Established in Melbourne, Australia in September 2013, cryptocurrency exchange BTCMarkets was founded by Martin Bajalan, a Bitcoin enthusiast. Bajalan was also among the nine founding members of the Australian chapter of the Bitcoin Foundation. The exchange is still privately owned and describes itself as ‘a Blockchain technology company’ and has a management team behind it with extensive experience in both the IT and financial services industries. The IT know-how within the BTCMarkets team comes from staff with backgrounds in software development, cyber security (web and network) payments processing and the integration of Blockchain technology.

Contents

• Exchange Platform
• Exchange Markets
• Fees
• Security and Fairness
• Support
• Pros and Cons
• Conclusion

The company also provides a consultancy service providing advice and solutions in the design, build and deployment of cloud and localized Blockchain technology solutions.

Exchange Platform

The BTCMarkets cryptocurrencies trading platform itself has been developed by third-party specialists in traditional financial markets trading systems. The team behind the platform has considerable experience in high volume, automated equities trading solutions, and has adapted this to the specifics of cryptocurrencies trading.

Exchange Markets

BTCMarkets supports the trading of 6 of the larger cap cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Ripple and Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum Classic. The latter to cryptocurrencies resulted from hard forks in the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains and have since carved out their own market shares as among the most traded independent cryptocurrencies.

AUD (Australian dollars) is currently the only fiat currency supported by the BTCMarkets exchange and trading is available in both AUD to cryptocurrency pairs and cryptocurrency to cryptocurrency pairs.

Fees

BTCMarkets focuses on cost as its USP and can be considered one of the lowest fee exchanges currently on the market. Crypto-to-crypto trading fees are only 0.22% on transactions and AUD to cryptocurrency fees start at 0.85% for transactions of up to $500. AUD to crypto trading fees taper down to as low as 0.1% for transactions of $5 million AUD and above and, for example, buying $9,000.01 to $18,000 of the cryptocurrencies supported is charged at 0.7%.

No fees are charged on deposits, in fiat currency or cryptocurrencies, and withdrawals to an Australian bank account are also free of charge. Withdrawals made in cryptocurrencies are charged as follows:

Bitcoin = 0.0005 BTC, Litecoin = 0.001 LTC, Ethereum = 0.001 ETH, Ethereum Classic = 0.001 ETC, Ripple = 0.15 XRP, BCH = 0.001 BCH.

Within the context of the wider cryptocurrency exchanges landscape, where reasonable trading fees often mask steep charges levied on deposits and withdrawals, BTCMarkets’ fee structure can be considered a major competitive advantage.

Security and Fairness

If deposits and withdrawals are made in cryptocurrencies, accounts do not require verification. However, any fiat currency deposits or withdrawals do require verification which involves the account holder providing proof of identity. This is achieved by submitting a copy of either a passport or driver’s license. Account verification where fiat currencies are involved is due to compliance with KYC (Know Your Client) requirements and is in line with international anti-money laundering regulations. The exchange works Edentiti Pty Ltd., a government approved ID verification company.

Account holders are recommended to two-factor authentication 2FA) on their accounts for additional security. This usually involves a piece of personal information that must be provided in addition to a password as an extra layer of online identity verification for anyone attempting to log into the account.

BTCMarkets secures account holder funds using a system of cold and hot wallets with encrypted cold wallets held off-site and spread between multiple secure locations. Best practice cybersecurity measures are also in place to safeguard the exchange against hacker attacks.

The exchange holds a full reserve matching account holdings and twice daily cryptocurrency and hourly AUD reconciliations are conducted to ensure cold wallet and bank account funds match client accounts. Account holders are additionally recommended to withdraw non-active cryptocurrency and fiat currency funds to their own personally managed wallets or bank accounts.

Support

BTCMarkets provides support through an extensive resource of online content covering the most commonly encountered questions and issues. Additionally, an online support ticketing system is provided that any more specific questions or problems can be addressed through and responded to by customer support.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Low trading fees
• No deposit fees
• No withdrawal fees on cash withdrawals and modest charges on cryptocurrency withdrawals
• Easy to use, effective trading platform

Cons

• Only 6 large cap cryptocurrencies supported
• AUD only supported a fiat currency
• Margin trading not available

Conclusion

Having been operational since 2013, BTCMarkets is one of the most established cryptocurrency exchanges not only in Australia but in the world. The exchange has carved out a solid reputation and has never suffered a security breach. Account holder feedback is also largely positive and the exchange’s customer service reputation strong.

BTCMarkets will appeal to anyone looking for a low-cost, easy-to-use cryptocurrency exchange that does all of the basics well and doesn’t overcomplicate things. More advanced cryptocurrency traders who require a greater depth of supported cryptocurrencies may look elsewhere but due to its highly competitive fee-structure, many use BTCMarkets to trade the six larger cap cryptocurrencies supported and other more expensive exchanges which offer greater choice for any other trades required.

One disadvantage is the fact that the exchange to date only supports AUD as a fiat currency and cash withdrawals to Australia-based bank accounts.