Coinmate is a leading cryptocurrency exchange that was founded in 2014. The exchange is registered in London but focuses its business operations on the Eastern Europe sector. It is considered to fall within the top 10 euro dominated exchanges, with a daily turnover of $818,957. The brainchild of 2 economic graduates from Prague, Coinmate has established itself as the ideal cryptocurrency exchange for investors who are looking to invest in Bitcoin with euros. The exchange offers its clients a low cost and hassles free way to acquire Bitcoin.

Contents

• Deposit and Withdrawal Options
• Fees and Charges
• Privacy and Security
• Customer Support
• Pros and Cons
• FAQ
• Conclusion

In terms of the trading platform, Coinmate offers its customers a proprietary web-based platform. The platform comes with 2 interfaces, a “Quick Buy/Sell” mode and an advanced trading mode. The former interface is basically a market order page that depicts the best available price from the order book. All you have to do is to enter the amount to trade and click “confirm” to have the transaction executed. No doubt, this simplified trading interface was designed to accommodate those who are new to cryptocurrency trading.

Apart from the simplified trading interface, Coinmate also offers a more advanced trading platform for those who have more experience trading cryptocurrencies or wish to trade them more professionally. The advanced trading interface comes with an expanded trading chart and supports limit orders and market orders.

While there is no dedicated mobile app for the trading platforms provided by Coinmate, the website has already been designed and optimized to accommodate the small screens of smartphones and other mobile devices. In other words, the website is also mobile friendly.

On the Coinmate trading platform, you can trade with 4 different cryptocurrency pairs:

• BTC/EUR
• BTC/CZK
• LTC/BTC
• BCH/BTC

Deposit and Withdrawal Options

At Coinmate, you have several ways to fund your account. However, the methods that are available to you will depend on your account verification levels. The first level of verification is for the basic account. Opening a basic account merely requires you to provide an email address and a password. However before you can begin trading, you also need to provide your name, date of birth and telephone number. With the basic account, your choices of depositing funds are OkCoin, MoneyPolo, Vouchers.  For verified and VIP accounts, the options for depositing funds include OkCoin, MoneyPolo, Vouchers, SEPA, Sofort and standard wires. While there are generally no restrictions on who can sign up with Coinmate, the cryptocurrency exchange currently does not accept customers from the U.S.

Fees and Charges

There are basically 3 types of accounts at Coinmate, basic account, verified account, and VIP account. With the basic account, the daily withdrawal limit is €1,000/5,000. For the verified account, the limit is higher at €5,000/20,000. The highest limit is reserved for the VIP account which is €12,500/100,000. However, with the VIP account, the limit can still be adjusted higher upon request.

As for the trading fees at CoinMate, the exchange uses the Maker/Taker model in order to boost liquidity on the exchange. The maker’s fee is 0.05% whereas the taker’s fee is 0.35%. For deposits and withdrawals, the following fees are applicable:

Privacy and Security

Coinmate has 3 levels of verifications, for the basic account, the verified account, and the VIP account.

For the basic account, you are required to provide the following information:

• Name
• Date of Birth
• Telephone Number

With the verified account level, you need to provide the following additional information to Coinmate:

• Government-issued photo ID
• Utility Bills or Bank statements which indicate your residential address

While most exchanges merely require you to submit a scanned copy of these documents, Coinmate takes it a step further by requiring you to make a video call showing you taking a snapshot of the various documents. For companies, the articles of incorporation and business account need to be provided. The VIP account level requires the same information as for the verified account except that you need to fill in an additional questionnaire.

For security on the exchange side, 95% of the funds are kept in cold storage. In addition, the clients’ passwords are encrypted before they are stored on the exchange servers. Other security measures included firewalls, SSL and Cloudflare. On the client’s side, Coinmate provides 2-factor authentication security for them. Withdrawals transactions also require email confirmation before they are executed.

Customer Support

Customer support at Coinmate is only available through email. The response is reasonably quick with a few hours lead time.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• High liquidity for euro dominated trades
• Low Fees
• Service is open worldwide (except the U.S)
• Support SEPA

Cons

• Limited choices of cryptocurrencies
• Only 2FA security on the client’s side

FAQ

• Do I need to verify my account in order to use SEPA?

Yes. To comply with AML regulation and KYC protocols, verification of identity and address is required.

• What is the withdrawal limit for the basic account?

For the basic account, the daily deposit and withdrawal limit is €1,000/5,000.

• Does Coinmate accept clients from the U.S?

No. Coinmate does not accept clients from the U.S due to the restrictions from the U.S financial regulatory authorities.

• What cryptocurrency pairs can I trade on Coinmate?

At present, Coinmate only supports trading for BCH/BTC, BTC/CZK, BTC/EUR and LTC/BTC.

Conclusion

On the whole, if you are a European based trader, then Coinmate is well suited to meet your cryptocurrency trading needs. The exchange offers low trading and funds transfer fees with high liquidity for the euro trades. However, on the negative side, the choices of cryptocurrencies offered are rather limited with just a handful of crypto pairs. In addition, the security doesn’t seem to be overly tight with only 2FA authentication security offered to the clients. Nevertheless, Coinmate is ideal for beginner cryptocurrency investors as their trading platform is extremely easy to use.