BitBay Review by professional Forex trading experts the “ForexSQ” FX trading team, Finding out everything you need to know about the broker in this BitBay Review.
BitBay Review
BitBay is one of the largest and oldest European digital currency exchanges. It offers trading in some of the largest and most popular digital currencies: Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCC), Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum (ETH), Lisk (LSK), Game (GAME) and Dash (DASH). They can be traded against the “standard” fiat currencies USD and EUR and the Polish zloty (because BitBay) is a Polish company.
According to BitBay’s site opening an account is free and does not require additional verification with documents or copies of government ID. Like with other exchanges, there is also the option for a verified account.
There is no account management fee.
Similarly to the vast majority of digital currency exchanges, BitBay works like a traditional exchange bureaux and does not offer leveraged trading. The tokens obtained through the exchange can be used for payments.
This is much different than the forex brokers who offer trading in digital currencies. Most of them have CFDs on digital currencies and offer some leverage (usually much lower than for trading in fiat currencies) and those instruments are used for speculative trading and not for getting hold of the tokens themselves. Such brokers are FXTM, IG, HYCM, easyMarkets (started offering those instruments only recently), FxChoice, Grand Capital, etc. Other brokers, like eToro are offering crypto copy funds, while Swissquote teamed up with the cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp to provide digital currency trading.
The company, security of funds
BitBay was established in Poland in 2014 and has grown to become one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Europe. The company also has an office in Amsterdam and earlier this year opened an office and launched operations in India.
As per its own statistics, BitBay has over 215 000 active users, more than 1200 transactions per minute and an annual volume of 545 000 BTC.
The company does not provide much information about the protection levels of client funds and it does not become clear whether and how much it keeps in cold storage. The only details we found is that it uses two factor authentication and data backup is done on a regular basis. Backup is being done according to the 3-2-1 principle (Disk-to-Disk-to-Cloud) and all data is encrypted. There is no information about any hacks of BitBay so far, but we all know that even the two-factor authentication can be circumvented and hot storage can be easily hacked.
Client comments on the site Cryptocompare claim BitBay provides very fast transactions and is reliable. It seems the only gripe customers have is the small number of digital coins that can be traded.
What we find interesting is that BitBay offers its clients to issue a MasterCard co-branded debit card that can be used for money withdrawals and payments. A similar card is issued by one of the major global exchanges – Coinbase – a co-branded Visa plastic called Shift Card.
BitBay’s card can be used for online payments and cash withdrawals, much like debit cards issued by forex brokers like FXTM, FxPro and FBS, for example.
Also BitBay, similarly to another Polish exchange – Coinroom – offers money transferring service, both in digital and fiat currencies.
Trading platform
Like most cryptocurrency exchanges, BitBay also has its own web-based trading platform, which is easy to use and is not a trading platform in the traditional sense of the word like with the popular MetaTrader 4 and 5 or cTrader.
In addition to its basic options to buy and sell, the platform offers price charts from TradingView, but no analysis tools or anything of the kind. The order book button is placed under the chart and the buy and sell offers.
BitBay also provides the option to trade on mobile devices. It does not have own mobile app, but has integrated with the Android mobile app TabTrader. It is a trading terminal for the largest Bitcoin exchanges and offers price charts with technical indicators, drawing and trading directly from charts. Additionally, TabTrader includes widget for Bitcoin prices and price alerts by push notifications.
Methods of payment
The good thing about BitBay is that it accepts deposits both in digital currencies (bitcoin, litecoin, ether, lisk, dash, bitcoin cash, monero, game tokens) and in fiat currencies (EUR, USD and PLN). Even better, deposits in fiat currencies can be made in numerous ways. In addition to the bank transfer and credit/debit cards, clients can make a deposit through the Polish post office and at the convenience store chain Zabka Freshmarket. Logically, those two options are available for clients in Poland. Funds can withdrawn with the BitBay card from an ATM. This service is available only for verified users with Polish phone numbers.
BitBay is a European digital currency exchange based in Poland, with global ambitions. Since the digital tokens and exchanges are still a bit of a grey area, there is no clear regulation and requirements in most countries, so not surprisingly, BitBay is not regulated.
The main pros of BitBay are the option to make deposits in fiat currencies as well as in the digital tokens that can be traded on the platform. Another good thing about this exchange is the debit card, which is a very convenient way to make use of the funds in the BitBay wallet. Another things we liked are the money transferring option and the integration with a mobile trading app.
What we disliked is the lack of information about the fund storage. We guess client funds are kept in cold storage, as with most cryptocurrency exchanges, considering the spate of hacks and thefts from hot storage wallets and exchanges.
BitBay Review Conclusion
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