Cryptopia Exchange Review

What is Cryptopia?

Cryptopia is a peer-to-peer exchange for trading digital currencies. Being peer-to-peer means that the transactions conducted do not go through the exchange itself, but is rather a marketplace where buyers and sellers directly trade with each other. After our thorough investigation, we have found out that the company was registered in 2014 with headquarters in Christchurch, New Zealand. The information about the firm’s management is not disclosed openly, however, we managed to learn the names of the co-founders – Robert Dawson and Adam Clark.

No “About Us” section on the website made us a bit suspicious, thus we wanted to verify – is Cryptopia legit? Even with scarce info on the website, we luckily did find the official documentation about Cryptopia Ltd. Although it is not regulated by the financial authorities, nor it needs to be. Cryptopia brand is registered as the “software development service”, hence it is not liable to the regulatory purview as such. With no law violations or scam incidents reported so far, we tend to believe that Cryptopia can be trusted.

How Secure is Cryptopia?

For protecting its users, Cryptopia allows enabling the 2FA while registering the account. That’s the only safety measure that the exchange offers. Additionally, it also advocates on having a strong password and advises the clients to be vigilant with their data online. Cryptopia also utilizes the HTTPS security certificate. So, is Cryptopia safe?

Unfortunately, it is unknown whether Cryptopia has the cold storage for ensuring maximum security, as no info in this regard is provided. We assume that the company mostly keeps the funds online. Since Cryptopia is rather small, it has been staying off the hackers’ radar so far.

Opening an Account at Cryptopia Exchange

It is quite simple to register at Cryptopia and the whole process is not invasive. One has to fill in the regular form. As soon as this step is completed, Cryptopia will ask to verify the email. At this stage, the account is considered to be verified at Level 1. This equals to 5,000 NZD 24 hour limit for withdrawals and transfers. However, there is a possibility to increase this amount and here is how.

There are two additional limit levels one can reach. Level 2 verification limit is equivalent to 50,000 NZD per 24 hours. In order to proceed to this level, the trader has to provide the proof of ID (e.g. passport, driver’s license) and the selfie of holding the given ID. What’s more, some extra personal information has to be submitted – name, surname, birth date, gender, country, address, and postcode.

However, if the trader wants to get the maximum limits at Cryptopia, it is required to apply for level 3 verification. To do so, one has to submit Cryptopia username, an extra selfie of holding the ID with the piece of paper including the handwritten Cryptopia username, proof of address (utility bill, bank statement etc) and a statement about the “Source of Wealth”. In other words, the source wealth indicates how the trader made enough money to be trading at such a high level. After Cryptopia reviews and approves the application, the limits will be drawn to 500,000 NZD per 24 hour period.

Payment Options at Cryptopia

There are technically two payment methods available at Cryptopia. The first and most common one is by using the cryptocurrency, provided that it is listed on the exchange. The second one is fiat but Cryptopia currently supports transfers in NZD only, made from a New Zealand bank account. Other fiat currencies are not available. At the moment of this writing, Cryptopia temporarily suspended the deposits in NZD but they are working on solving the issue.

Although deposits are free, Cryptopia charges withdrawal fees both for cryptocurrency and NZD. In the case of cryptos, the fee is specified for each coin in “Coin Info” and is static – it does not depend on the amount withdrawn. Additionally, every virtual currency has the minimum and maximum withdrawal limit per transaction. For example, for Bitcoin the fee is 0.0005 BTC, the minimum withdrawal amount is 0.001 BTC, while the maximum the trader can withdraw is 50.00100001 BTC.

Supported Cryptocurrencies

One of the strongest sides of Cryptopia is their wide selection of altcoins. Apart from Bitcoin, users can trade more than 570 different cryptocurrencies and Cryptopia is often adding new ones to its platform. This is definitely something that traders would appreciate. Furthermore, Cryptopia also provides access to the exclusive NZDT or New Zealand Dollar Tether. At the moment of this Cryptopia review, deposits and withdrawals in NZDT are currently disabled but are going to be resumed once the issues with Cryptopia’s banking partners are settled.

The supported cryptocurrencies are linked to 5 markets – BTC, USDT, NZDT, LTC, and DOGE.

Cryptopia Trading Platform Review

Cryptopia trading platform is kept quite simple and it is easy to trade there. For each pair, there are only two types of orders – buy and sell. Apart from that, there also 10 charting tools available to customize the chart for the given pair. Lastly, one can view the charts in multiple time frames – from 15 minutes to all-time. For each trade conducted on the exchange, Cryptopia charges the flat fee of 0.2%. Margin trading is not available and there no plans to introduce it, at least for the time being. Likewise, there are no mobile versions of the platform.

Despite the absence of advanced features, there is one thing that definitely makes Cryptopia stand out – the “Arbitrage” functionality. It allows comparing Cryptopia’s price (bid, ask and last) and volume for each supported cryptocurrency on other exchanges like Bittrex, Bleutrade, and Poloniex. Hence, such feature can be definitely useful for arbitrage traders, as it can help to spot the price differences on the exchanges. There is, however, one limitation – arbitrage offered by Cryptopia applies to BTC, DOGE and USDT markets only.

Cryptopia Review 2018: Bonus

Cryptopia rewards its existing traders for referring new users. For each user referred, the bonus program participant will receive 10% of the user’s trade fees converted to Dotcoin (DOT). The referral bonuses are transferred on the first day of each month.

Customer Support

Many exchanges suffer from the community backlash when it comes to customer support and Cryptopia is not an exception. The only ways to reach support agents on this exchange is by submitting a ticket or via email. Unfortunately, the support is currently rather slow and users sometimes wait for 2 weeks for the reply. Cryptopia is familiar with the problem – they are working on accelerating the responses and expanding the support staff.

As part of its indirect client support, Cryptopia developed the FAQ section to assist its customers.

Cryptopia Opinion

As Cryptopia does not seem to be open about its activity, at first sight, we wondered – is Cryptopia scam? Fortunately, our fears have not been realized, as the firm seems to be legitimate. Essentially, Cryptopia is an okay exchange, especially because of the numerous altcoins presented there. Trading on this exchange should not be costly, as the fees are quite low. Among the drawbacks, we can list the absence of fiat payment options apart from NZD, lack of advanced trading features and slow support.