Crypto Invest

Coinhako – Should You Use This Platform? (Review)

Coinhako Review

Last updated on July 9th, 2021

This article contains affiliate links. You can read more about these links in my Editorial Guidelines.

If you are interested in buying cryptocurrency from Singapore, one of the exchanges that you may have heard of is Coinhako.

However, you may have seen some complaints regarding how poor their support is!

Should you still be using this platform to buy crypto? Here’s my experience with Coinhako to help you make a better decision:

Coinhako review

Coinhako provides an easy way for you to buy a variety of currencies, especially altcoins, due to its 30+ SGD trading pairs with crypto. However, due to its unstable servers, it is not a suitable platform if you intend to make frequent trades.

This is a summary of Coinhako’s features,

Number of Currencies30+
Funding MethodsXfers
FAST
Methods of BuyingInstant Buy
Withdrawal of FundsBank Account
Deposit Fees0.55% (Xfers),
none for FAST
Withdrawal Fees$2 per
withdrawal
Trading Fees0.80% – 1%
Sending FeesDynamic
Minimum Per Trade$45
SecurityCold storage
+ hot wallet
MAS RegulationIntends
to comply
VerdictGood for rarer altcoins,
but fees are rather expensive

and here is this platform reviewed in-depth:

Is Coinhako an exchange or a wallet?

Coinhako is an exchange which allows you to buy, sell or swap cryptocurrencies at Coinhako’s prevailing market rates. Coinhako also acts as a wallet where you can store your cryptocurrencies in your account.

Coinhako allows you to buy, sell or swap cryptocurrencies on their platform. You are able to buy these currencies from both SGD and USD.

However, you are unable to place limit orders which are found on other exchanges!

Coinhako also acts as a wallet that allows you to store different currencies. However, they may not allow you to send or receive some currencies.

These are usually the latest currencies that they have released on their platform.

Number of currencies

Coinhako’s main feature is that it offers a wide variety of currencies on its platform. You can buy 30+ currencies, which include:

  1. ADA
  2. HBAR
  3. THETA
  4. MATIC
  5. MANA
  6. LUNA
Coinhako Number Of Currencies

The number of SGD trading pairs that Coinhako has is comparable with Tokenize.

Furthermore, Coinhako has been frequently adding new currencies on their platform! You can view these updates on their blog.

For some of these currencies, Coinhako is the only platform that allows you to directly buy them from SGD.

Funding your account

There are 2 ways that you can fund your account:

  1. Xfers Direct
  2. FAST Transfer
Coinhako Funding Methods

To start using Xfers, you’ll need to create a Xfers wallet if you have not done so yet!

Here are the pros and cons of each method:

MethodTime Taken For Funds
To Reach Account
Fees
Xfers DirectWithin minutes0.55%
FAST TransferUp to 1 business dayNone

If you are looking to buy a certain currency that is increasing in price, you may want to use Xfers Direct and pay the fees.

However, if you are just intending to hold onto a coin, then FAST would still be sufficient for you.

My deposit via FAST was only processed at 1pm, after depositing it the previous night. As such, you may want to use Xfers Direct if you want to buy a certain token immediately.

Your deposits may take a while to be processed

If you choose to use FAST, you may experience some delays at certain times.

This could be due to the high demand to buy crypto during volatile periods. As a result, your deposits may not be processed.

Coinhako Deposit Processed Being Delayed

This is something you may want to take note, especially when everyone is buying into the crypto market.

Alternatively, you can use Xfers Direct, but you may incur extra fees.

You can deposit USDC or USDT that will be converted to USD

If you have USDT or USDC, you can deposit into Coinhako.

Coinhako USDC and USDT Deposit Address

Your funds will be automatically converted to USD when you make this deposit.

However, you can’t withdraw this USD to your bank account!

The only way you can withdraw it is via either USDC or USDT.

If you wish to withdraw your USD from your USD wallet, Coinhako only allows you to withdraw it as USDC or USDT.

Coinhako Withdraw USD For USDC Or USDT

If you want to convert your USD to SGD, here’s what you need to do:

  1. Buy a cryptocurrency using your USD wallet
  2. Sell that cryptocurrency for SGD

You will incur trading fees for both trades that you make!

Buying and selling crypto

When you are buying and selling crypto on Coinhako, you are trading it at Coinhako’s prevailing market rate. The rates can be seen on their platform.

Coinhako Buy Crypto At Prevailing Rate

This is different from trading platforms, where you are able to place limit orders.

You may also notice that there is a difference between the buying and selling price. If you want to sell your crypto, you will be selling at a rate that is lower than the buying rate.

This means that you may sell your crypto at a loss if you are not aware of the differences in price!

You’ll need to trade a minimum of $0.50

Coinhako has a minimum trade amount of $0.50. This minimum sum is really low, so you can buy any crypto even with a low amount!

What are the trading fees for Coinhako?

Coinhako charges a flat 1% trading fee for any trade that you make. However, you can further reduce this fee by using promo codes and rewards points to claim trading fee discounts.

Coinhako charges a 1% trading fee for any trade that you make.

Coinhako Buy BTC Fees

This is quite high compared to other crypto exchanges you can use in Singapore!

However, there are 2 ways that you can lower the trading fees that you pay with Coinhako:

  1. Use the promo code ‘COINGECKO’ to receive a 0.2% trading fee discount
  2. Claim a trading fee discount coupon with your rewards points

You can use ‘COINGECKO’ to receive an immediate fee discount.

Coinhako Buy BTC Fees Coingecko Waiver

Another way is by using your rewards points that you can receive from performing certain actions:

  1. Logging into Coinhako daily
  2. Making trades on Coinhako
Coinhako Reward Points History

These points can be used to claim either 20% or 25% trading discounts.

Coinhako Reward Points Trading Discount

Overall, Coinhako’s fees are much more expensive compared to other exchanges like:

  1. Zipmex
  2. Luno
  3. Gemini Active Trader

If you are looking to buy common currencies like BTC or ETH, there are cheaper options that are available.

However, if you want to buy ‘rarer altcoins’ directly from SGD, Coinhako may be one of the only options.

What are the fees charged by Coinhako if I use a credit card to buy crypto?

You will be charged an extra 3% which is the processing fee done by the payment provider that Coinhako has partnered with. This is charged on top of the trading fee that Coinhako charges you.

Coinhako Credit Card Fees

The fees for buying crypto with your credit or debit card are quite similar to that of Coinbase. Both of them are really high, so it is not advisable for you to buy crypto using a credit card!

Although this is the most convenient way of doing so, the fees are just not worth it.

You can swap crypto too

You can swap your cryptocurrency from one currency to another.

Coinhako Swap Currency 1

You will need to pay a 1% fee, and the minimum of $0.50 also applies here.

Coinhako’s servers have a reputation of being unstable

If you have looked at any of Coinhako’s Facebook posts, you may have seen many complaints about Coinhako’s servers.

Coinhako’s servers seem unable to cope with a high trading volume. This usually occurs during high periods of volatility, when the prices are either going up or down.

Coinhako Telegram Server Lag

If you are looking to make frequent trades, then Coinhako would not be the best platform for you to use.

This is because you may not be able to buy and sell your crypto at the price that you intended.

There are other trading platforms that are able to manage a higher trading volume, such as Binance.

However, Binance does not support SGD trading pairs. You may need to send your crypto from another platform.

You can view my guide on how to transfer your crypto from Coinhako to Binance to find out more.

Withdrawals

If you have made profits from selling your crypto, you may want to withdraw SGD from Coinhako’s platform.

Coinhako Cash Wallet

Coinhako charges a $2 fee for every withdrawal that you make.

Coinhako Withdrawal Fees

As such, it would be best not to withdraw small amounts each time!

Coinhako states that it will take around 3-5 business days for your funds to reach your bank account. I have been receiving my funds with no issue.

Coinhako Confirm Withdrawal

Sometimes it took even less than the 3 business days that they promised!

Sending crypto to another platform

You can send your crypto to another platform, such as Celsius or BlockFi.

This allows you to use these platforms to either earn interest on your crypto, or to stake your crypto.

The crypto withdrawal fees that Coinhako charges are dynamic. However, you can see the network fees that you’ll incur before making the transfer.

Coinhako BTC Sending Fee

Coinhako has rather low withdrawal fees for these currencies:

  1. XRP
  2. XLM
  3. LTC
  4. BCH

I would suggest that you do not send out BTC or ETH, as the fees you pay are really high.

Crypto withdrawals have been relatively stable

I did not have much issues when sending out XRP, LTC, ZIL or DOGE to another platform.

Coinhako Sending Crypto History

However, my latest withdrawal of XRP took about an hour before it was processed.

When you transfer your crypto to another platform, the speed of the transaction depends on the network congestion. If there are many transactions to be processed, then your transfer may take a longer time.

This is something to take note so you won’t worry too much about your transaction!

You can’t send all currencies on Coinhako

When Coinhako introduces a new currency on their platform, they will usually come with limited support.

This means that you are able to buy, sell or swap that cryptocurrency. However, you aren’t able to send that currency to another platform.

For these currencies like AAVE, the ‘Send‘ and ‘Receive‘ buttons will be blanked out.

Coinhako Currencies Send and Receive

As such, you’ll need to consider if the currency you want to send out has full support, before buying it on Coinhako!

Customer support

Coinhako has rather poor customer support, especially if you are facing some issues with the platform.

There have been many complaints about unresolved tickets on Facebook and Reddit. As such, you may experience a delay in your requests from Coinhako’s customer support.

Is Coinhako safe?

Coinhako stores the majority of your cryptocurrency in cold storage accounts, while a small percentage is stored on their hot wallet. However, Coinhako was previously hacked on 21st Feb 2020, where funds from 20 users were stolen.

Coinhako mentioned that they store the majority of your crypto in their ‘highly secure’ cold storage accounts.

Meanwhile, only a small percentage of your funds will be stored on their exchange. This helps to facilitate liquidity where you are able to sell or withdraw your funds.

If hackers are able to gain access to your holdings, they will only gain access to a small percentage on the exchange.

To get the rest of your funds, they will need to hack the cold storage account. This is much harder to do!

As such, most of your crypto with Coinhako will be safe and secure.

Coinhako also allows you to use 2FA apps like Authy to make your account extra secure.

Even with these measures, Coinhako was still hacked on 21st Feb 2020. Thankfully, only 20 users were affected, and any assets that were lost were reimbursed by Coinhako.

Is Coinhako regulated by MAS?

Coinhako is striving to comply with the regulations set out under the Payment Services Act by the MAS. Coinhako will be aiming to obtain the Payment Services Act licence once they are approved by the MAS.

Is Coinhako legit?

Coinhako provides a convenient way of buying a wide variety of cryptocurrencies directly from SGD. However, there are quite a few issues, such as the platform experiencing downtime when there is a high trading volume. This platform would not be suitable if you are a frequent trader.

Should you be using Coinhako to buy crypto?

I feel that Coinhako is a good platform for beginners, especially if you want to buy certain altcoins.

These altcoins may not have SGD trading pairs on other crypto exchanges.

The fees on Coinhako are much higher than other platforms. However, it may be worth paying it for the convenience that you receive by buying these crypto directly from SGD.

As such, Coinhako would be a good platform if you want to buy and hold these currencies, and sell them after a period of time.

However, you should not use Coinhako if you intend to make frequent trades. This is because the servers are rather unstable, especially during times when there are high transaction volumes!


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