Does Coinmama really match up to all other Bitcoin & Ethereum exchanges in the market? You probably have heard how this crypto sales-only platform has enticed a million users worldwide through its relatively amenable global credit-card purchases policy. I’m going to show you that it’s all true for the whole of this article- while the site stays relatively small, they haven’t encountered any recognized security breaches, and they keep to successfully increase their market share in the midst of large trading sites.
Coinmama is a product of New Bit Ventures Ltd, an Israeli exchange established by bitcoin aficionados Nimrod Gruber and Ian Shuster in April 2013. It’s registered with FinCEN in the United States as a money service business (MSB), but its main offices are situated in Ra’anana, Israel.
The exchange is best recognized for aiding the buying of bitcoins and ether with debit and credit cards. Its services are available from most areas of the world. The sole hindrance that may be faced by a lot of users, except in the US, is the inaccessibility of Visa or Mastercard services in their area of residence.
Benefits of using Coinmama
- Coinmama accepts debit & credit cards from more than 180 countries around the world. This is a great advantage over other larger exchanges such as Coinbase or Bitstamp
- Possible to deposit through Western Union payments- hence, this makes Coinmama the only exchange to enable “cash” deposits
- Delivers in a few minutes after an order is made, enabling users to create the most of the advantageous price changes
- Doesn’t secure user funds but sells from its holdings. This type of setup makes Coinmama remarkably more secure
- Provides a high daily purchasing limit of $50,000 for new signups. Its limit is hence multiple times the limit of premier exchanges, like Blockchain.info or Cex
Downsides to using Coinmama
- No traditional trading platform/interface or trading tools, like charts. Users can only create simple purchase orders. Bigger exchanges such as Kraken & Bitstamp offer the option of putting advanced trades through the graph interface.
- Bank wire and SEPA payments aren’t accepted. Although the credit card is a very famous deposit method, a lot of users like to have a wider option and SEPA is normally the 2nd most famous payment method.
- Doesn’t offer a free bitcoin bonus, such as Coinbase’s $10 reward system
- They only sell cryptocurrency, not buy it back from you
- Only supports bitcoin and ether. I don’t think they have plans of bringing on other main altcoins
- More pricey than other exchanges- price goes up to 12% per transaction
- Similar to most exchanges, Coinmama needs identification to purchase. Other places allow users to buy without ID
- Doesn’t have any mobile application or API for developers to create third-party tools. Other bigger exchanges, like Coinbase or Kraken, have such feature
Coinmama Performance And Features
Depending on local rules, services aren’t available to most US states. The states where you can access Coinmama are Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Montana, North Carolina, South Carolina, California, Pennsylvania, and Texas.
Despite its limited accessibility, Coinmama receives the highest number of US visitors (32.13%) according to the site analysis platform Similarweb.com‘s reports. The countries that make the most traffic to Coinmama.com include UK (5.15%), Israel (3.68%), Canada (3.49%), and France (3.33%).
Coinmama, however, receives the least number of monthly visitors (0.6 million per month) as compared to other major exchanges. On the regular, Poloniex receives about 44 million, Coinbase 34 million, Kraken 14 million, and CEX.io 2.5 million.
Although Coinmama’s services are available through a mobile browser, it doesn’t have a mobile application. The exchange is yet to offer an API for users to make custom applications that are suitable for the platform. Since Coinmama isn’t a trading platform, there’s little need. It’s always good to transact between you and Coinmama.
Account Registration And Verification Process
Coinmama needs personal identifying information to meet the requirements of Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulators.
When opening an account, you need to provide your email address, name, and country of residence. Your account needs to be verified before you can purchase any bitcoins or others. The verification form includes several personal information including full name, birth date, gender, address, and credit or debit card number.
As part of the verification process, you also need to submit the photos of your front and back sides of your identification document. You can use your passport, national ID card, or driver’s license as an identification document. After you have submitted your application, you’ll have to wait up to a day for your Coinmama verification and activation. The process becomes longer if you have made your application a day before a public holiday or weekend.
Poor quality ID photos are mostly the reason why applications are declined. To prevent this from happening, make sure that you use high-resolution ID photos with visible four corners.
Once your account is verified, you can purchase bitcoins or ether worth $150,000 max. You’ll need to contact support if you like to purchase more. Unlike other exchanges, Coinmama provides one of the highest daily purchase limits of bitcoins or ethers immediately after your account is verified.
For instance, Coinbase offers a purchasing limit of $200 for new signups, Kraken limits new account to $2,500, and Poloniex imposes a limit of $2,000. In comparison to Poloniex or Kraken, Coinmama doesn’t offer account tiers.
Coinmama Security
To do a full coinmama review, let’s take a look at its safety in purchasing bitcoin and ether.
Just like with any centralized services, these signify main targets for hacking. Coinmama, however, doesn’t hold user funds and instead sells its own holdings of bitcoins. You need to provide a wallet address to send your bitcoins or ether when you make an order.
The security of Coinamama hasn’t experienced any breaches as of October 2017. That’s quite an achievement when compared to Coinbase, who had one recently.
As long as the platform approves the use of your debit or credit card, your order is executed in a few minutes after you place it. If you cancel your order, the system automatically nullifies the payment within 48 hours and the money goes back to your bank account.
In online forums, a few users complained about the charge of their card even if the exchange failed to deliver the coins bought. This is not a common event, however.
While Coinmama doesn’t have user funds in their inventory, users may still experience losses if the exchange gets hacked. User credit card information is a common target for theft aside from cryptocurrency funds that belong to the exchange. To assure customers, Coinmama doesn’t store the credit and debit card information on their server.
Coinmama also reiterates that their system encrypts and stores personal information on secured servers.
Crypto Assets Offered
Coinmama currently supports bitcoin and either, but they’re aiming to add more cryptocurrencies in the future. While all exchanges began as marketplaces for buying and selling bitcoins, many exchanges have added Etherium and other cryptocurrencies that have been available and become famous.
As compared to other major exchanges, Coinmama is one of those that support the least number of cryptocurrencies. Poloniex supports more than 70 crypto assets, Shapeshift supports 50, and Coinbase 5.
Coinmama is unique because it alone sells cryptocurrency without buying it back, unlike other major exchanges. Some exchanges, like Poloniex and Bitstamp, match purchasers and sellers. Others like Coinbase purchase and sell directly from users.
The exchange doesn’t reveal the supplier of bitcoins and ethers. A thorough assessment of the exchange always requires a search on the Internet. As a result, I came across a user named Coinmama on Localbitcoins who gives an implication that the exchange may purchase the bulk of bitcoins from other exchanges’ users.
Unlike other major exchanges, Coinmama doesn’t provide any trading tools, like charts and price notifications. If you’re a trader, you can only utilize the platform to purchase bitcoins or ethers to hold for a long time.
Charges And Fees
Coinmama is among the most expensive exchanges. With a minimum deposit of $10, each credit or debit card deposit you make is charged by 5%. This charge is on top of the exchange transaction fee of 6.3%.
CEX, on the other hand, charges a transaction fee of 3.5% while BitPanda and Coinbase charge 5% and 3.75%, respectively. A larger gap in the cost of trade is even obtained if users use other platforms to trade between crypto assets. As a general rule, you can assume exchanges to charge less when you’re purchasing cryptocurrencies with other cryptocurrencies.
Payment Methods
The best strength of Coinmama is its ability to facilitate bitcoin purchasing using debit and credit cards from a lot of countries. Currently, it accepts Visa, MasterCard, and via the Western Union. By creating special arrangements with support, you can also use the money to purchase bitcoins or ether.
While Coinmama offers a limited range of payment methods, most other exchanges like Coinbase, CEX, and Bitstamp offer a wide range of payment methods including bank wire, SEPA, and altcoins. This makes Coinmama less attractive compared to its competitors.
Whatever your preference, Coinmama accepts any local flat currency when using a credit or debit card. The price is shown, however, at either EUR or USD. In the future, the exchange has pledged to add more fiat currencies.
Customer Service And Support
The main channel to communicate Coinmama support is via email. As compared to its competitors, Coinmama’s customer support responds quickly, with queries consistently answered within 24 hours. Replies are longer during public holidays and over the weekend.
The knowledge-base platform is very detailed as it offers replies to most common queries. Moreover, the support team also answers queries that remain on their blog.
One of the most common customer complaints is the slow process of account verification. Others also say that they’re not able to successfully place orders after coinmama verification.
Best Alternative Sites
There are a lot of sites similar to Coinmama that work in two-way trading. Here are some of these alternative sites:
- Coinbase – very famous and its platform is easy to use. Check my review of Coinbase for details. Purchases can be made through credit card and bank transfer. (USA)
- CEX – easy to use similar to Coinmama. Purchases can be made through credit card and bank transfer deposits. (UK)
- Bitstamp – has a different interface for beginner and advanced users. This Bitstamp review details the card and bank transfer purchases. (Luxembourg)
- Blockchain.info – the largest online wallet in the world. Just like Coinmama, there’s no bitcoin selling and users can only create buy orders. Credit card purchases available for EU users. (UK)
Do you have a good or bad experience with Coinmama? Tell us your experience and anything that you like to add in this review. Let me know your thoughts in the comment section.
