Terms and Conditions

When you create an account with us, you must provide us information that is accurate, complete, and current at all times. Failure to do so constitutes a breach of the Terms, which may result in immediate termination of your account on our Service. You are responsible for safeguarding the password that you use to access the Service and for any activities or actions under your password, whether your password is with our Service or a third-party service. You agree not to disclose your password to any third party. You must notify us immediately upon becoming aware of any breach of security or unauthorized use of your account.

We reserve the right to change these Terms from time to time, with or without notice to you. If you continue to use the Services, you consent to the new Terms, as modified. Any changes to these Terms will become effective on the “Effective Date” indicated above. If you continue to use the Services after the Effective Date, you consent to the new Terms. We will always have the latest Terms posted on the Services.

The Services provide users an easy-to-use, secure Cryptocurrency exchange. Subject to these Terms, users that meet the eligibility requirements described below are able to buy Cryptocurrency.

SAO is a regulated financial institution. As such, we endeavor to comply with all laws and regulations applicable to our business, including anti-money laundering and terrorism financing (“AML”) and Know Your Customer/Client (KYC) regulations.

Identification and verification procedures (also known as "Know Your Customer" or "KYC") are required for all the Transactions. If the User refuses to provide required documents and information under KYC, SAO reserves the right to immediately terminate the Services provision to the User.

The User undertakes to provide SAO with correct and relevant documents and personal information contained therein. In case the User provides counterfeit documents and false personal information, such behavior will be interpreted as a fraudulent activity.

The User hereby authorizes SAO to, directly or indirectly (through third parties), make any inquiries we consider necessary to verify the relevance and accuracy of the information provided for verification purposes. Personal Data transferred will be limited strictly to necessary data and with security measures to protect the data.

To be eligible to use the Services, you must meet the following requirements:

• You must be at least 18 years old.
• You must register for a SAO user account via the Services (a “User Account”) and successfully complete the identity verification process described below.
• You must reside in a state or jurisdiction in which we operate.

By signing up for a User Account, you represent and warrant that you are a resident of a state or jurisdiction in which we operate and meet all of the eligibility criteria for the Service.

The User has the right to enter and use the Site and the Services, as long as he/she agrees to and actually complies with the Terms of Use. By using the Site, the User agrees to accept and comply with the terms and conditions stated herein.

• The User undertakes to read the entire Terms of Use carefully before using the Site or any of the Services provided by SAO.
• The User undertakes to comply with any and all applicable laws and regulations related to the use of the Services.
• The User undertakes to monitor all and any changes on his/her Account.
• The User undertakes to immediately (i.e. right after the moment of discovery) inform SAO about any unusual, suspicious, unclear or abnormal changes on his/her Account. In case of late notice or lack of notice, the User will be liable for the breach of the Terms of Use and SAO will have the right to take any further steps accordingly, including but not limited to, reports to the relevant state or national authorities.
• The User is responsible for any and all damages caused, and all liability actions brought against SAO, for infringement of any third-party rights or violation of any applicable laws.

Nothing in the Terms of Use excludes or limits the liability of the User for fraud, death or personal injury caused by their negligence, breach of the terms implied by operation of law or any other liability which may not be limited or excluded by law.

As a regulated financial institution, we are required to obtain information about and verify the identity of our users. To comply with our KYC/AML obligations, we will request that you provide certain information to us about you. This information will be used by us for the purposes of identity verification and the detection of money laundering, terrorist financing, fraud, or any other financial crimes. You agree that all such information provided by you will be complete and accurate, that you will keep us updated if any of the information you provide changes, and that we may keep a record of such information consistent with our KYC/AML obligations.

In addition to collecting information from you, we are required to take reasonable steps to verify your identity as a user. You expressly authorize SAO to take any and all actions that we reasonably deem necessary to verify your identity or protect you and/or us against fraud or other financial crime. These may include, but are not limited to, engaging third-party services to assist with such verification efforts, sharing your information with such third parties, and collecting additional information about you from such third parties.

Your privacy is important to us. We only share your information with third parties as outlined in our Privacy Policy or as required to do so by law enforcement, court order, or in compliance with identity verification or legal reporting obligations in SAO’s sole judgment.

Subject to the eligibility and verification requirements set for in these Terms, you will provide us with a digital wallet to hold Cryptocurrency (a “Wallet”). You agree and acknowledge that the Wallet only supports Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT and no other digital currencies. SAO currently only allows ERC-20 wallets to exchange your fiat.  You will be informed in the future of any changes made to this policy.  You may not attempt to transfer to or store in your Wallet any other digital currency or any other asset other than Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT. SAO assumes no responsibility for any violation, or attempted violation, of the foregoing, which may result in loss of assets.  In addition, SAO may run an analysis on your wallet looking for connection to any black listed wallets or any illegal activity.  Should a connection be established your account will be terminated and a report will be filed with the appropriate governing bodies.  The wallet you enter when requesting a deposit is your responsibility.  SAO takes no responsibility for loss of funds due to any activity once funds are settled to the wallet you provided.  Etherscan can be provided on any transaction matching the wallet to your deposit request.

SAO does not own or borrow any Cryptocurrency in your Wallet. Rather, all Cryptocurrency in your Wallet after settlement with SAO are solely your responsibility.  As the wallet owner, you alone bear all risk of loss, including loss of value, associated with the Cryptocurrency in your Wallet.

You understand and acknowledge that Cryptocurrency is not subject to protections or insurance provided by any agency or organization. SAO will have no responsibility or liability to you or anyone else for any loss in the value of Cryptocurrency held in your Wallet.

We do not make any guarantees or representations as to the accuracy of the Cryptocurrency price listed on the Services as of any point in time. We determine the sell-price of Cryptocurrency at our discretion based on available market information. SAO will not be responsible for any differences between the sell-price of Cryptocurrency listed on the Services and the prices listed on any third-party services.

In order to detect money laundering, fraud and other criminal activity, we may impose certain limitations on your User Account and your ability to buy Cryptocurrency. These may include, but are not limited to, the following measures:

• Subject to these Terms, you may request an exchange and send your funds for deposit after registering a User Account and submitting the required information but before we have verified your eligibility. This may cause funds to be returned to you minus any fees arising out of SAO doing so.  It may also cause the termination of your account.
• We impose limits on the amount of Cryptocurrency you can purchase in a given period. Your transaction limits may vary depending on a number of factors, including the verification steps you have completed. To view your transaction limits, you may review this knowledge base article. We reserve the right to change applicable limits as we deem necessary in our sole discretion.  As a general rule SAO only allows you to exchange 75% of available funds shown in an eligible bank account and only 50% if you're over the age of 79.  Other factors at compliance's sole discretion may lower these limits.

When you sell Cryptocurrency using the Services, we charge a transaction fee. Our most updated transaction fees are always included on the Services. By using the Services, you agree that we may collect our transaction fees by reducing them from your Available Balance.

Please note that our fees are subject to change from time, which notice may be provided at any time by posting the changes to the Services or otherwise communicated to you in writing. Your continued use of the Services after the effective date of such change will constitute your agreement to pay the updated fees.

In addition to our fees, you may also be charged miner fees related to the executing of a Blockchain transaction. You agree that we may collect such third-party fees by reducing them from your Available Balance.

Please be advised that Cryptocurrency transactions are not reversible. As such, once a sell order is completed or is in pending status, it may not be cancelled. Similarly, you should exercise caution when making transfers from and to your Wallet, as such transactions cannot be stopped once initiated.  You provide the wallet with the exchange request and as such you bear complete liability for the accuracy and ownership of that wallet.

When you or any third-party transfers Cryptocurrency to your Wallet, you are solely responsible for said transfers. The transferring party (whether you or a third party) shall be solely responsible for executing the transaction properly. SAO assumes no responsibility for, and shall not be liable to you or any third party, for any lost Cryptocurrency or other assets as a result of an incorrect Cryptocurrency address, inadequate network/miner fees, an attempt to transfer any digital assets other than Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT to your Wallet, or any other improper transfer instructions.

Similarly, when you transfer Cryptocurrency from your Wallet to an external address, you are solely responsible for ensuring that the recipient is able to receive the Cryptocurrency and that the instructions you provide to us are accurate. SAO assumes no responsibility for, and shall not be liable to you or any third party for, any Cryptocurrency in your Wallet once an outbound transfer is initiated pursuant to your instructions.

Your purchase and sale of Cryptocurrency may be subject to certain tax obligations. It is your sole responsibility to determine whether, and to what extent, any taxes apply to any transactions you conduct through the Services, and to withhold, collect, report and remit the correct amounts of taxes to the appropriate tax authorities. Your transaction history is available through your User Account.

If your User Account is closed or becomes inactive, we may be required to report any remaining Cryptocurrency in your User Account to the authorities after the passage of applicable waiting periods specified by law. If this occurs, we will attempt to contact you at the e-mail and mailing address we have on file for you. If we are unable to contact you after a reasonable amount of time, we may be required to deliver such Cryptocurrency to the authorities.

If we have reason to believe that you have died (including if we receive legal documentation of your death), we will suspend your User Account. We may also take steps to investigate, including through third parties, whether you have died. If we reasonably determine that you have died, any Cryptocurrency in you User Account will be held until your designated fiduciary creates a new User Account and undergoes our verification procedures set forth in these Terms. You agree that your fiduciary may not access your Cryptocurrency unless and until he or she creates a new User Account. If you have not designated a fiduciary on your User Account, we may either require an order designating a fiduciary from a court having competent jurisdiction over your estate or otherwise determine a fiduciary entitled to inherit your Cryptocurrency based on our review of your will, trust, or other legal documentation.

The Services contain important and proprietary property owned by us, including software, that constitutes our trademarks, trade secrets and other intellectual property. Nothing in these Terms shall be construed as a conveyance of any ownership right or title in or to our property. We only grant you a limited, nonexclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, and revocable license to use the Services for the purposes permitted by these Terms, and only for as long as you are permitted to access the Services.

The Services, including any images, illustrations, posts, audio clips, photographs, editorial content, notices, software (including html-based computer programs), and other content related to the Services, are the property of SAO and its affiliates, or are the property of a third party who has granted SAO permission to use such material, and in any case are protected from unauthorized copying and dissemination by copyrights that are owned or licensed by SAO and by copyright law, trademark law, international conventions and other intellectual property laws. All logos or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. You may not reproduce, perform, create derivative works from, republish, upload, post, transmit, distribute, decompile, reverse-engineer, disassemble, or otherwise convert in any way whatsoever any materials from the Services without our prior written permission. Nothing contained on these Terms should be construed as granting, by implication, estoppel, or otherwise, any license or right to use the Services or any information displayed on the Services except: (a) as expressly permitted by these Terms or (b) with the prior written permission of SAO or such third party that may own the trademark or copyright of information displayed on the Services.

You covenant and represent that you will not use the Services to engage in, or aid or abet in, the violation of any law, statute, ordinance, or regulation. These include, without limitation, violation of any sanction’s programs administered in any jurisdiction in which we operate.

Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, you may not use the Services in connection with any of the following businesses or activities:

• Intellectual property or proprietary rights infringement: sales, distribution, or access to counterfeit music, movies, software, or other licensed materials without the appropriate authorization from the rights holder; any product or service that directly infringes or facilitates infringement upon the trademark, patent, copyright, trade secrets, or proprietary or privacy rights of any third party;
• Counterfeit or unauthorized goods: sale of counterfeit goods; unauthorized sale or resale of brand name or designer products or services; sale of goods or services that are illegally imported or exported;

In addition to the above, you may not engage in any of the following activities on the Services:

• Violating the rights, including intellectual property rights, of others;
• Activities that could be harmful to minors;
• Harassment of others;
• Transmission of "junk mail" or unsolicited mass mailing or "spam" or harvesting;
• Abusive, threatening, obscene, defamatory or libelous conduct;
• Soliciting passwords or personally identifiable information for unlawful purposes from other users of the Services;
• Using any robot, spider, other automatic device, or manual process to monitor, copy, or "scrape" web pages or the content contained in the Services or for any other unauthorized purpose without our prior written consent;
• Using any device, software, or routine to interfere with, or attempt to interfere with, the proper working of the Services;
• Decompiling, reverse engineering, or disassembling the software underlying the Services or attempting to do so; or
• Taking any action that imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on the Services or our hardware and software infrastructure or that of any of its licensors or suppliers.

We reserve the right to take action to limit or prevent your access to our Services if we, in our sole discretion, determine that limiting or preventing your access to our Services is necessary or advisable. Circumstances in which we may limit or prevent your access to our Services include, but are not limited to, if we deem that such action is necessary based on: (i) your use of the Services in a way that is unlawful or would potentially expose us to liability; (ii) disruption of the Services by you to others; (iii) your violation of these Terms or our Privacy Policy; (iv) your violation of any applicable laws, rules, regulations, and agreements that may apply to you; and (v) your use of the Services in a way that could cause harm to any person or entity. Such action may include, without limitation, reversing any Cryptocurrency transaction, suspending your User Account, or terminating your access to the Services provided by SAO.

If you would like to terminate this legally binding agreement with SAO, you must contact us at support@sao-exchange.com to deactivate your User Account. We may request certain information and/or documentation to verify your request to deactivate your User Account. Upon any termination of this Agreement, whether by you or by us, you must discontinue any further use of the Services. Once deactivated, you may request to re-activate your User Account. We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to determine whether to re-activate your User Account. Please note that even if you terminate your User Account, we may retain information about you consistent with our KYC/AML obligations and our Privacy Policy.

Notwithstanding any termination of these Terms, any provision of these Terms that by its nature and context is intended to survive its termination will so survive. These include, without limitation, provisions related to limitation of our liability, disclaimer of warranties, our intellectual property rights, indemnity and dispute resolution.

SAO MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS TO THE CONTENT OR OPERATION OF THE SERVICES OR OF THE SERVICES. YOU EXPRESSLY AGREE THAT YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES OF ANY KIND (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, LOST PROFITS, OR LOST DATA, REGARDLESS OF THE FORESEEABILITY OF THOSE DAMAGES) ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES ARISING FROM OR RELATED TO ANY OF THE FOLLOWING: ANY HARM OR DAMAGE CAUSED BY, OR OTHERWISE RELATED TO, YOUR RELIANCE ON INFORMATION PROVIDED THROUGH THE SERVICES; ANY LOSS OR UNAUTHORIZED DISCLOSURE OF DATA; ANY HARM OR DAMAGE CAUSED BY, OR OTHERWISE RELATED TO, YOUR USE OF OR INTERACTION WITH ANY SERVICES OFFERED THROUGH THE SERVICES; AND ANY VIOLATIONS OF APPLICABLE LAWS, RULES, REGULATIONS, AND OTHER AGREEMENTS. THIS LIMITATION SHALL APPLY REGARDLESS OF THE LEGAL THEORY OR FORM OF ACTION.

THE LIMITATIONS OF DAMAGES SET FORTH ABOVE ARE FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENTS OF THE BASIS OF THE BARGAIN BETWEEN YOU AND US. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR CERTAIN TYPES OF DAMAGES OR CAUSES OF ACTION, SO THE ABOVE LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

This website and rules of using this website is regulated under the laws of Canada. Any legal proceeding in respect to using this website shall be brought in the district courts of country of Canada, and these courts shall have subject matter jurisdiction of all such disputes.

If you have any questions, concerns or complaints about the Services, your User Account, these Terms, or anything else, please contact our support team at support@sao-exchnage.com . We may ask you certain information about you and your User Account to respond to your inquiry.

By agreeing to these Terms, you consent to receiving all communications, agreements, disclosures, and notices related to your use of the Services electronically. These may include, but are not limited to, your consent to these Terms, any updates to these Terms and our Privacy Policy, details and notices about your User Account and Cryptocurrency transactions, and any other disclosures and notices. We will communicate all electronic disclosures to you by posting them on the SAO website or via e-mail at the address associated with your User Account, and are deemed received as of the time and date sent by SAO.

To access documents electronically, you will need to have access to the SAO website and your e-mail address using an Internet-connected device and a compatible web browser with cookies enabled. You may retain documents in paper form by printing them using a printer, or electronically by saving them to a hard drive or cloud storage with sufficient space.

You agree to keep your e-mail address updated at all times. You may update your contact information by logging into your User Account and updating the information in your account settings page.

If you wish to withdraw your consent to receiving electronic disclosures, you must contact us at support@sao-exchnage.com, in which case we may deactivate your User Account and terminate your access to the Services, as described above. If we choose to provide communications to you by paper, we may charge you additional fees.

If, for whatever reason, any term or condition in these Terms is found unenforceable, all other terms and conditions will remain unaffected and in full force and effect.

If you have any questions about these Terms or our Services, please feel free to contact us by e-mail at support@sao-exchange.com.