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Cex.io vs Coinmama – Fees, Features, Security Compared

Rene Peters

December 19, 2022

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Cex.io and Coinmama are two long-serving cryptocurrency exchanges that have been battle tested and belong to the rare breed of legit places for buying bitcoin.

Cex.io has been pushing into other verticals by adding more coins, trading options and more recently margin trading. On the other side, Coinmama kept their one sole focus: making it super simply for newcomers to buy cryptocurrency with their credit card or bank account.

To cut to the chase and skip long introductions, let’s jump straight into comparing Cex.io vs Coinmama.

Coinmama vs Cex.io: General info

Started out in 2013, CEX.io is one of the oldest Bitcoin exchanges around.  CEX.io is based out of London, England.  It started out as a Bitcoin exchange and cloud mining provider; the first Bitcoin cloud mining company. Its mining pool known as Ghash.io, was so big at some point that it held 42% of the total network mining power.

However, the cloud mining operations were closed on January 2015. Today CEX.io operates solely as a Bitcoin exchange. CEX.io is registered with FINCEN and it applies AML (anti money laundering) and KYC (know your customer) policies, which means that you’ll need to verify your identity before you will be able to purchase Bitcoins via the exchange.

Coinmama is a crypto exchange that was launched in 2013. Coinmama is officially registered in Slovakia but is owned by an Israeli-based New Bit Ventures Limited. It supports traders in 188 countries worldwide, and is also available in 24 US States.

Fees

Cex.io used to charge a lot of premium and had a bad reputation when it comes to fees. However, they have since changed their fee structure and charge less:

As for the trading fees, Cex.io charges following:

In comparison to its main rivals, Coinmama charges quite high fees, with a 5.50% fee paid to Coinmama per transaction + an additional 5% fee on each credit and debit card transaction. It doesn’t end there as customers may be charged another Coinmama fees by their bank, a Cash Advance fee depending on whether the financial institution views the transaction as a ‘cash’ transaction.

Overall, you might pay around 10% on the actual price of BTC or other crypto your want to buy if you do it via Coinmama.

Deposit and withdrawal methods

On Cex.io, you can use credit cards with fees of 3.5% or ACH/Swift for commission-free transfers.

Withdrawal methods

• VISA

• Mastercard

• Swift

Commission:0.3% + $ 25.00

• ACH – no commission

Coinmama has a very simple interface where it supports two deposit (and withdrawal methods): credit or debit card and bank transfers (SEPA).

Buying limits

Depending on your account type, Cex.io limits you differently.

Basic: Basic accounts can buy up to $400 worth of bitcoins per day, and up to $2,000 per month. Basic accounts are not able to purchase via bank transfer.

Verified: Verified accounts can purchase up to $10,000 worth of bitcoins per day, or up to $100,000 per month via both credit card and bank transfer.

Coinmama offers high buying limits, that vary depending on your verification level and deposit method.

V1 accounts can buy up to $5k per day with credit cards and $12k if you buy with bank transfer.

V2 accounts can buy up to $5k per day with CC and $30k for deposits with SEPA.

Verification level 3 can buy up to $7.5k per day with credit card and $30k for deposits with bank transfer.

Customer support

CEX.IO provides support almost exclusively over email. Their agents are usually quick in reacting to user queries and the service runs smoothly. The help centre and FAQ section are very extensive and helpful with a wealth of helpful information including helpful guides to subjects like margin trading.

There is no phone support on Coinmama either as their customer support is available only via email. The website also features extensive list of FAQ’s. Most user queries are consistently replied within 24 hours (with longer waits expected over the weekend or public holidays). Coinmama’s stated business hours are Sunday to Thursday, from 11 pm to 7 am Pacific Time.

Supported coins

CEO.IX has been expanding their offering in the last year. You can pick from Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash Ethereum, XRP, XLM, LTC, BTG, Tron, BTT, ATOM, MCH, BAT, Dash and Zcash.

Coinmama built its reputation as one of the fastest and easiest ways to buy Bitcoin or Ethereum with a Credit or Debit card. In recent years, the exchange expanded its offering to add Litecoin, Cardano, QTUM, Ethereum Classic, Bitcoin Cash and Ripple’s XRP.

Supported countries

CEX.IO can be used by traders in more than 220 countries. However, some countries are not supported on CEX.IO and these include Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, North Korea, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Nigeria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Vietnam, Vanuatu, Yemen and Zimbabwe.

Due to regulatory restrictions, US traders are not accepted on the CEX.IO exchange.

The only countries that Coinmama is not offering their services are sanctioned countries by the US government.

In addition, Coinmama is available in the following US states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Trust

CEX.IO is now 7 years old and has been ticking since 2013. It pivoted from their initial service – cloud mining to launch a crypto exchange. At first, they offered both services, but in recent years they have dropped cloud mining to focus on the exchange. Cex.io is registered in London and uses it as its official base. It is also important to note that CEX.io is registered as a Money Services Business with FinCEN USA as well.

Although Coinmama is a relatively small exchange, they have yet to experience any known security breaches and are slowly but steadily building up their market share.

Coinmama is registered with FINCEN in the US as a money service business. Although the fact that Coinmama does not hold any cryptocurrency on users’ behalf makes it less susceptible to attacks than other exchanges, it still does hold records of users’ credit card information, although Coinmama states on its website that credit and debit card information is not stored on the exchange server.

Security

CEX.IO is implementing best security practices from the industry: storing user funds in cold storages, using 2FA authentication and encrypts all data transfers. They do not, however, put too much of emphasis on their security measures in their marketing materials which is odd, since most of other exchanges like to boast about their top-notch security.

CEX has suffered at least one hacking incident, although this happened way back in 2013 when the platform was in its infancy. The vulnerability was patched at that time, and there have been no reported security incidents since that time.

Cex.io has introduced direct sending of bought coins to your wallet as another method of buying cryptocurrencies. They essentially don’t store your coins on their servers but send them out instantly after the purchase.

Coinmama instantly sends your coins to your wallet so they are never held on their servers. This essentially removes them as a potential target for hackers. The only thing they store are customers’ credit card data but, as we mentioned above, they are stored separately and taken care with best practices in mind.

Other features

Cex.io keeps expanding number of supported coins but also trading features on their platform: they have added margin trading and also started supported staking as a service for some popular PoS coins like Tezos.

Coinmama, on the other hand, remains true to their original idea: making it quick and easy to buy bitcoin and other crypto with no additional clutter.

Cex.io vs Coinmama: Pros and Cons

Cex.io Pros

• Good Support
• Easy to Use
• Accepts Credit / Debit Cards
• Easy Verification
• Well Established
• Mobile App

Cex.io cons

• No phone support
• limited currencies available

Coinmama pros

• does not store your credit card data on their servers
• it does not store your cryptocurrencies on their servers
• easy to use
• fast support

Coinmama cons

• No trading options
• limited available coins
• no mobile app

Cex.io vs Coinmama: Conclusion

So who wins the battle between Cex.io and Coinmama?

• In terms of fees – Cex.io is now cheaper than Coinmama, even though it was the other way around before.
• In terms of supported currencies – Cex.io blows Coinmama out of the water with their ever expanding number of cryptocurrencies.
• In terms of regulatory compliance and licensing: Both exchanges are regulated and well-reputed in the cryptocurrency world.
• In terms of customer support: Both are of similar quality so it is a tie.
• When it comes to security in the Cex.io vs Coinmama battle: Coinmama is slightly better as they never had any hacks in the past, unlike Cex.io that suffered minor security breaches and holds coins on their own server, unlike Coinmama that sends them out instantly to your own wallet.
• Trading features: Clear victory for Cex.io as they offer full fledged charting interface along with margin trading.
• Overall reputation: another tie since both enjoy fairly good reputation in crypto community with sporadic complaints by individual customers. Cex.io is probably a bit more popular as they invest more heavily in their promotion camapaigns.

If you are not fond of neither of these exchanges, here is a list of potential alternatives: Coinbase, Binance, Changelly, Bitpanda, Bitfinex, Kraken, Bittrex, Bitstamp.

In case you want to compare Cex.io or Coinmama with other exchanges, have a look at our guides where we do just that:

• Cex.io vs Coinbase
• Coinmama vs Coinbase