CoinJar – Is It Good?

Described by some as the Coinbase equivalent in Australia, CoinJar is one of the biggest Australian bitcoin platforms. It has a few alt-coin options and, if you’re Australian, you can easily set up fiat deposits and withdrawals. Although it’s quite popular, you may want to think twice about opening an account once you see the fees and some other issues we’ll talk about below.

So how good is CoinJar? Is CoinJar trustworthy? Is it only for Australians? And, most importantly, how does it stack up against other platforms?

What Does CoinJar provide?

Established in May 2013, CoinJar focuses on its Australian clients, providing a simple and attractive interface where they can buy, sell and trade cryptocurrencies. However, the platform doesn’t completely succeed at being, as they claim, “the simplest way to send, receive and store cryptocurrency”.

For example, to open an account you have to fill up the box on the home page with your information. Then it’ll take you to another page where you’ll have to fill out your information again, but now in more boxes. Once you’re done you’ll have to confirm your email address and then you’ll have your profile where you could even upload a photo of yourself. Why anyone would do this is beyond us.

Once you do this and you take time to confirm your phone number you’ll finally have the chance to transfer funds to your account. If you aren’t an Australian resident you’ll only be able to transfer crypto to your account, not fiat. So far it doesn’t seem that simple, right? Well it gets worse. You can store the currencies offered on the website, which besides Bitcoin are only Ethereum, Litecoin, Ripple and Zcash. However if for some reason you make a mistake and transfer one of those to the wrong wallet (say Bitcoin to Litecoin), you won’t get the equivalent of that into Bitcoin. You won’t even get an error showing. You simply lose that crypto forever.

The platform itself seems quite responsive and secure. They offer a two-factor authentication, website encryption and multi-sig technologies for online storage. They also boast about keeping 90% of customer funds in cold storage, although that’s not nearly as high of a percentage as some other cheaper platforms.

CoinJar is also promising to release a physical debit card to use your crypto anywhere, anytime. However we couldn’t find more information on it besides the “Coming Soon” promise on their website so the time of its release is anyone’s guess.

Supported Countries

CoinJar is strongly focused on its Australian clients, which are the only ones that can deposit or withdraw fiat. However, the platform is available worldwide and anyone can send and receive cryptocurrencies.

CoinJar Rates and Buying Limits

CoinJar has a pretty simple fee system. Every time you make a transaction on the platform you’ll get charged the same fee:

CoinJar fee: 1%

It may be simple but it’s definitely not cheap! A 1% fee is definitely above average in the cryptocurrency world. If you’re looking for a short-term investment, or even a payment option, that 1% will definitely keep adding up.

Daily limits vary between accounts so you’ll have to check yours after validating it. However, it’s worth noting that our daily limits will change on a 24 hour frame, meaning they don’t change at midnight but 24 hours after your actions are performed.

CoinJar Cons

• High fees: Percentage-based fees are only great for small amounts of Bitcoin. Larger traders or traders looking to make a quick buck when prices go down may want to look elsewhere for smaller fees.
• No live support: Unless you’re a subscriber to the Coinjar trader plan, you’ll have to generate a support ticket and the support team only works from Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. till 6 p.m., Melbourne time.
• Long and cumbersome verification process: You’ll need to upload a lot of your personal information including phone number and drivers licence. You also need to wait several days for those to be reviewed and approved.

Go to CoinJar

Is CoinJar Good For Bitcoin?

With no physical card option, CoinJar is barely a glorified wallet for worldwide users, and a poor one at that. The 1% fee for every transaction seems quite high for a platform securing just 90% of their clients’ funds in cold storage and without a live chat or 24 hour support team.

Fiat support is only available for Australian residents but even they can find a cheaper and more secure option than CoinJar.

However, this still has the potential to be a good option once they have their exchange and physical card services ready.