warnings about it, quoted on crypto scam recovery: what is real.
What we could not verify
The gaps in this record, as the record states them. A point listed here was looked for and not confirmed; it is neither a finding for Uphold nor against it.
- The state of organisation and company number of Uphold HQ Inc. Neither appears in the US agreement.
- State money transmitter licences. The agreement claims them without numbers and no state register was read.
- The FinCEN MSB registration. msb.fincen.gov is disallowed by robots.txt to the retrieval tool.
- Any EU or UK authorisation. The EEA and UK agreements were not read. The ESMA CASP register file was served truncated at 81,166 characters (ending at the DEBLOCK SAS row) on two attempts, so absence from it cannot be asserted. The FCA register returned a JavaScript error page on two attempts.
- Uphold's reserve figures. The transparency page shows them only after login.
- The USDT withdrawal networks. Uphold's support article on crypto network withdrawals and its USDT page do not list them; the article points to a networks table that was not located.