Trying to figure out just where to begin when it comes to crypto investing can be pretty daunting. New investors can easily become overwhelmed by the sea of new and over-complicated information that often leaves them feeling more confused than before they started out.
That’s why we’re going to start at the very beginning: choosing a trustworthy exchange to buy, sell and hold your crypto assets. Today, we’re going to take an unbiased look at everything that you need to know about the Australian-owned crypto exchange: CoinSpot.
What is CoinSpot?
CoinSpot is Australia’s largest crypto exchange, founded in 2013 by cyber-security expert Russell Wilson. It was one of the first major crypto exchanges created in Australia and since opening its doors, CoinSpot has continually offered one of the largest selections of digital assets in the crypto market. As of today, CoinSpot offers the largest selection of digital assets in Australia: with over 350+ cryptocurrencies available for trading on the platform.
This means that investors can purchase everything from Bitcoin (BTC) all the way down to the random altcoin a friend of yours told you to check out over beers last week. CoinSpot is also Australia’s most trusted and secure cryptocurrency exchange, with over 2 million users.
To get a better understanding of CoinSpot, let’s use a classic Pros & Cons list to weigh up the verdict.
Pros & Cons of CoinSpot
Pros
- Beginner Friendly: If you’re new to cryptocurrency, then Coinspot is the exchange for you. The CoinSpot app is one of the most beginner-friendly and simple to use crypto apps available anywhere. If you just want to buy and hold crypto assets, CoinSpot takes out all the complicated and unnecessary “trading” jargon, charts and info so that users can focus on the simple stuff.
- Best Platform for Australian Users: One of the biggest setbacks for Australian users when navigating other exchanges like Binance or Crypto.com is that prices are natively denominated in US Dollars. While this might be fine for more advanced users, most everyday Aussie crypto investors just want to be able to transact easily in AUD. CoinSpot makes this possible with AUD only transactions and viewing.
- Massive Selection of Major Tokens & AltCoins: Perhaps one of the most frustrating experiences is getting completely set up on a new app or platform and then realising that the random, super niche altcoin your mate mentioned to you isn’t actually available on this random app you’ve just installed. With a selection of over 350 digital assets, CoinSpot has one of the most comprehensive coverages of all the weird and wonderful tokens you could possibly ask for.
- 24/7 Customer Support via Live Chat / Help Desk: Great customer support may not be the first thing investors think of when it comes to crypto trading, but it really can be a deal breaker when digital assets get transferred to the wrong place and you get stuck with a “help-bot” that is anything but helpful. That’s why CoinSpot now offers a Live Chat support feature where users can interact a real human person, which if you find yourself needing assistance with monetary issues can be a life-saver.
- Low Fees: CoinSpot offers extremely low fees for market orders (0.1% per trade) and competitive fees for instant purchasing (1% p
Cons
- AUD Only Transactions: While pure Australian Dollar deposits and transaction may be great for the fresh new Aussie investor, this feature can end up becoming a little limiting once investors develop more proficiency and become interested in trading. If you’re just looking to buy and sell crypto quickly and easily without any super fancy bells and whistles then this won’t be a problem for you.
- Not The Lowest Fees: CoinSpot does offer low fees for trading (0.1% for market trades), the instant purchasing option incurs a 1% fee. There are other exchanges like Swyftx that offer lower instant purchasing fees (0.6%), but unless users are purchasing cryptocurrency quite frequently this discrepancy tends not to be a major deal-breaker.
CoinSpot Fees Explained
Fees are ultimately how crypto exchanges and platforms make their money, so it’s really important for investors to understand how much they’re paying every time they make a trade. Fee structuring can be pretty tricky, as platforms often like to disguise hidden costs in the form of strange fees.
Here are the main types of fees that users of CoinSpot will come across:
CoinSpot Deposit Fees
The first fee that crypto investors will encounter is the Deposit Fee. This is because investors need to deposit funds before they can start trading. CoinSpot offers a healthy range of deposit methods, with the most popular options incurring zero fee.
Instant deposits using POLi, PayID, or Direct Deposit (via OSKO) are all free of charge on CoinSpot.
BPAY deposits incur a 0.9% deposit fee while physical cash deposits at a Blueshyft newsagent will incur a 2.5% deposit fee.
CoinSpot Transaction Fees
There are a couple of different transaction fees on CoinSpot, and they can get a be tricky if you’re not up to speed with what the different terminology for buying and selling is.
Market Trades: 0.1% fee – All market trades will incur a 0.1% fee. Market trades are when you set a price that you want to buy or sell a cryptocurrency at, and it will be filled when another trader fills that order. This means that you could end up waiting anywhere from a few minutes to several days depending on what you enter as your market price. CoinSpot does not offer all 350+ coins in their market trade section. It only has 20 options at the time of writing, but they cover most of the major coins. These include BTC, ETH, BNB, XRP, ADA etc.
Instant Buy/Sell: 1% fee – If you want to buy cryptocurrency straight away at whatever the market price is, CoinSpot will make sure your purchase orders goes through for you right away. The good thing about “Instant” purchasing is that unlike market trades, you don’t need to worry about price fluctuations while you wait for your order to be filled. Instant purchasing is available for all 350+ crypto assets offered on CoinSpot.
OTC Trades: 0.1% fee – This one is reserved is for the bigger boys. Users who perform high-volume transactions can use CoinSpot’s OTC (Over-The-Counter) Trading Desk, which has instant settlement. This is usually the recommended option for transactions of $50,000 AUD or more.
Advanced Trading Tools: 1% fee – If you become more familiar with the details of crypto trading, using tools such as: Recurring Buy, Take Profit, Stop Loss and Limit Orders will all incur a 1% fee as well.
CoinSwap: 1% fee – “Swapping” refers to buying and selling coins with instant liquidity from one coin to any other coin on the platform. This means that CoinSpot users can “swap” their Bitcoin (BTC) to Ethereum (ETH) straight away, without having to transact back into AUD. Once again, CoinSpot offers a very wide array of unique trading pairs that are not available on other exchanges or platforms.
Is CoinSpot Safe to Use?
No matter your experience level, the security and safety of the platform used to buy and sell digital assets is usually a top concern for crypto investors. This is where CoinSpot really shines, as it is actually Australia’s safest and most security-oriented cryptocurrency platform.
CoinSpot is a certified member of Blockchain Australia, a registered member of the Australian Digital Commerce Association and is also registered with AUSTRAC. It is also the only Australian crypto exchange to receive ISO 27001 certification which is one of the highest levels of information security possible.
All CoinSpot activity is further protected by 2FA (two-factor authentication) that requires investors to enter a code generated on their registered mobile device to sign in to the CoinSpot platform.
Being a crypto exchange, Coinspot provides its own custodial crypto wallet to securely store assets.
CoinSpot Alternatives
If CoinSpot isn’t exactly what you’re looking for, there are plenty of alternative. The alternatives listed here are ranked in order of similarity and preference for using Australian Dollars.
- Cointree: An Australian operated exchange and fully AUSTRAC-regulated. Offers similar features to CoinSpot but with a smaller selection of tokens and slightly higher fees.
- Digital Surge: Another Australian exchange with more than 200 cryptocurrencies that operates natively in AUD. Has a quick verification process but higher fees than CoinSpot.
- Swyftx: Also an Australian platform with more than 260 digital assets available. Swyftx offers slightly lower trading fees and also allows users to ‘stake’ their crypto assets to generate passive income.
- Binance: The largest crypto exchange in the world based on daily trading volume. Binance is oriented more strongly towards non-Australian users and is more suitable for advanced traders looking for niche pairs.
- Coinbase: Possibly the most well-known exchange in the world. Investors can trade a variety of different cryptocurrencies but fees are high and all values are denominated in USD.
- eToro: Offers commission-free crypto trades with the added bonus of social and copy trading.
Overall Coinspot Conclusion:
CoinSpot is by far the best crypto exchange for Australian investors who are looking for an easy to use platform. CoinSpot’s user-friendly design makes it possible for a complete beginner to navigate their app with ease. Live Chat support has been recently introduced, meaning that CoinSpot users can speak to a real human instead of getting stuck in an endless loop with a useless help-bot…
Secondly, CoinSpot is Australia’s most trusted and secure crypto exchange. It has undergone the most audits and is the only Australian crypto exchange to receive ISO 27001 certification (extremely high information security). CoinSpot is also registered with AUSTRAC actively preventing financial crimes, scamming and any other unsavoury business from occurring on the platform.
Finally, CoinSpot’s selection of over 350+ different cryptocurrencies is one of the widest ranges in Australia. Investors will be able to purchase all of the major crypto assets, such as BTC, ETH, BNB, XRP, ADA, as well as just about any altcoin that you could think of.