Coinut Review
Why Does COINUT Suck in 50 Words?
The low volume of this exchange is a problem. According to CoinMarketCap, their daily volume at the time of writing is around 98,000 US Dollars, which is very low compared to the more well-known exchanges. Also, the majority of online discussions I found about COINUT are about referral bonuses… Is anyone even trading here or are people just inviting friends to make a quick buck off their referral bonuses?
Why COINUT Doesn’t Suck in 50 Words?
In the past this exchange offered some sort of Bitcoin options but ditching this type of trading was a smart decision because it paved the way for COINUT to become a true cryptocurrency exchange, without over-the-top marketing and all the other well-known issues of binaries. They are now a fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-crypto exchange, which means you can deposit/withdraw fiat as well as crypto.
Is COINUT a Scam?
This exchange is registered in Singapore and in Canada, has been operating for a relatively long time (founded in 2013), and offers a fair level of transparency. However, in the past they’ve have offered binary options and their own forum was full of concerning complaints regarding withdrawals, bonus issues, but also other issues such as “missing deposits”. Even worse, there was no response from COINUT support to the majority of the threads, older and newer ones likewise. Why have a forum filled with threads about issues that are unanswered?
This indicated an unserious business to me and would most likely scare away new investors – well, considering all the complaints I suppose it’s a good thing that it does scare people away! Furthermore, now their forum is mostly empty, which is weird. Did they delete all the old threads and posts or what happened? Either way, COINUT is a crypto exchange under supervision from two financial authorities and has been around for a long time so it’s safe to say it’s not a scam but you should always use caution when dealing with crypto exchanges or brokers.
Should I Open An Account With COINUT?
COINUT (COIN Ultimate Trading) is a cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2013 and owned by COINUT PTE. LTD., located at NUS Enterprise, Singapore. This Singapore based company is registered with the UEN.gov.sg in Singapore under Unique Entity Number (UEN) 201332271K.
COINUT also operates from Canada (COINUT CANADA LTD.) and is registered with FINTRAC (Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada) as a Money Services Business (MSB) under registration number M18935124. The main office in Canada is located in Toronto, Canada.
In the early years, COINUT marketed itself as “the only Bitcoin Options Exchange”. Many years have passed since and now we are dealing with a “normal” cryptocurrency exchange, with a clean trading platform and charts provided by TradingView.
Apparently, most discussions in their forum and also on every other forum where this broker is mentioned are about their referral bonuses. Like I said before, I wonder if anyone is even trading there? Or maybe the traders are all happy and the affiliates not as much? Regardless, they claim to offer 2.84 USD (in LTC) if you register an account and 2.71 USD if you refer a friend. On top of that, you will get 30% “of trade commission”. It’s unclear what that means exactly – if my referral trades 1 Bitcoin, will I get 0.3 Bitcoin regardless of the outcome of his trades? Or maybe it means that I will have a 30% rebate on my trading commissions (fees)? Or maybe I will get a 30% piece from the fees that my referral is paying? They should explain better.
Either way, all this has attracted many people to refer their friends to COINUT but it seems people are having major issues getting that money. Of course, it could also be so that the affiliates themselves are not doing everything right (i.e. not following the specific terms of this referral program). Whichever the case, this has created a big mess in various forums in the past, but now things seem to have calmed down a bit. Overall, COINUT does not strike me as the best exchange and the very low volume is a bit worrying.
Coinut Canada Ltd lists the address 1 Yonge Street, Suite 1801 Toronto ON M5E 1W7, Canada CA, while Coinut Pte. Ltd lists the address 6 Shenton Way, #22-08 OUE Downtown 2, Singapore, 068809 SG. They do not provide an email or phone number.
COINUT Online Presence And Reputation
Most people on COINUT are going nuts due to unpaid referral bonuses – pun intended. There are however complaints regarding deposits not showing up and withdrawals still being “processed” despite several days passing. Surprisingly, even the cryptocurrency withdrawals are delayed which is strange considering such transactions normally get done within the hour – 3 to 4 days for a Bitcoin transaction seems way too long. There are also complaints regarding lack of liquidity which stopped clients from trading, so all in all their online presence is not high-profile and their reputation is mediocre.
COINUT Special Features
There’s not much in terms of extra features on COINUT; of course, there’s the referral program but let’s not forget that (at least at the time of writing) you will only get about $2.71 (in LTC) per friend that opens an account and the friend gets about $2.84. Not impressive at all, unless you get like 100 guys to sign up with COINUT.
COINUT Ratings
User Friendliness 14/20
The platform itself could be somewhat difficult to understand if you don’t have any prior trading experience, otherwise, you’ll be fine (if you find it difficult, there is a well-explained section in the FAQ that describes step by step how to place an order). There are two languages, English and Chinese. Mobile versions are available for iOS and Android and US clients are not restricted from registering. Also, if you don’t want to deposit/withdraw fiat, you won’t have to go through the KYC verification procedure, which is a good thing.
Range Of Markets And Volume 10/20
COINUT’s cryptocurrency offering is limited to less than 10 digital assets, which is disappointing and not competitive at all. These cryptocurrencies can be traded against the USDT, SGD, Cad and some among themselves, thus you will have more than 10 pairs but that’s still very low for an exchange. As stated before, their daily volume at the time of writing is around $98,000, which is very low.
Fees And Support 13/20
The support seems to not be around much as their forum and chatbox are full of complaints and you can barely find one representative answering any of these people. Even on comment sections and forums elsewhere, you will find similar complaints about support not answering.
The fees for crypto trading are 0.1% for the Taker and zero for the Maker. Crypto-to-fiat incurs larger fees: 0.50% for the Taker and 0.45% for the Maker but will go lower if the client has high trading volume. For example, if you trade more than 2 million USD in 30 days you will become VIP 4 and will have a 0.30% fee if you are Taker and zero if you are Maker.
Deposits And Withdrawals 14/20
You can deposit BTC, LTC, ETH, ETC, XMR, UDST, and DAI (there’s no minimum – deposit what you want). Withdrawals are of course made to your coin address, with some minimum requirements: 0.0015 BTC, 0.1 LTC, and 0.05 ETH.
In order to deposit and withdraw fiat currency (USD, SGD, CAD) you will have to complete their Customer Due Diligence process, which requires you to send proof of address, proof of identity, and a few other documents. This is normal, especially for crypto-to-fiat exchanges.
Website Extra’s 11/20
The thing that stands out is the super low volume, which is weird considering that their traffic is relatively large (over 500K hits monthly). They have a blog, news and a few educational articles but nothing stands out.