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Perhaps you have heard how this crypto sales-only platform has attracted hundreds of thousands of international users though its comparatively flexible global credit-card purchases policy. Throughout this Coinmama review I will show you that it's all true: The exchange is best known for facilitating the purchase of bitcoins and ether with debit and credit cards.
Its services are accessible from most parts the globe. The only obstacle that may exist for a majority of users, except in the US, is the unavailability of Visa or Mastercard services in their country of residence. Depending on local regulations, services are unavailable in a majority of US states. Even with this limited availability, site analysis platform Similarweb.
Other countries that bring the most traffic to Coinmama. Compared to other major exchanges, Coinmama receives among the lowest number of monthly visitors—0. Coinmama does not have a mobile application but all its services are accessible through mobile browser. The exchange is yet to release an API for users to create custom applications that are compatible with the platform. There is little need, however, given that Coinmama is not a trading platform. Transactions are always between you and Coinmama.
When you sign up, you provide an email address, your name and country of residence. Before you can buy bitcoins or ethers, the exchange has to verify your account.
The verification form requires full name, date of birth, gender, address and credit or debit card number. The verification process also involves submitting photos of the front and back sides of an identification document.
After the submission of the application, the process can take a few hours to up to a day before your account is verified and activated. It takes longer if you place your application on the eve of or during a weekend or public holiday. The most frequent reason Coinmama declines applications is due to poor quality of ID photos. To avoid this, make sure photos of your ID are of high resolution and all four corners are visible.
If you need to buy more, you will have to contact support. In comparison to other exchanges, Coinmama offers one of the highest daily buying limits of bitcoin or ether available immediately after signup and verification of your account. Unlike Kraken or Poloniex, however, Coinmama offers no account tiers.
As with all centralized services, these represent prime targets for hacking. However, Coinmama holds no user funds and instead sells bitcoins out of its own inventory. When you place an order, you provide a wallet address to which they can send your bitcoins or ether. As of October Coinmama has not experienced any security breaches.
That's quite impressive when compared to Coinbase, who did have one early, yet major hack on their exchange. An order usually executes within minutes after you place it, as long as your debit or credit card is approved for use on the platform.
If an order aborts, the system automatically voids the payment within 48 hours and the money is refunded back to your bank account. This is an uncommon occurrence, however. Aside from cryptocurrency funds belonging to the exchange, user credit card information could be a target for theft.
However, Coinmama assures customers that credit and debit card information is not stored on the exchange server. Coinmama supports only bitcoin and ether at this time, but it has promised to add more cryptocurrencies in the future. While all exchanges started as marketplaces for buying and selling bitcoins, most have since added Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies that have come along and become popular.
In comparison with other major exchanges, Coinmama is among those that support the smallest number of cryptocurrencies. Poloniex supports over 70 crypto assets, Shapeshift supports 50 and Coinbase 5. Some exchanges, such as Poloniex and Bitstamp, match buyers and sellers. Others such as Coinbase buy and sell directly from clients. A thorough inspection of Coinmama always requires a search online. Doing so returns a user who goes by the name Coinmama on Localbitcoins, giving an indication that the exchange may buy the bulk of its bitcoins from users on other exchanges.
Coinmama offers no trading tools, such as charts and price notifications, as do most other exchanges. As a trader, you can only use the platform to buy bitcoins or ethers to hold for a long position. Coinmama is one of the most expensive exchanges.
This charge is in addition to an exchange transaction fee of 6. In comparison, CEX charges a transaction fee of 3. If users go to other platforms to trade between crypto assets, an even bigger gap in the cost of trade is incurred.
As a rule of thumb, you can expect exchanges to charge less when you are buying cryptocurrencies with other cryptocurrencies. It currently accepts Visa and MasterCard. It also accepts payment through Western Union. By making special arrangements with support, you can also use cash to buy bitcoins or ether. The lack of a wide range of payment methods makes Coinmama less attractive compared to other exchanges. When using a credit or debit card, Coinmama accepts payment in whatever local fiat currency the buyer prefers.
The exchange has promised to add more fiat currencies in time. The primary channel to reach Coinmama support is through email. Compared to other major exchanges, response is very fast, with queries consistently replied to within 24 hours.
Waits are longer over the weekend or during public holidays. The exchange has a detailed knowledge-base platform that provides answers to most common questions.
Furthermore, the support team also responds to questions left on their blog. One common customer complaint is the slow account verification process. Sometimes users say they are also unable to successfully place orders following verification. There are of course many similar sites to Coinmama, and most will have two-way trading.
Here are the best alternatives:. October 05, by BestBitcoinExchange — 6 Comments. Buy Bitcoin Now Rank. Buy Now Go to eToro eToro. A short guide for using Coinmama's website. How was your experience using Coinmama? Was it good or bad, and what would you add to this Coinmama review? Let me know in the comments below. Read More Buy Now. Thank you for submitting your comment for moderation.
Notify of new replies to this comment. Whats the point of using coinmama if its more expensive and has barely any coins? One if it's biggest advantages is that you can accepts cards from over countries, also offers a high upper limit of first timers. So it will depend on what you want from the exchange, if you want cheap fees and lots of coins then take a look at bittrex, poloniex, bitstamp. For people in Canada, it is much harder to get access to BTC even though they are willing to pay more.
Provided that it continues to have a lot of BTC and Ethereum in their inventory, Coinmama is sure to have more users in the years to come. This might sound irrational, but there are people who are more than willing to pay high transaction fees just so they can buy Bitcoin as fast as possible. I think this is what Coinmama is banking on. There are many people with debit and credit cards around the world who want a piece of the Bitcoin market, but they'd prefer taking the simplest route.
With Coinmama, they don't have to haggle or look at various offers from other users. They just have to buy directly from the site. On the part of Coinmama, I hope that they don't turn into an exchange.
Their appeal right now is what makes them special. They don't have to worry about having an API, and people can just go to the mobile site -- with complete functions -- instead of a buggy app. I wonder when they'll accept other convenient payment methods?
I think PayPal is another good option.