CoinSmart is one of the newer cryptocurrency exchanges. Founded in 2018 and located in downtown Toronto, Canada, CoinSmart promises many features for a very reasonable fee schedule. They claim on their home page that they “make crypto simple” and that they offer a “digital currency exchange you can actually understand.” So, does this new entry into the cryptocurrency world live up to its promises? Let’s find out in this in-depth CoinSmart review!
The First Part of Our CoinSmart Review: What Is CoinSmart?
As noted in the introduction, CoinSmart is a cryptocurrency exchange, which means you can buy and sell cryptocurrencies with fiat money or other crypto coins. As of now, CoinSmart lets people invest in the following nine cryptocurrencies:
- Bitcoin
- Ethereum
- Litecoin
- Ripple
- Bitcoin Cash
- EOS
- XLM
- Cardano
- Tether
While this list is pretty good, some notable cryptocurrencies are missing. For example, you can’t trade Dogecoin (which has gained a cult-like following, thanks in part to some tweets by Elon Musk and Snoop Dogg). You also can’t buy or sell Monero, Binance Coin, or Bitcoin Gold. Trading sites like Binance let you trade hundreds of cryptocurrencies. CoinSmart only has nine.
With that said, you have to remember that CoinSmart promised to “make crypto simple,” and with these nine coins on the list, you can trade over 80% of the total market capitalization of these coins. Put another way, you can buy and sell most of the currencies that people care about and want to use. For an easier-to-use platform, this list is perfect.
Who Can Use CoinSmart?
Since CoinSmart is a Canadian company, Canadians will have the best time using the platform. All the funding methods and verification steps work seamlessly for Canadian residents and citizens.
However, CoinSmart accepts people living in over 44 different countries, including the UK, Australia, and most of Europe. Notably missing from the list is the United States. If you are a US resident, CoinSmart is not for you at this time.
While CoinSmart is available for most major markets, it would be nice to see this platform grow and expand its offerings elsewhere in the future!
Depositing Money or Cryptocurrency
Now that we know what we can do with CoinSmart, it’s worth starting this review with the deposit process. For some cryptocurrency exchanges, depositing money can be a little bit of a pain. Depending on where the company is incorporated, you may not have the deposit options you would like.
Since CoinSmart is in Canada, this review will break down the choices for depositing money for Canadian residents and those living outside the country.
For Canadians, there are four ways to fund your CoinSmart account. You can use Interac e-transfers, wire transfers, or you can fund your account with cryptocurrency. Canadians can also buy cryptocurrency directly from the site (that funds to either the user’s wallet or their CoinSmart wallet) using a credit or debit card. It’s worth noting that you can put the order with any currency you want (so you can have a credit card order to buy in GBP, for example).
For non-Canadians, it’s more complicated. Without a Canadian bank account, Interac e-transfers are not viable. The company that CoinSmart partners with for crypto purchases via credit cards and debit cards won’t allow payments outside of Canada. As part of the process, you’ll need your Canadian Government-issued ID, which means that’s a no-go for a UK resident.
That leaves the other two funding options – wire transfers and cryptocurrency. You can fund via wire, but you must send the wire in Canadian dollars. Assuming your bank can do this, you can deposit into your account in this manner. You can also, of course, fund your account with any cryptocurrency you already have and use that for trading.
Withdrawing Money
Withdrawing money is more straightforward than depositing. There are two options. You can have your money sent as crypto, or you can convert it to fiat currency. If you withdraw crypto, the process is straightforward – you enter your wallet’s address, and the funds will show up there for you to use elsewhere!
If you cash out fiat currency, there are three types of withdrawals you can make:
- CAD: EFT or Wire Transfer
- USD: Wire Transfer
- EUR: SEPA or Wire Transfer
You’ll need to enter the relevant information and wait for CoinSmart to send the money. They only process fiat withdrawals on business days, so you will, invariably, need to wait a little bit for the money to arrive.
Fees
Fees are an integral part of the trading experience, and all reviews, including this CoinSmart review, should note them. If they’re unwieldy, they can quickly eat up your trading profits.
Fortunately, CoinSmart’s fees are not problematic at all.
For depositing, the only fee is if you deposit between $100 and $1,999 with Interac e-transfer.
Withdrawals in Canadian dollars incur a fee of 1% or $15 (whichever is greater) on EFTs. Wires have a 1% flat fee.
You can also withdraw to specific cryptocurrencies. The fascinating thing about CoinSmart is that they charge a flat fee for withdrawals. For example, withdrawing BTC incurs a fee of 0.0005 BTC. At today’s current exchange rates, that’s about $30 USD! It’s unknown how frequently they adjust these fees, but there can become quite a disparity (for example, it only costs 0.001 LTC to withdraw to Litecoin – the equivalent of $0.20 USD at the time of this writing).
Finally, trades incur a 0.2% fee when trading Bitcoin. If you switch a non-Bitcoin currency to another non-Bitcoin cryptocurrency, you’ll pay 0.4%.
CoinSmart Review: Trading
All in all, if you meet the criteria and can open an account, CoinSmart is looking like a promising platform. The fees are reasonable, there are a wide variety of deposit options, and the company offers a few top cryptocurrencies to trade. Plus, it has the backing of a Canadian financial institution, so you can have reasonable confidence that your data, cryptocurrency, and money will be safe at CoinSmart.
But, the core experience is trading. If the trading platform itself is problematic, you’re going to have a tough time getting the most out of it.
CoinSmart hits it out of the park here.
It’s self-evident that the developers created this platform with ease-of-use in mind. The site runs fast, features a sleek UI, and makes it easy to trade.
When you log into your dashboard, you’ll see all the latest cryptocurrency prices, your account balance (and portfolio), and you’ll have the opportunity to buy or sell those currencies. One of the excellent features of the dashboard is that you can sort your coins. So if you’re trying to have a balanced portfolio, you can see which currencies have the most value and use that as the starting point for rebalancing.
The actual trading interface itself is a breeze. You’ll get three options. You can either buy currency using Canadian dollars, sell for Canadian dollars, or trade crypto to crypto. Once you select the option you want, you’ll choose the currency, enter the amount, and get a nice little confirmation of your transaction.
When trading crypto, please keep in mind that these currencies are 24/7. You can trade any time of day or night. Because of its fast-paced nature, CoinSmart will guarantee your price for 10 seconds. If you don’t finalize the trade within that time, you’ll have to get a new price.
There’s nothing super fancy about the trading, but that’s perfectly ok. CoinSmart offers a gorgeous web trading platform that is fast, pretty, and efficient. In short, it’s a delight to use!
The App
CoinSmart offers a mobile app for those that want to trade on their phone. The app itself is beautiful, offering a simple, intuitive interface for buying and selling the various cryptocurrencies CoinSmart offers.
Upon launching the app, you can see all the coins you have. You can get charts complete with the bid, ask, high, and low prices. From that chart, you have two options – buy or sell. Enter all the relevant details, and you should see a confirmation page!
It’s a simple but relatively well-designed user interface that matches CoinSmart’s promise of making crypto simple.
However, there are some problems with this app. The first one is that it is only available for iOS. Furthermore, the app’s design is specifically for iPhone. So iPad and Android users are out of luck at the moment. While iPhones are undoubtedly popular, it’s bizarre that CoinSmart would not have versions of the apps that would play nicely with those other platforms.
Second, there are quite a few user reports of bugs. While these didn’t happen for us, you should keep this in mind when using the app. With that said, if the app doesn’t work, the website provides a seamless experience, even on mobile.
CoinSmart Review: A Good Exchange Hampered by Some Problems
Overall, there’s a lot to like about CoinSmart. It’s fast, easy, intuitive, and feels like a way for beginners to get started in the wonderful world of crypto. Even more frequent traders will appreciate the elegant interface and reasonable pricing structure.
However, as with any platform, there are some downsides. Only offering nine currencies could be a dealbreaker depending on what you want to trade. Furthermore, the site feels very Canada-centric at the moment. While you can use CoinSmart in other countries, you won’t have an easy time unless you can access a Canadian bank account. Finally, the lack of usability within the United States feels like a missed opportunity. Not including the US likely has to do with regulations, but that’s a huge market for crypto that CoinSmart cannot tap.
Is CoinSmart the best crypto exchange available? If you are from Canada, it definitely could be. If all you want to do is trade a bit of Bitcoin and Ethereum, you’d be hard-pressed to find another platform that works as well as CoinSmart. Conversely, if you’re going to trade Dogecoin, well, you would have to keep looking.
If you’re from another country (e.g., UK), this is still a good platform. You can wire money in and receive a wire back. If you buy some crypto, you can deposit it that way and then go from there in terms of trading. The straightforward interface, reasonable fees, and quick orders are still huge positives even if you’re not in Canada.
CoinSmart might not be perfect in all areas, but it has a very bright future ahead. In 3-4 years, it would not be inconceivable that this exchange would be one of the favorites for traders globally.
If CoinSmart sounds interesting to you, please click here to join!
