Bitibu

Bitibu Review

Bitibu is a quite new cryptocurrency exchange, launched in January 2018.

Bitibu’s domicile country is unclear. Moreover, we have not been able to find any information on the team or the company behind this exchange. These circumstances are, at least taken together, red flags. Accordingly, we recommend all visitors to be careful and form their own opinion on whether Bitibu is a legitimate exchange our not. The reason for saying that is that historically, most of the exchanges that have turned out to be frauds have generally not provided any information about the team members, the company behind it or the country it’s from (as that would make it easier to pursue legal action against the exchange).

Generally speaking, information on the exchange is almost non-existent. The FAQ, which normally provides helpful details to users on all types of matters, only containts three items: (i) Terms and Conditions, (ii) Privacy Policy, and (iii) Fee-structure. In other words, not a single “real” question is answered.

Bitibu focuses a lot on being “simple”, probably as many investors perceive cryptocurrency exchanges as overly complex.

Bitibu does not explicitly state that US-investors are prohibited from trading there. Accordingly, we do believe that they can. Any US-investors interested in trading here should in any event form their own opinion on any issues arising from their citizenship or residency.

Bitibu Trading View

Different exchanges have different trading views. And there is no “this overview is the best”-view. You should yourself determine which trading view that suits you the best. What the trading views normally have in common is that they all show the order book or at least part of the order book, a price chart of the chosen cryptocurrency and order history. They normally also have buy and sell-boxes. Before you choose an exchange, try to have a look at the trading view so that you can ascertain that it feels right to you. The below is a picture of the trading view at Bitibu:

Bitibu Fees

Bitibu Trading Fees

This exchange doesn’t charge different fees between takers and makers. Their fee model is instead something called a “flat fee model”.

This trading platform has set its flat fee at 0.10%. This is a quite competitive fee, especially considering that the global industry average is 0.25%.

Bitibu Withdrawal Fees and Withdrawal Approvals

There are a few exchanges out there that lure you in with competitive trading fees, but then hit you on the way out with hefty withdrawal fees. In all fairness, Bitibu does qualify to be such an exchange. This is because if you withdraw BTC here, you pay a fixed withdrawal fee amounting to 0.002 BTC. The global industry average BTC-withdrawal fee is 0.000812 BTC (60% lower than what Bitibu charges).

Even though these fees can be considered insignificant in the bigger picture (0.002 BTC is roughly USD 7.90 when applying the BTC to USD-exchange rate on 26 March 2019), if you make a large number of smaller withdrawals these fees can really add up to unproportionately large amounts. Accordingly, we definitely feel that this exchange could have a more consumer-friendly offering on the withdrawal fee area.

Manual Approval of Withdrawals

It has also been brought to our attention that all transfers here are subject to manual review. That means that if you wish to make a withdrawal, someone at Bitibu has to approve your request first. Apparently, the exchange says that this will always happen within 48 hours. According to information we have received, however, this is hardly ever the case. This, together with unresponsiveness to support tickets, is naturally a bad aspect of this exchange’s offering.

We have ourselves contacted this exchange to get more details as to the withdrawal approval issues but we have not received any response from the exchange-team either.

Deposit Methods

At Bitibu, you can deposit through both wire transfer and credit cards. This can be helpful especially for newer crypto investors. This also means that Bitibu is a so called “entry-level exchange”.