Binance vs Coinmama: A Comprehensive Comparison

What happens when Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, faces Coinmama, one of the ‘cryptosphere’s’ most popular brokerage services? There’s only one way to find out — let’s go!

Fees

Binance’s Labyrinth Of Trading Fees

Some cryptocurrency exchanges keep their trading system nice and simple, but not Binance. Perhaps they feel that the myriad options presented in their fee schedule offer more opportunities than their rivals.

The maker fee and taker fee both start at just 0.1% and can decrease based on three factors:

  1. Trading volume. The more you trade, the lower your trading fees will become; however, you’d have to trade incredibly high amounts to make noticeable changes to your exchange fees, as you can see in the fee schedule below.
  2. BNB – Binance Coin is their native cryptocurrency or utility token — it’s great because if you choose to pay your maker fee or taker fee with BNB, you get a 25% discount. Be wary though, BNB’s value has risen a lot in 2021, so it might be worth holding…
  3. Users can also participate in the referral scheme, receiving 20% discounts on their trading fees for bringing new customers onto the platform. The referral scheme offers further financial incentives, too, such as a slice of your referral’s trading commissions.

As is typical on cryptocurrency exchanges, there is a small fee for withdrawing cryptocurrencies to another platform. There are small network transaction fees paid to the blockchain miners. Fiat currency withdrawals are free. Check the fee table below:

binance trading fee schedule

The Costly Coinmama

If you smiled and nodded at how cost-friendly Binance is, then you might want to run and get your blindfold because Coinmama is an expensive place to buy your crypto…

There’s one thing in this industry that costs more than anything else: convenience. Coinmama is very convenient, especially if you’re willing to pay their fees for some cryptos:

  • Market spread: 2% (they add 2% to the real market price and sell to you at their inflated price)
  • 3.9% commission on sales
  • 0.9% commission on sales
  • 5% momentum fee for credit or debit card payments

If you did the math there, you’ll notice that a credit card purchase could cost you an astronomical 10.9% charge. We’re not sure this can be justified because, for every $1,000 that you spend, you only receive $891 worth of cryptocurrencies. Coinbase isn’t even that pricey!

Of course, you can reduce your potential fees and buy Bitcoin and six other cryptocurrencies for just 5.9% if you opt for the SEPA transfer method (in Europe) or the SWIFT transfer method US. SWIFT transactions will incur a $20 fee for orders under $1,000, with no fee over that amount.

Winner: Binance wins this one.

Sign Up & KYC Experience

Opening A Binance Account

Binance create an account screenshot
  1. Users in the United States go to Binance.US, whereas users in all other countries go to Binance.com.
  2. Click ‘Get Started,’ then provide your email address and a secure password.
  3. Accept the terms and conditions.
  4. Visit your email inbox to find a new email from Binance with a 6-digit verification code. Go ahead and copy/paste this code into your Binance tab or window.
  5. Your account is now created, but since you’re most likely new to crypto, you will need to verify your identity to add fiat currencies.
  6. In the top corner, on the right, find a button on the drop-down menu that says ‘Identification.’
  7. A new page will open, with a big yellow-gold call-to-action asking you to ‘Verify.’ Where requested, enter your name, nationality, residential address, and date of birth.
  8. In the next set of identity checks, which are known as KYC (Know Your Customer), you’ll be asked to submit a photo of your ID (passport preferred), a selfie holding that ID, and a facial verification photo using your webcam or mobile phone camera.
  9. If there were any mistakes along the way and Binance rejects your application, you can try 10 times again in a 24-hour window. If there were no issues, you would need to wait at least 15 minutes for confirmation.

Becoming A Coinmama Customer

  1. Go to to Coinmama.com and click ‘Sign Up.’
  2. Where asked, type in your email address, a strong password, and your country of residence.
  3. Head to your email client and find an email from Coinmama. Inside is a verification link for you to click.
  4. KYC checks will now take place, first asking for your name, phone number, date of birth, gender, address, and country of residence
  5. The second level of checks will ask you to upload photos or scans of the front and back of your passport, ID card, or driver’s license, along with the ID number and expiration date.
  6. Take a piece of paper, write your name, Coinmama, and today’s date. In the next step, you will need to hold up this paper alongside your ID document and take a selfie. We’ve included a good example below.
  7. Now, wait for confirmation, which can take as little as 15 minutes.

Winner: The signup procedures are pretty identical, so let’s call it a tie.

Ease of Use and Feel of Website/App

Is Binance Enjoyable To Use?

Being the biggest and best cryptocurrency exchange in the world is a major responsibility. To achieve it, you need to have an excellent reputation for customer support, liquidity that keeps transactions fast and faultless, more market pairings than your competitors, DeFi and staking options, and a fantastic mobile app. Binance has it all. As a crypto exchange, Binance is just a pleasure to use. It offers everything we listed and more. Both technical and friendly appeals to all levels of traders, and it is constantly looking to innovate for current and future trends. It’s only fair to say that Binance is constantly several steps ahead of its competitors.

When things got rocky with Chinese regulations a couple of years ago, they packed up the entire company rather than close their service. They moved to crypto-friendly Malta, where the more relaxed EU system allowed them to flourish and continue to deliver to the crypto community. 

What’s Coinmama Like?

Firstly, there’s no trading exchange or marketplace on Coinmama. Nada. This is 100% a broker, and that is the only service Coinmama offers, so unless you want to buy some crypto (they sell seven different types) or sell them Bitcoin, you need to look elsewhere.

If that is what you want, then it’s a pretty likable service aside from being costly. The live chat function makes customer support easily reachable, and so users worldwide (most countries are accepted) can have their questions answered. Take note that United States residents can use Coinmama, but not in every state, though they’re working on solving that. For example, they became FINCEN registered to improve their legitimacy.

There are two categories of crypto-brokers. One offers a wallet, aftersales, and other customer service features, and the other does not. Coinmama is the latter. With no wallet to protect, there are no downloads to secure and no payment information to hold on to, so the whole process is pretty clean. Verify your identity, make a purchase, provide an external wallet, connect your payment method, and that’s it — the relationship is over unless you want to come back and buy more. 

One positive of Coinmama is that they accept many different fiat currencies worldwide, offering a built-in foreign exchange service that converts the currency into EUR (as Coinmama is a Slovak, Israeli, and Irish endeavor). More than 2.5 million customers in around 190 countries have been able to make use of Coinmama — quite the achievement.

Winner: Binance is the world’s best for many good reasons…

Deposit Methods

Depositing Fiat Currency Into Binance

Binance users who are not verified will not be able to deposit or withdraw fiat currency, so please bear that in mind before making any attempts. A verified account has two options for getting their money into Binance.

Option 1: Perform A Bank Transfer

Depending on your currency, there are going to be different charges faced. For example, Simplex charges 3.5%, European bank cards cost 1.8%, deposits of Russian Rubles are charged at 3.1%, iDeal charges a flat €1.30 fee, and both SWIFT and SEPA transfers are free. We advise going directly to Binance to find out which charge applies to you.

Option 2 – Paxos Wire Transfer

This method is pretty new, but it’s quite interesting too. A Paxos wire works pretty similarly to a domestic wire, but rather than receive fiat currency in your wallet, you receive PAX: a cryptocurrency (stablecoin) that is pegged to the US dollar…

Wait, how is that different from buying crypto?

Well, PAX has 11 different market pairings on Binance that get you straight into the crypto game without having to make a fiat-to-crypto trade once your deposit is complete. On top of that, there are no fees, no limits, and transfers are done instantly. So, you can see it as a quicker and cheaper way of doing bank transfers; however, right now, it’s compatible with USD only.

No Deposits On Coinmama

There are no deposit fees, no withdrawal fees, no wallets, no trading platform, no cash advance, no account level limitations, and no staking. Coinmama is purely a broker, but we’ll explain their broker fee and buying limits more in the next section.

Winner: Binance, of course.

Instant Buy Options (Buying with Credit or Debit Card)

Making Purchases On Binance

Credit cards and debit cards are welcome on Binance for those who want to buy various coins. Their digital currency selection for instant purchases (account verification required) is pretty good:

Because Binance is partnered with Simplex for its credit and debit card payments, purchases will be charged at 3.5% or $10, whichever is greater. Purchases over roughly $290 will bring the 3.5% figure into effect.

Payment Methods On Coinmama

As we mentioned before, the customer experience on Coinmama is excellent; they’ve paid attention to user reviews and built something that takes away the confusion and frustration from purchasing crypto. Despite this, the service isn’t perfect, and with both Ripple and EOS being recently pulled from the sales form, we wonder what could be next? On top of that, the only currency you can receive for selling your Bitcoin to Coinmama is EUR.

They now sell:

Coinmama instant purchase options include:

  • Debit cards and credit cards
  • Online banking
  • Apple Pay
  • SEPA Transfer (EU)
  • Faster Payments (UK)
  • Sofort (EU)

US account holders can also make a wire transfer, but it’s not instant. All other methods can take as little as 10 minutes to complete and for the cryptos to transfer to you.

Coinmama’s fees, plus third-party charges, make them one of the most expensive crypto exchange service providers, but fortunately, these are not the only high figures. Coinmama’s buying limit is much higher than Binance and even rivals Coinbase. Binance accepts just $5,000 per day in purchases, Coinmama welcomes $30,000 per transaction via bank transfer or $15,000 via debit/credit card. Investor or business accounts can pay to boost these limits to $100,000.

Winner: Despite being more expensive, Coinmama is more flexible in this department, so they win.

Trading Experience

Binance

We’ve given a lot of praise to Binance already, but you don’t become the world’s biggest exchange (by a considerable margin) without doing something special. So, what’s in the special sauce? Well, it’s a combination of logic, ease-of-use, great customer journeys, offering as many trading opportunities and experiences as they can, and doing it all in a supportive way. 

Some trading platforms offer only spot trading, but Binance has derivatives, margin trading, futures trading, P2P trading, and DeFi trading. To run all of these epic services without lagging and crashing constantly, they must’ve invested in the best servers that money can buy.

Readers in the US, who will be using Binance.US, note that your version of the platform will be very similar in look and feel, but some cryptocurrencies and features are removed to comply with US legislation. 

Coinmama

Coinmama is not for trading; it is simply for purchasing cryptocurrency or selling Bitcoin. 

Winner: Binance crushes Coinmama in this department.

Reputation & Security

Binance

Binance has done well to win back the trust that they lost from many of their users, investors, and even those with a general interest in their growth. That trust was first lost in 2019 when they were hacked for 7,000 BTC. Worth around $40m at the time, those same Bitcoins are now worth over $360m, presenting an enormous loss of opportunity. 

At the time, many users pulled all of their funds out of Binance and chose to move to a crypto exchange that had not been hacked, where they might find a better place to store and trade their crypto. Some stayed, of course, and Binance has worked hard to rebuild after that exploit. All of the hacked individuals were very quickly compensated and given back the amount that had been stolen, thanks to Binance’s excellent insurance reserves.

binance hacking answer google screenshot

Since that hacking, there have been no more incidents, thanks to a much-improved security system, both at user and server ends. To add, user experience has improved, making the platform easier to use so that funds don’t get lost in space and vulnerabilities are harder to discover. 

Coinmama

Coinmama is stripped down to the basics; it’s a sort of acoustic exchange, if you will. With no market orders, no fill forms, and no sense of community, this is a place just to come and make a purchase. Without offering customers a wallet to secure their purchase, you’d think Coinmama was pretty hack-proof but sadly not. 

In February 2019, the user data of 450,000 customers was stolen — including email addresses and password combinations were taken. After the hack, Coinmama forced users to change their passwords to regain entry, thus securing the accounts. Their systems showed that nothing malicious was done with the data, and it was a small piece of a much broader hack. 

Winner: Binance wins this round too.

Binance vs Coinmama: Who wins this comparison?

Answering the Binance vs Coinmama question is easy. Binance wins on almost every count, so no wonder it continues to pull away from the other exchanges and grab more of the global crypto exchange market share.

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