Cryptster
Exchange Fees
Deposit Methods
Cryptos (10)
UPDATE 1 May 2022: Cryptster has decided to close down its operations. They announced this on its website as follows:
THE WEBSITE IS SHUT DOWN
After a thorough evaluation of all options in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine along with rapidly evolving, increasingly regulated and competitive cryptocurrency market, Cryptster team has decided to shut down the project and cease its operations.
If you have any questions, you can still reach us at [email protected]
Accordingly, we have marked the platform as "dead" in our Exchange Graveyard.
To find a reliable exchange where you can start an account, just use our Exchange Filters and we'll help you find the right platform for you.
Cryptster Review
What is Cryptster?
Cryptster is a P2P-crypto platform registered in Estonia. The platform launched in 2020.
At Cryptster, people from different countries can post ads where they state exchange rate and payment methods for buying or selling any of the cryptocurrencies supported by the platform. You reply to these ads and agree to transact with the person you have replied to. The seller puts the relevant crypto in an escrow account, and when the parties have made a transaction and the seller has confirmed payment to Cryptster, then Cryptster releases the crypto from the escrow to the buyer.
In many ways, Cryptster is like an online store or an Ebay for digital assets. Investors at the exchange post different “ads”, where they offer a price quote for a specific cryptocurrency. This ad can be for both buying or selling or either one of those actions. If you as another buyer/seller thinks the offer is good, you can just take it. The platform’s mission is to allow users to exchange directly, with no middleman involved.
Cryptster Trading View
Every trading platform has a trading view. The trading view is the part of the exchange’s website where you can see the price chart of a certain cryptocurrency and what its current price is. There are normally also buy and sell boxes, where you can place orders with respect to the relevant crypto, and, at most platforms, you will also be able to see the order history (i.e., previous transactions involving the relevant crypto).
Cryptster, however, is as mentioned above not really an exchange per se. It is more like an Ebay for cryptos. At this place, you can scan through a number of different sell/buy ads that have been posted by other users of the platform. You can sort by payment method, price, popularity, coin etc, to find a seller/buyer that you want to transact with. The below is a picture of the very simple and intuitive search interface that you can use when looking for offer at the platform:
Cryptster Fees
Cryptster Trading fees
Considering the above business model, the distinction between parties on the exchange is not taker and maker, it’s rather more like person advertising and person responding to advertisement. The person responding to an existing offer is not charged anything (0.00%). The person who have created the offer needs to pay 0.25% in trading fees.
If comparing 0.25% to average trading fees for centralized exchanges, it is slightly on the high end. However, there are great dissimilarities between Cryptster and centralized exchanges somewhat explaining the higher fee. If comparing the 0.25% fee against other P2P-marketplaces, which is a more suitable comparison, Cryptster's fees are actually very low.
Cryptster Withdrawal fees
The final fee to consider is the withdrawal fee. Cryptster charges the network fees, plus 0.00001 BTC, for each BTC-withdrawal. The network fees varies from day to day depending upon the network congestion. However, as the network fee on the date of last updating this review (19 August 2021) was 0.000063 BTC, we have listed the BTC-withdrawal fee as 0.000073 BTC per BTC-withdrawal (0.00063 BTC + 0.00001 BTC)
This fee is incredibly low. According to the only empirical study performed on the subject that we know of, namely our own: this one, the industry average BTC-withdrawal fee during the second quarter of 2021 was 0.00057 BTC per BTC-withdrawal.
Deposit Methods
Deposit Methods
This platform is suitable for entry-level clients as well as more advanced users. This means that it is an alternative for those who would like to enter the cryptocurrency market but does not have any cryptocurrency assets to begin with. The platform allows its users to deposit through wire transfer, using credit or debit card, and a number of other ways.
US-investors
Why do so many exchanges not let US citizens open accounts with them? The answer is the SEC (the Securities Exchange Commission). The reason the SEC is so unwilling to give licenses to every crypto exchange platform wishing to do business in the United States is because they are wary that foreign companies might start soliciting US investors. There are quite a few examples where SEC has sued crypto exchange platforms. One of them is EtherDelta. They were sued for operating an unregistered exchange platform. Another one was Bitfinex. SEC claimed that the stablecoin Tether (USDT) was misleading investors. It is very likely that more cases will follow.
According to information we have received from Cryptster, their platform is open to US-investors. However, if you are a US citizen, it’s always advisable to check whether there is any local regulation applied by your home state that could make it illegal for you to trade foreign cryptocurrency.
