CoinJar

CoinJar Review

What is CoinJar?

CoinJar is an Australian crypto exchange. The team started working with the CoinJar-projects in May 2013. The platform is only open for Australian investors.

CoinJar Exchange has three daily auction windows, low and transparent fees, real-time API access, customisable trading interface and layout and HFT-ready. It features a dark and light mode. CoinJar markets itself as a platform with excellent in-house support based in Australia.

CoinJar Founders

The front figures and co-founders of CoinJar is the CEO, Asher Tan, and the COO, Ryan Zhou.

CoinJar Mobile Support

CoinJar's platform is not only available from your desktop, you can also access it via your mobile phone as an app. While most trading in the crypto sphere today is carried out via desktop (around 70% or so), there are naturally people out there that want to do it from their smart phone as well. If you’re one of those people, then this platform can still be for you. Apps are available to both Androids and iPhones.

With over 25,000 downloads and 900 reviews in the App Store (as of 10 February 2020), CoinJar is (according to themselves) the “only Australian exchange to have a top rated app in the App Store.”

CoinJar Miscellaneous Services - Dollar Cost Averaging

CoinJar also offer a number of different ancillary services to the normal crypto trading. One such service is their Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA). DCA is an investment strategy that is quite common in the ordinary stock market as well. It allows you to automatically send money from your linked bank accounts in regular intervals (additional payment methods coming to the CoinJar-platform in the future) and purchase what CoinJar refers to as "CoinJar Bundles" to ensure your portfolio is diversified. DCA reduces the risk of you buying when the price is at its highest, it doesn't require a big starter investment, and it can work for you passively (you don't have to sign in every month to buy crypto, it's done automatically).

Purchasing $10 every week, for example, would be dollar cost averaging. 

CoinJar Exchange 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 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. At this exchange, the “trading view” is an orderbook style with market depth and price charts, grouped tabs, split windows and column ordering. The interface is built for experienced traders. The below is a picture of the purchase interface at CoinJar:

CoinJar Fees

CoinJar Exchange Trading fees

Most crypto exchanges charge two different types of trading fees: taker fees and maker fees. The taker is the person who picks up an existing order from the order book. The maker, on the other hand, is the person who creates an order that is not immediately matched against an existing order on the order book. Makers are often rewarded for creating liquidity on the platform by a lower trading fee than takers. Exchanges that do not make a distinction between takers and makers charge what we call “flat fees”.

CoinJar charges zero fees (0.00%) for takers and 0.06% for makers, for crypto-to-crypto or crypto-to-stablecoin trades. Trading pairs involving a fiat currency (AUD and GBP) cost 0.10% regardless of whether you are a maker or a taker.

According to the largest and most recent empirical study on crypto exchange trading fees, the average spot trading taker fee is currently 0.2294% and the average spot trading maker fee is currently 0.1854%.

Compared to those average trading fees, CoinJar's taker fees and maker fees is substantially below the industry average.

CoinJar Withdrawal fees

As per the fee schedule on 24 June 2020, the withdrawal fee is "dynamically calculated depending on the amount you are sending as well as the blockchain congestion level at the time of sending". The exchange recalculates the fee every 15 minutes. For comparison purposes, we have listed their withdrawal fee as the network fee. The industry average withdrawal fee rate as per our Q2 2022 Empirical report was 0.0004599 BTC per BTC-withdrawal.   

CoinJar provides free withdrawals to Australian bank accounts. You can also withdraw your altcoins for free.

Deposit Methods

At CoinJar, you can deposit in a wide variety of ways. You can deposit from your bank account (using PayID, direct bank transfer or Instant Buy), which is both fee-free and takes 1 hour or less. You can actually also deposit via cash in Australia (!), through a third party service called Blueshyft. You can of course deposit cryptocurrency by using CoinJar UK’s wallet services. Furthermore, credit or debit card deposits are available.

The selection of available deposit methods can be particularly helpful for newer crypto investors and also makes CoinJar UK what we call an “entry-level exchange”.