Cryptopia is one of the numerous cryptocurrency exchanges that allows users to buy and sells their assets. Unlike some exchanges where transactions go through the exchange itself, Cryptopia is peer to peer, so all trades are done directly with the other users. To make it stand out, Cryptopia also has a marketplace that allows you to buy, sell, or trade nearly anything by using cryptocurrency. This is a unique combination in the world of cryptocurrency and an answer to something that the market needs.
Cryptopia is registered in New Zealand under the name Cryptopia Limited. It is a completely legitimate corporation registered with the New Zealand government. It is based in Christchurch, and official documents show it was registered during July 2014 with two directors, Adam Clark and Robert Dawson. According to the official registration information, Cryptopia is a software development service. It does not have any claims as a financial service, something that would add to its regulations.
Cryptopia Features
The peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchange is one of the most popular features of Cryptopia. The platform regularly ranks between 50 and 60 for the top cryptocurrency exchanges with data based on the trading volume. Although other exchanges are certainly more popular for the most common cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, Cryptopia’s extensive cryptocurrency support makes it ideal for anyone who wants to trade with a less-common cryptocurrency. You are likely to find nearly any cryptocurrency you search for on Cryptopia.
Marketplace
The marketplace associated with Cryptopia is easily one of its most innovative features. The marketplace is similar to any other classified website used for buying, selling, and trading, but instead of using fiat currencies, users conduct transactions in cryptocurrencies.
Arbitrage
The arbitrage service provides information in the form of what various cryptocurrencies are listed at on the other popular exchanges. This information lets users make an informed decision, so they get a better deal. This can be useful to make some money on less-popular cryptocurrencies since it is much more challenging with high-liquidity currencies, such as Bitcoin.
Coininfo
Cryptopia also has up-to-date information regarding the more than 500 coins traded on the website. The relevant information is listed in CoinInfo in a straightforward manner. View such information as the overall rating, algorithms, network, connection number, wallet status, listing status, and block height.
Paytopia
Paytopia is the set of services and products offered directly by Cryptopia. These include promotional tools to help you make your listings seen and taken advantage of. Most services are paid for with Dotcoin and offer a monthly subscription.
Lottery
Cryptopia also has its own lottery. You can participate and win a daily or monthly lottery, which typically awards prizes for first, second, and third places. At the time of writing, the Lotto portion of the website had not been recently updated, with the most recent drawing in the history listed in late October 2017. However, it is worth keeping your eye on the Lotto to see if Cryptopia works to revive it.
Mineshaft
Mineshaft is Cryptopia’s mining platform that is designed to work with various cryptocurrencies. It supports an incredible range of miners, including those who only use single GPU or CPU, ASIC masters, and everyone in between.
How Do You Sign Up for Cryptopia and Verify Your Account?
Signing up for Cryptopia is incredibly easy. Start by filling out the registration form on the website. From there, you will need to verify at least your email address. If you only verify that piece of information, you will have a daily withdrawal and transfer limit of $5,000.
Stage two verification includes providing an ID, your full name, your address, and a photo of yourself with that ID. The limits increase to $50,000 per 24-hour period. The final stage of verification requires proof of your address, a written statement describing why you need higher limits, and a photo of you and your Cryptopia username handwritten. The limits can be raised to $500,000 with this verification. However, you must have two-factor authentication, which is just optional for other verification levels.
Who Is Cryptopia Open to?
As long as you verify your account, you can use Cryptopia regardless of where in the world you are. Just keep in mind that the only fiat currency the platform uses is New Zealand dollars since this is where the platform is based. Additionally, any bank transfer must be done using a New Zealand bank account. This means that as long as you are willing to stick to cryptocurrencies or convert your fiat currencies into New Zealand dollars, you can use Cryptopia.
How Do You Fund Your Cryptopia Account?
Remember that the only fiat currency that is compatible with Cryptopia is New Zealand dollars. Funding your account with cryptocurrency is relatively straightforward. Once you are logged in, just click on the Bitcoin symbol that appears next to your username. From there, hit “Deposit” within the menu. This will take you to a page where you select the altcoin of your choice. The system generates a one-time deposit address, and you send the money there.
How to Trade on Cryptopia
To begin a trade, start by going to the “Exchange” tab of the website. Confirm you have the “Markets” tab selected on the left side of the screen. You can then browse the pairs or use the search box which will filter the results. From there, you will see the existing orders that match your chosen trade pair and you can complete the order.
Cryptopia Marketplace
A unique feature of Cryptopia is the inclusion of a marketplace where users can buy and sell items, post auctions and wanted ads – a bit like eBay or Facebook buy and sell groups. Most of the items listed are Crypto-related, such as mining contracys, ICO guides, currencies, trading bots and other pieces of software.
Using the Marketplace begins by clicking on the “Marketplace” tab at the top of the page. From there, you can search the listings or browse categories. If You want to create a listing, click the “+Add” button and follow the instructions. You have the choice to set up an auction or choose a set price for the sale. As Cryptopia works around the world, you should always pay attention to the location for physical items to get an idea of how long it will take to arrive and if you will need to pay for shipping.
What Are Cryptopia Rewards?
Cryptopia has a reward bot that rewards users when they use the website and complete certain actions. The rewards all have random amounts of random coins and are awarded for completing random tasks within a specific time window. Just some of the actions that can lead to rewards include finding blocks, voting, chatting, inserting mining shares, trading, and tipping. The full reward history is listed on the website for transparency.
Each day, every coin has 161 rewards. These rewards are divided into one 5 percent reward, 10 1 percent rewards, 50 0.1 percent rewards, and 100 0.01 percent rewards. Rewards do expire, so if you do not trigger it within the given time, it will expire and return to the balance of the reward bot. Users can donate to this reward bot if they wish.
What Cryptocurrencies Does Cryptopia Support?
Although the only fiat currency that Cryptopia supports is New Zealand dollars, it supports a seemingly endless number of cryptocurrencies, a figure that grows constantly. As of this writing (January 2018), there are 574 cryptocurrencies supported, so you will have no problem finding support for the most popular ones and even those that few have heard of.
How Do You Add a Coin to Cryptopia?
If you happen to have a cryptocurrency you want to exchange or use on Cryptopia, but it’s not currently supported, the platform makes it simple to add it. Visit Paytopia and hit “Buy Now” for an Exchange Listing. From there, you fill in the information about the coin, including its name, ticker, algorithm, network type, currency website, block explorer link, and more. Submitting the information costs 5 million DOT. This covers the cost of reviewing the information and adding it to the website. This price is subject to change.
Who Will Get the Most from Cryptopia?
While the interface of Cryptopia looks a little dated by when compared to newer exchanges like Binance or Kucoin, it is clear and intuitive which means that the average person will have no problem using this platform.
Because Cryptopia does not offer advanced trading features, it is not ideal for advanced traders who do a great deal of cryptocurrency trading. Instead, it is best suited for those who do more casual trading or purchasing of cryptocurrencies to hold.
It is also an excellent resource for those in search of bargains or who want to buy and sell items using cryptocurrency due to the marketplace. You should just remember that because other users create all of the listings, you can get amazing offers. However, you will have to weed out the occasional bad offer, as well.
Cryptopia Fees
Fees for using Cryptopia are only applied to certain types of transactions and are relatively low. When you transfer cryptocurrencies between wallets, you will have to pay a fee, and this fee depends on the currency in question plus other variables. There are also transfer fees for withdrawing New Zealand dollars from your account or withdrawing cryptocurrencies.
There are not any fees related to transferring altcoins between various Cryptopia users. The platform makes this possible because the coins stay within the Cryptopia wallet, but the person allowed access changes.
How Long Do Transfers Take?
In the case of transferring cryptocurrency, the transfer time varies based on the business of the network and the altcoin in question. In many cases, the transfer is completed in a matter of minutes.
Transferring fiat currency, either as a deposit or withdrawal of New Zealand dollars, can take a few days based on business, the time of day, and how long it takes for the transaction to be approved.
Is Cryptopia Safe?
Using Cryptopia is generally secure. The platform does not distribute personal information, and it uses an HTTPS security certificate. The team generally ensures that the platform is always secure. However, they warn that no information can be completely secure when sent over the internet. To improve your security, Cryptopia highly recommends using two-factor verification (2FA). As mentioned previously, this is required on the highest level of verification. If you want, you can buy a 2FA device from Cryptopia in the Paytopia section. Cryptopia also requires strong passwords from its users.
Because Cryptopia has a large base of users, there is plenty of indication that you can trust this platform to be secure. The active presence on social media further inspires confidence, as does its consumer guarantees that follow New Zealand law.
Cryptopia Customer Support
Cryptopia makes it easy to contact customer support via the chat program, forums, and social media. The last two of these also allow you to ask other community members for assistance. You can easily send support tickets for specific issues, such as requesting a bank transfer or reporting an error.
As with a lot of Crypto exchanges at the moment, cryptopia seems to be going through some growing pains in regards to customer support with delays expected on support tickets. Their support page currently displays this message :
Due to continued unprecedented growth we are receiving support tickets faster than we can train new staff to deal with them.
This is something to bare in mind when choosing to trade on the platform.
Cryptopia has created a feeling of community between it’s users and provides ample opportunity for interactions. Between the social media presence and the forums, there are numerous ways to interact with other users, bonding over your shared interests or assisting each other with minor troubleshooting.
Conclusion
In a market filled with cryptocurrency exchanges, Cryptopia offers much more than just this. As a peer-to-peer exchange, it offers the opportunity for highly favorable rates. The fact that Cryptopia supports over 550 cryptocurrencies helps it stand out, as does the marketplace. This marketplace is an excellent addition, extending the use of classified websites for trading goods and services to the world of cryptocurrencies. Once you factor in other services and features, such as the rewards, Cryptopia becomes a very welcome addition to the crypto world and fills a gap in the offerings that users may not have even realized existed.
Cryptopia
Pros
- Lots of Listings
- Good User Community
- Low Fees
- Marketplace
- Good for Beginners
Cons
- Slow Customer Support
- Dated Interface
- Fiat only for New Zealand
1 Comment
Thank you for such a cogent and informative explanation regarding Cryptopia! I am fairly new to the world of Crypto. But have been successful in investing and had wondered where one could find a marketplace that used Crypto for purchasing goods and services. I am still looking for a good exchange that provides exchange into USD outside of the US and that could possibly provide a USD Wallet that is secure and anonymous. I have been using Coinbase for my only exchange currently. They are solid and secure, but not anonymous. Do you have knowledge of such an exchange that provides that service?