GokuMarket

Goku Market Review

Pros

• Staking and cashback available
• In-app shopping

Cons 

• Not available in the US
• Complicated and elevated fees

About Exchange

Goku Market is working to recover some trust it had lost with the community. After several complaints of withdrawals pending for months, or transactions not appearing on the public blockchains, Goku is changing directions. We will see if their brand trust improves, as promised, with these changes. 

Bonuses and Passive Income

Goku Market offers a lot of extra ways to let your money work for you. Many of them encourage you to hold GMC, the native token of the exchange. 

Staking

Goku offers staking on more than a dozen cryptocurrencies. This is where you deposit and lock an amount of cryptocurrency and then begin to earn rewards based on the amount you invest. They are currently offering annual yields of between 1-16%.

Cashback

You can use the GokuMarket app to buy products using your cryptocurrencies. If you shop on this market, you can earn cashback in the form of BTC and GMC.

Bot Trading

You can use algorithmic trading bots to automate the best trades for you. The bots will diversify your portfolio over the course of several months. This is a convenient way to let data-driven intelligence generate passive income for you. 

Fees

The fere structure at Goku Market is full of tiny details. Each cryptocurrency has its own withdrawal fee, and different users pay different buying and selling fees. While the fees overall are above industry averages, you can find some god deals here if you climb in G Rank by being an active user.

Withdrawal Fees

The withdrawal fees at Goku Market vary according to the token and the price that each blockchain charges. Here are some of the withdrawal fees for the biggest cryptocurrencies.

• Bitcoin Withdrawal Fee: 0.001 BTC
• Ethereum Withdrawal Fee: 0.01 ETH
• Binance Coin Withdrawal Fee: 0.01 BNB

These fees are far above the industry average, as the industry average according to the only empirical study performed on the subject that we know of,this one is 0.0004723 BTC per BTC withdrawal.

Buying and Selling Fees

The fees for buying and selling at Goku Market will vary with your G Rank. You can go up in rank from G0 to G10 by being a more active user.

Users with a G0 rank will pay 0.25% for buying and selling. G10 users will pay 0.15%. According to the latest empirical study on the subject, the industry average taker fees were 0.2323% and the industry average maker fees were 0.1875% (for spot trading). Consequently, the lower-ranked Goku users will be paying more, but if you climb in rank, you can get a really good deal. 

Tokens Available

You can trade 67 different tokens on the Goku Market exchange. This includes Goku Market Credit (GMC), their native utility token. This is a rather small number of tokens to be available on an exchange, but they have been adding new tokens aggressively, so expect this number to rise. 

Here is the full list of tokens you buy on Goku Market:

• 1INCH
• Aave Token
• ARPA Chain
• Alpha Taurus Token
• Axie Infinity
• SHAMBALA
• Bitcoin Cash
• Binance Coin
• Bitcoin
• PancakeSwap Token
• CoinWealth
• Compound
• Dai Stablecoin
• DASH
• Digix Gold Token
• Dogecoin
• Ethereum
• Fetch.Ai
• Fozeus Coin
• GokuMarket Credit
• GokuMarket Guild
• KlitzKoin
• HelloGold
• HuobiToken
• JFIN Coin
• KyberNetwork
• LEAF
• Bitfinex LEO Token
• ChainLink Token
• LIMOCOIN SWAP
• LOOM
• Litecoin
• LoyalCoin
• polygon
• Mini Dane
• Maker
• MedikhanaX
• MetaPlay
• MetaCoin
• N2Coin
• Paxos Gold
• Precharge
• PlaceWar Governance Token
• Sekopay Coin
• SHIBA INU
• Smooth Love Potion
• Synthetix Network Token
• Thousand Token
• TROY
• Tron
• TrueUSD
• Uniswap
• USD Coin
• Pax Dollar
• Tether USD
• UNITED
• UNITED OLD
• ViRiDi
• WANDA EXCHANGE
• WazirX
• Gold Tether
• NEM
• Stellar
• yearn.finance
• Zcash

Who Can Sign Up Here?

Why do so many exchanges not allow US citizens to open accounts with them? The answer has only three letters. S, E and C (the Securities Exchange Commission). The reason the SEC is so scary is because the US does not allow foreign companies to solicit US investors unless those foreign companies are also registered in the US (with the SEC). If foreign companies solicit US investors anyway, the SEC can sue them. There are many examples of when the SEC has sued crypto exchanges, one of which being when they sued EtherDelta for operating an unregistered exchange. Another example was when they sued Bitfinex and claimed that the stablecoin Tether (USDT) was misleading investors. It is very likely that more cases will follow.

There are some important geographic restrictions at Goku Market. People in the United States are not eligible for signing up here, as confirmed by the customer support live chat. The same live chat customer service agent was unable to provide a complete list of countries where this exchange is available.

However, we were able to find a list of prohibited jurisdictions: USA, Belarus, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Crimea region of Ukraine, Croatia, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Kosovo, Lebanon, Libya, Moldova, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.

Deposit Methods

GokuMarket lets you deposit assets to the exchange in many different ways, through wire transfer, debit card, and also by just depositing existing cryptocurrency assets. Fiat currency payments/deposits are possible in the following fiat currencies: EUR, USD, INR, GBP, RUB, UAH, TRY, KZT and BRL.

Seeing as fiat currency deposits are possible at this trading platform, GokuMarket qualifies as an “entry-level exchange”, meaning an exchange where new crypto investors can start their journey into the exciting crypto world.

Debit Card

Goku Market also offers a crypto debit card. This card allows you to instantly convert your crypto into fiat currencies, to be accepted at retailers worldwide. You can use this prepaid debit card just like your other bank cards. 

In order to add money to it, you will be charged a 2.5% fee. This can be reduced to 2% if you use their native token, GMC.

Trading Volume

On 13 February 2021 when we first published this review, GokuMarket had a 24-hour trading volume of USD 30.8 million, according to the information from Coinmarketcap. Ten months later (2 December 2021), GokuMarket's 24-hour trading volume was USD 1.1 billion. On the last update of this review (27 April 2022), the 24-hour trading volume had skyrocketed to USD 206 billion. 

This 24-hour trading volume is quite good, and the increase over time is definitely noteworthy. 

Security

The security at Goku Market is our main concern. We found many complaints about withdrawals pending for months, or transactions not even appearing in the blockchain. All of this is rather concerning and explains the 3.0/5 rating on Trustpilot as of this writing (28 April 2022)

However, Goku Market has been working to address these issues. The biggest developments include increased community voting power and the launch of Goku DEX, the decentralized exchange. This will run along the CEX, centralized exchange, giving users the option that they find most trustworthy. 

App vs Desktop experience

You can download the Goku apps directly from the Apple Store or the Google Playstore. There is even a decentralized Goku Market commerce app. In this app, you can earn Bitcoin and GMC cashback for your purchases. 

Who is Goku Market For?

Goku Market offers cashback via its commerce app, which is a good bonus for those who are looking to buy things with their cryptocurrency. However, the concerns about being able to withdraw with ease and peace of mind make this exchange a risky choice. They are aware of these issues and have promised to resolve them, but the proof will be in the pudding. In the meantime, the exchange is also not available in the US.