CoinSwitch vs CEX.IO: Features and Fees 2021

What happens when you compare India’s biggest crypto exchange aggregation service with a trusted British exchange less than half of the size. Well, you get this article! Join us as we explore CoinSwitch Kuber and CEX.IO’s trading fees, signup processes, trading experiences, security protocols, and much more. Then, armed with this information, you can decide which one will be your brand new cryptocurrency exchange. 

Let’s begin.

Fees

CoinSwitch Fees

Before we explore the fees, we need to explain what CoinSwitch Kuber is and what it does. This is a cryptocurrency exchange aggregator, which means it uses trusted exchange platform partners and aggregates all of their listed coins and trading pairs. As a result, cross-platform trading gives users access to a much greater selection of cryptocurrency assets and market pairs (over 45,000).

Access to this service is ultra-convenient for their Indian-only customer base, but it comes at a cost:

• A CoinSwitch commission on every trade – 0.49%
• Exchange fees depending on which partner was used – industry average 0.2%
• Blockchain fees* which vary from one cryptocurrency to another 
• For purchases: Debit and credit card fees on top – industry average 4.0%

Blockchain fees are unavoidable, as coins will be moving from the trading platform over to your private wallet and vice versa. 

CEX.IO Fees

CEX.IO employs a fee structure, which is common amongst traditional cryptocurrency exchanges. When we say traditional, we mean custodial, which are the platforms that take care of cryptocurrencies on behalf of their investors, such as Binance, Coinbase, and KuCoin. Take a look at that particularly lovely and simple fee structure below. 

As you can see, beginners and low-volume traders will pay 0.15% maker fees and 0.25% taker fees. Those trading over $20m worth of crypto per month will unlock 0% maker fees, very good for whales and institutions.

CoinSwitch Kuber vs CEX.IO: CEX.IO boasts much lower fees.

Sign Up & KYC Experience

CoinSwitch Onboarding

Are you an Indian citizen with a PAN code? If not, this platform won’t work for you, unfortunately. Since June 2020, CoinSwitch no longer serves a global audience.

Here’s how to get set up regardless:

1. Go to Coinswitch.co
2. Provide a mobile phone number and wait for a One-Time Passcode to be sent via SMS
3. Submit the code
4. Set up a PIN code for logging into your account
5. Find the ‘Basic Verification’ option and submit the details requested, which will include personal information, an identity document, and your PAN code

Joining CEX.IO

This exchange offers its services to most of the world’s countries, excluding sanctioned countries and those with strict crypto-regulations, like Japan and Singapore. See the full list here. Here’s how to register an account:

1. Go to CEX.IO
2. Find the ‘Register’ button and then choose ‘Individual Account’
3. You will be asked to give an email address and password, your first and last name, and the country of your residence
4. Go to your emails (in a separate tab) and copy the code CEX.IO has sent to you, then pasting it into the signup form
5. To enjoy CEX’s advanced features, you must do the KYC verification process, which is easier to do with your mobile phone
6. Begin the process, scan a QR code from your computer screen, and take photos of the requested documents
7. Wait for approval

CoinSwitch Kuber vs CEX.IO: CEX.IO wins.

Ease of Use & Feel of Website or App

CoinSwitch UX/UI

CoinSwitch is unique in the cryptocurrency industry for several reasons. Firstly for its massive aggregation services, secondly for offering services to about 160 countries and then surprisingly reducing to just one, and thirdly for becoming app-only, rather than offering a dual web-mobile experience. It’s odd, but somehow it works. The platform recently welcomed its 10 millionth user in India, making it the country’s most popular crypto exchange. With over 800m mobile users in the country, perhaps this is an excellent idea.

Their success perhaps lies in three things:

• 45,000 cryptocurrency pairings to make the trading options more diverse than any rival
• How it navigates around India’s cryptocurrency regulations by actional in a non-custodial way
• Building a user-friendly app that allows users to trade digital currencies without too many complications

Using CEX.IO

British Bitcoin exchange CEX.IO is registered in Gibraltar and the US, and since launching in 2013, has welcomed over 4 million verified users. However, with daily trading volumes in the tens of millions, the exchange is seen as very small, not even in the top 100 in the world for that metric. When it comes to quality, though, it’s one of our favorites. 

You’ll, of course, find spot trading features, but the platform offers more, such as margin trading (commission-free through the broker), coin staking, a clean and well-designed mobile app, and 24/7 customer support (including via phone!). 

CoinSwitch Kuber vs CEX.IO: CEX.IO is the best exchange for usability.

Deposit Methods

Getting your funds into CoinSwitch

CoinSwitch is non-custodial, meaning:

• No fiat wallets
• No crypto wallets
• No deposits at all

Making deposits on CEX.IO

CEX.IO is custodial, which means:

• You get a crypto wallet for every supported coin
• You get a fiat wallet for every supported currency – GBP, EUR, USD, RUB
• You can deposit funds whenever you like, via
  • Bank transfer
    • ACH 
    • SWIFT (fees vary by currency)
    • Domestic Wire
    • Faster Payments (UK bank transfers)
    • SEPA (Euro bank transfers)
  • E-Wallet
    • Qiwi – Rubles only, charged at 0.99%
    • Skrill
    • Epay
    • Advcash
  • Credit or debit card
    • USD / EUR – 2.99% per deposit
    • GBP – 1.49% per deposit

CoinSwitch Kuber vs CEX.IO: CEX.IO offers more flexibility.

Instant Buy Options (Buying with a Credit or Debit card)

Make purchases on CoinSwitch

CoinSwitch Kuber offers a vast range of cryptocurrency pairs, but trading fees are costly, as we’ve covered. What about their brokerage service? Well, the mobile app offers more than 100 coins for purchase from their partners, accepting debit and credit card purchases in:

• US Dollars
• Japanese Yen
• Russian Rubles
• Euros
• Indian Rupees

The website also continues to offer a Simplex trading form. We aren’t sure how long this will last, but it appears to function even for non-Indians at this time. 

Costs are wrapped up into quoted prices, making it difficult to know how much you’re being charged on top of the market price. 

Purchasing crypto on CEX.IO

CEX.IO offers excellent brokerage services with instant debit and credit card transactions in USD, EUR, RUB, and GBP. This makes CEX.IO a great place to buy cryptocurrency, with card charges as low as 2.99% and approximately 100+ different cryptocurrencies to choose from. 

CEX.IO allows users to buy and sell Bitcoins (and other digital assets) and easily withdraw fiat currency to their banks. This is excellent news for British users in the wake of Binance’s GBP ban, and further good news for users in the 48 US states that now accept CEX.IO.

CoinSwitch Kuber vs CEX.IO: CEX.IO is more transparent and low-fee.

Trading Experience

Trading with CoinSwitch

Advanced traders will feel quite limited by the CoinSwitch platform, as it offers only market orders and limit orders, with no margin, futures, or derivatives trading at all. In addition, there are no wallets, no coin staking offers, and many of the 45,000+ trading pairs suffer from low liquidity. 

CoinSwitch also requires Indian users to manually find and provide wallet addresses for the coins they are trading. In addition, the network service charge makes trades a lot more expensive than staying on a single exchange. 

Despite all of these things, the platform’s friendly design makes it a popular place to buy Bitcoin, trade cryptocurrencies, and access the best cryptocurrency exchanges anonymously. 

Trading with CEX.IO

CEX.IO is a more advanced platform in the sense that it offers CFD trading, coin staking, crypto lending and borrowing, and more. It might not have a high trading volume when compared to its rivals, but if you want to buy a digital asset, such as Ethereum or Bitcoin Cash, it’s a reliable place to do so.

There are currently about 105 cryptocurrencies and just over 225 crypto pairs to trade with. The platform is clean, simple, intuitive, user-friendly, and offers 24/7 customer support over the phone and by email, which is more than 99% of exchanges offer. 

If you’re a British trader, you’ll be aware of the FCA’s increased interest in crypto so that CEX.IO might be the best exchange for you, as it is well regulated, offers the lowest fees for GBP deposits, and accounts are easy to set up. 

CoinSwitch Kuber vs CEX.IO: CEX.IO allows users to trade directly on coin pairings.

Reputation and Security

CoinSwitch’s history

Few exchanges have experienced rapid growth as CoinSwitch Kuber, signing up over 10 million Indian users in about 15 months. The platform appears to be going from strength to strength and getting a good name in the cryptocurrency exchange industry.

All trades are perfectly secure, as CoinSwitch doesn’t manage the funds at any point. It is simply a secure middleman. The room for error with each exchange of coins is regarding wallet addresses, so be extra careful with that. 

The word on CEX.IO 

CEX.IO has never been hacked, and it’s hard to find a bad word said about the platform. Here’s why.

CoinSwitch Kuber vs CEX.IO:  Both are on the up!

CoinSwitch Kuber vs CEX.IO: Who is our winner?

Kudos to our winner, CEX.IO!