Cryptopia.co.nz Review

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Cryptopia is an exchange based in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was founded in 2014 by Adam Clark and Rob Dawson. The company is locally registered in the Companies Office with number 5392901 and NZ Business number 9429041327791 since July 29, 2014.

The platform complies with the laws of New Zealand, but operates worldwide with no exceptions. Its trading volume is considerably lower than that of other exchanges, with just over 600 BTC every day (roughly 1.6 million USD).

Local media recently reported that Cryptopia launched a new cryptocurrency  (NZDT) whose price would be pegged to the New Zealand dollar (NZD). The site is known for listing many altcoins, in the order of hundreds, including some not incorporated anywhere else. The only drawback on the matter is that, due to personal views of the staff, Ethereum is not accepted.

Getting an altcoin listed requires to pay a fee so that the staff will review the currency. The details of the coin must be sent through a ticket. The pricing is displayed in their website, as ‘Paytopia’.

Besides the exchange, the site comes with a cloud mining venture (Mineshaft), a marketplace (where naturally only cryptocurrencies are accepted), a knowledge base with information about most of the listed altcoins (CoinInfo) and an arbitrage tool.

Using The Site: Signing Up

The process to create a new account is simple: only a username, password and email address are required. The password cannot be trivial, the site enforces that it has upper and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols; there is no warning about that prior to failing, which along having to pass a captcha verification to submit the form makes the process a bit tedious.

Anonymous accounts are not allowed, but temporary emails are permitted. If the limitations of a level 1 account are not a problem, a user could register a throwaway account in little time.

Using The Site: Getting Verified

Verification is completely optional. Level 1 takes only clicking a confirmation email and comes with a 5,000 NZD withdrawal limit shared among all the currencies indexed on the site.

Level 2 users may withdraw 10x as much as level 1s. This verification level requires filling a form with personal information (name, last name, birthday, gender, country, city, state, zip code and address) and attaching two pictures to it (an image of a valid ID and a selfie holding it).

There is a level 3 but it is available only through customer support. It is designed for users with very specific needs (i.e. moving thousands of NZD every day) and corporations.

Using The Site: Funding Your Account

While the site supports a wide range of cryptocurrencies, fiat deposits are not available. To fund an account, click the Bitcoin symbol to the left of your username and select Deposit in the menu that will appear. A new page will be loaded with a currency selector; pick Bitcoin or any altcoin you want to deposit and click next.

Getting ready to deposit some Dogecoin

A one-time deposit address will be generated, to which you can send the money. There are no restrictions on deposits (neither minimum or maximum), and withdrawals cause only the network fee.

If by any chance you do not have any cryptocurrencies with you, you will have to buy them somewhere else or, if you are patient enough, you can grab random prizes by browsing the site and chatting on the “trollbox”.

Using The Site: Trading

The trading offering of Cryptopia is not exactly the best, no margin trading or any other advanced feature is integrated on the site. In fact, they only allow placing limit buy / sell orders.

To make things worse, figuring out how to place an order is slightly difficult as well, at least until you get used to the platform. There is no separate trade page, instead you have to browse the Exchange (the option is located near the left-upper corner), and go to the markets page.

The Precious Market Page

Once you are viewing the markets, you have to look for the specific currency pair you want to trade. To save some time, you can use the search box to filter the displayed results and show only markets for the coin of your interest (or the one you own).

Click the pair you want to trade, the interface to the right will be updated and you will be able to place your orders here. The procedure is straightforward, and the site clearly indicates that it charges a 0.2% fee on any movements. A bare minimum is required, but it should not be a problem in most occasions.

Here I am placing an order to sell some FeatherCoins I got from the trollbox

You can check any active orders you have by going to the orders tab or by choosing again the Exchange menu and this time picking the open orders option.

There it is! my brand-new order

While you are inspecting your open orders, you can cancel them individually or all at once, as long as they have not been filled yet.

Security On Cryptopia.co.nz

The site is full of captchas, a DDOS attack seems very unlikely to happen any time soon to the expense of boring their customers.

Strong passwords are enforced, as was previously mentioned. Enabling 2FA is encouraged, with the possibility of configuring it individually for six different actions. Extra security measures are applicable, including email withdrawal confirmations and control over API access.

Security Settings On Cryptopia

There is not much information about the overall security of the platform nor any reference to Bitcoin cold wallets (they must exist, but are not open to public scrutiny). The site gives their users the option to invest by opening long-term deposits in a special currency called DOT, for which cold wallets are known and their addresses posted in a forum thread.

So far the exchange has not experienced any hack, but a potential vulnerability was exposed on Reddit (revealing email addresses associated to the accounts involved in a trading operation). The emails sent by Cryptopia are not encrypted, but sent as text/html.

Customer Support And Overall Experience

The site has an embedded ticket system, from which is easy to get in touch with the support team. The official profiles on Facebook and Twitter are professionally handled, with the manager trying to solve as many inquiries as he can.

Users on the internet, specifically on Bitcointalk and Reddit, have complained about disrespectful treatment by the site admins. The person in charge of the official BCT thread of Bitcointalk deliberately ignores questions that seem to be valid.

The trollbox is full, at least these days, of Spanish speakers, whose fellow compatriots were once angrily complaining about lost altcoins from their wallets and, again, the staff being unnecessarily rude.

Trying to get help about technical issues on the chat might get you banned, so refrain of doing so.

Pros

• Hundreds of altcoins listed.
• Low fees.
• Fast customer support.
• Sense of community.
• An arbitrage tool.

Cons

• Low volume.
• Confusing interface.
• Ethereum not accepted.
• Rude staff.

Conclusion

Cryptopia is a great exchange for anyone wanting to trade less popular altcoins or casual traders that put great value into social interaction. For the big players there are better alternatives and, if you are an Ethereum enthusiast simply stay away from this place.