Coinmama Review

Coinmama is an Israeli-owned cryptocurrency brokerage that is registered in Slovakia and launched in 2013. Given its starting date, Coinmama is one of the older sites where you can buy cryptocurrencies. Coinmama works differently than cryptocurrency exchanges. They’re a brokerage service, meaning they sell coins directly to you.

The key advantage here is that you receive your crypto much faster this way. One downside, which we will go into more detail later, is that you also pay higher fees. Another drawback is that you can only sell bitcoin to Coinmama and not any other cryptocurrency so if you were, for example, to purchase a $1000 worth of ETH you would need to sign up at a different exchange before you are able to sell.

However, many people who’ve entered the crypto world in recent years may be unfamiliar with this site and wonder if it’s trustworthy. Assuming you’re in this crowd and interested in Coinmama, then you’ll want to keep reading this review.

Payment Methods

This site offers a few different ways for you to fund your account. You can use Visa, MasterCard, and bank transfers. Regarding the latter, Faster Payments (UK), SEPA (Europe), and SWIFT (worldwide) are all available.

Coinmama accepts credit or debit cards that are issued by Visa or Mastercard. They also accept payments by bank transfer (SEPA and SWIFT) with 0% processing fees when using the bank transfer option. They also accept payments via Apple Pay. Prices are denominated in the most widely used fiat currencies including USD, GBP, JPY, EUR, CAD and AUD.

Buying Limits

The minimum amount of Bitcoins you can buy is 60 USD or the equivalent in EUR/GBP/AUD/CAD/JPY. The buying limits depend on your account level. The daily buying limit is set to 5000 USD and the monthly limit to 15,000 USD for Level 1. In order to make any type of purchase you’ll need to complete some form of identity verification.

There are 3 levels of verification, and with each level, the account spending limits increase.

• Level 1 – Requires a valid government issued ID, a picture of yourself holding that ID and a note with “Coinmama” and today’s date written on it.
• Level 2 – You will need to submit a secondary ID. From two of the above IDs, you will also need to upload a utility bill.
• Level 3 – Requires filling in a short form on their website.

The purchasing limits vary based on if you’re using a credit card or bank transfer. If you purchase your cryptocurrency using a bank transfer you can buy up to $30,000 worth over a 24 hour period. IF, however you intend to purchase cryptocurrency using a debit or credit card then the daily limit is reduced to $7,500.

Speed of Purchases

You can get cryptocurrencies instantly when you purchase with a credit card. Both the brokerage and credit card aspects help you instantly receive cryptocurrencies.

Assuming you see an unbelievable market price, then you can really capitalize by using your card at Coinmama. Be warned, though, that you’ll have to cover an additional 5% processing fee with a credit card.

Faster Payments vary in speed but you should allow up to 1 day for the transaction to be processed. SEPA bank transfers take 1-2 days to complete. Finally, SWIFT transfers require anywhere from 1-3 days to complete.

Fees

The biggest drawback to Coinmama is the fees. You’ll typically pay anywhere from a 5.5% to a 6% fee with each purchase. Also, there is an additional charge if you use your credit card, then you would pay a combined 10.5% to 11% fee on every purchase you make.

Verification Process

Once you’ve registered for an account, you’ll need to provide certain documents to verify your identity. This process involves uploading a driver license, ID, and/or passport.

You receive a level of membership ranging from 1-3, depending upon how many files you upload. You’ll have the maximum purchasing power of up to $1 million total in crypto at level 3.

Does Coinmama Hold Your Funds?

Coinmama doesn’t hold cryptocurrencies on your behalf. You instead need to send any and all coins you purchase to a seperate wallet address. As with all wallets make sure that it is compatible for the cryptocurrency you are sending before carrying out any transactions or moving any funds.

This aspect is a drawback on one hand. You may appreciate the convenience of being able to store your coins on an exchange.

The bright side, though, is that you’ll be encouraged to open your own wallet due to Coinmama not holding your coins. Many recommend storing coins in your wallet versus an exchange due to safety concerns anyways.

Customer Support

The Coinmama support team is only available through email, although they do support several languages. Their operating hours range from 9:00 to 18:00 GMT+3.We don’t like the limited customer service hours. But they do also provide a FAQs section which can be found here. This is obviously a quicker alternative to using the email address support function.

Which Coins Are Supported?

Coinmama offers the following cryptocurrencies at the time of this review:

• Bitcoin
• Bitcoin Cash
• Cardano
• Ethereum
• Ethereum Classic
• Litecoin
• Ripple
• QTUM

Selling Cryptocurrency

Unusually for a cryptocurrency exchange when it was launched Coinmama didn't allow their customers to sell on their platform. This has now changed and Coinmama now supports selling bitcoins on its exchange.

Customers in the thirty-seven European countries that are part of SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) can now sell their Bitcoin to Coinmama and receive payout through a SEPA bank transfer.

Coinmama now supports a selling service for Bitcoin only. This service functions in a similar way to buying bitcoin. Meaning customers with SEPA supported bank accounts can sell up to 12,000 USD in Bitcoin at a time, with no additional processing fee on SEPA bank transfers.

Which Countries Can Use Coinmama?

This site operates in over 190 countries worldwide. Some of the nations that Coinmama serves include Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Germany, India, Italy, South Korea, Spain, the UK, and the US. Regarding the latter, only around half of American states can use this site.

The Affiliate Program

Coinmama has a rewarding affiliates program. Affiliates can:

Earn 15% of Coinmama’s commission on all referral purchases including all their future purchases.

No limits on either amount of referrals or amount of bitcoin that could potentially be paid out. The more referrals an affiliate makes, the more Coinmama pays in Bitcoin.

Coinmama pays all earnings monthly in arrears.

Rewards are paid only after 3 successful orders made by at least 3 different users.

Becoming an affiliate is fast and easy. Simply register and direct referrals to the Coinmama site with your customized referral link. This can be found under the “Marketing Tools” tab in your Coinmama account.

Privacy Features

Coinmama is one of the safest cryptocurrency sites available on the market. Their brokerage status helps them offer more security than the average site.

Due to the non-custodial nature of their service they won't ever be holding your funds, so in the event of a hack or system malfunction any funds that are stolen will be the companies property and not your own.

Coinmama provides further security by not storing customers’ credit card and banking information on their site. This aspect helps you avoid fearing the worst if Coinmama’s website is breached.