Coinmama Review – Is It That Good?

Cryptocurrencies have taken a lot of hits as of late mainly due to the sudden fall of Bitcoin which made a lot of people, let’s say, unhappy. Still, in general prices of those currencies have kept going higher and higher. Most of the coins reached their peak price at the beginning of 2018 which lead to a huge flow of people willing to invest in this and therefore a lot of exchanges were founded. This is where Coinmama took its fair share of newcomers as an already established exchange which was founded more than 5 years ago. Now, even as one of the more famous ones, it faces a lot of competition in the face of sites such as Bitpanda and others along those ranks.

That competition is healthy for the consumer as it creates a lot of promotions and makes companies provide unique features to make them stand out from the rest. Even despite all the other companies trying to grow in this dynamic environment, Coinmama is still one of the best rated cryptocurrency exchanges as of date. It was established in 2013 in the country of Slovakia. The headquarters is in Israel, though, as the company is now owned by Bit Ventures. In this review we will find out what are the interesting features of this particular exchange site and what makes is such a top rated contender in the crypto world.

Want to know what are the other top 5 exchanges we’ve picked for you? Check them out on our full Guide on the topic. There, you will also find tons of useful information on the crypto markets in general.

Features That Make Coinmama Stand out

The one and possibly only thing that differentiates this exchange from most of the others is that it is a worldwide one. It operates in more than 200 countries including almost half the United States. You can buy cryptocurrencies here through your credit or debit card. In its early days there was only Bitcoin and Ethereum on it but nowadays you can also buy:

• Cardano
• Litecoin
• ETH Classic
• BTC Cash
• QTUM
• Ripple XRP

How Does It All Work?

First, you are presented with a simple registration process which requires little to no verification steps (for the first verification level). It is as simple as registering an account for any social media. After that you’re taken directly into the exchange where the magic happens.

The process of buying any currency here is pretty straightforward too. If you already have an account with name, email, and country provided, you will have the “Purchase” button available next to the currency you like. One thing we will talk about a bit later is that there is no selling option on Coinmama so calling themselves an “exchange” is kind of a marketing trick. News is that further down the road they will add more trading options.

Purchasing bitcoin, for example, is quite flexible. You can buy down to 0.1 a fraction of a BTC all the way to a few ones at a time. For that, you will need to have a verified wallet which requires you to provide personal information such as picture, ID number, passport, driver’s license or any other official document.

The main focus point for buying is BTC and ETH but as we pointed out there are other currencies as well. If you want to sell cryptocurrencies, though, you will have to wait a bit as Coinmama are promising that feature is coming soon. For now, you can use other exchanges.

Availability

Worldwide, there are 226 countries from which you can use Coinmama and the cool thing here is that it supports all those countries’ own currencies as a purchase method. There are also 24 states that can use this service which you can check on the Coinmama site.

The payment methods which this exchange accepts are the usual – Visa, Mastercard. There is an option for Cash transfer too but you will have to use Western Union. There is no option (for now) for linking your bank account directly to Coinmama.

Transfer Periods And Limitations

Even though the online process of withdrawing your bitcoins is simple, the time it will take you to actually get it may differ from a few hours to days. That usually depends on your card, bank, and country. Coinmama has its own holdings which greatly reduces the time of this whole process unlike other exchanges which generally take far more time for their withdrawals.

When it comes to transaction limits, there is a 5000 USD or Euro limit. It doesn’t matter which payment method you are using, this limit is fixed. Furthermore, credit card users are limited to 20,000 USD or Euro per month.

Similar to Binance, there are verification levels and they all come with their own lifetime purchase limits. Level 1 has a ten thousand dollars limit, level two has fifty thousand, while level 3 is limitless but also the hardest to obtain.

• Level 1

This level requires name, address, birth date, email address, phone number, and an official document whether it is an ID, driver’s license or passport. Once submitted they are usually approved or denied in less than a day.

• Level 2

This level requires copies of your passport and your driver’s license (only both of them). Sometimes a selfie with the document is also required.

• Level 3

Here things get interesting. To have a limitless account you need to contact Coinmama support staff directly and then get further instructions on the whole process.

This brings us to our next point – their support.

Coinmama Support Options

There is no phone support option here, as it is the case with most other exchanges. Emails are usually taken care of in a timely manner but there is also a FAQ and service desk sections which are easy to navigate through and provide plenty of information. There is a live chat available for most of the day time. On weekends you generally get faster response times. During workdays the support is online from 9am to 6pm GMT+3.

Coinmama Security

When it comes to cryptocurrency exchanges security is the most important thing. There are thousands of users logging in daily and trading with their own money meaning that this is also a very sweet spot for hackers to attack. Luckily, Coinmama has taken care of that in a pretty solid manner. It is registered with FINCEN in the USA which assures you won’t be hacked or if you get hacked there will be a proper investigation. A fun fact is that this exchange is one of the very few that have never been hacked.

There are a few downsides to this exchange, though. Here are some of them:

• You won’t be able to trade cryptocurrencies. There is no option for selling anything on Coinmama meaning you can only buy crypto there.
• There are high transaction fees. Every transaction that you make will be sanctioned 5.5% which to be fair, keeps many people away from this place since this is one of the higher taxes on the market. If you use your credit card that % will bump up to 6%.
• As we mentioned, there aren’t a lot of cryptocurrencies available to buy here apart from BTC and ETH.
• Last but not least, this exchange is available only as a site. There are no mobile apps so the only way to trade here is to have a computer with you. Some argue that this is done to improve security as most phones can be hacked way easier than computers.

Want to find out which is the best coin for CPU mining? Check out our article on the topic.

Before we give our final thoughts on Coinmama, let’s check out some of its most important pros and cons again.

Advantages

• Easy to register – (click here to sign up now)
  
• Easy to navigate through the exchange
• There is a live pricing both in USD and Euro
• You can buy as little as 0.01 of a bitcoin
• There are no middlemen in whatever you buy – just you and Coinmama
• There are multiple languages available to translate the site to
• Security is one of the leading on the market
• Support tickets and queries are taken care of in a timely manner

Disadvantages

• High transaction fees
• No selling option
• PayPal and other famous payment methods aren’t accepted
• Can’t link a bank account
• There is no iOS or Android app, only a website
• Doesn’t support a lot of currencies