Livecoin Review – Worldwide Cryptocurrency Exchange

Livecoin is a long-running cryptocurrency exchange based in England, with servers housed in Louisiana, USA. Since 2013, Livecoin has been offering a growing number of digital currencies for customers all around the world. Livecoin is available in all nations, except for the United States. And even though this is a notable exception, Livecoin is often seen in the top 10 cryptocurrency exchanges by volume.

Livecoin finds a way to offer something for (almost) everyone, without sacrificing service or losing their primary focus. This is a hard line to walk. Even though the site remains reliable since the early days of Bitcoin, this may not be the exchange upon which new users will wish to start.

For beginners, eToro is more straightforward. Full of easily accessible features, it is not only a fully regulated multi-asset brokerage company operating in over 60 countries, but it also provides opportunities to trade socially. With eToro, users can copy successful traders and therefore minimise their risk when entering the markets.

What is Livecoin?

Livecoin exchange is a cryptocurrency brokerage platform, aimed at the world population. Even though Livecoin’s services are not available for people in the United States, it’s presence in the rest of the global market remains strong.

Livecoin sells dozens of cryptocurrencies for fiat (US Dollars, Euros, and Russian Rubles). Oftentimes, when crypto exchanges accept fiat, they only do so for a few coins (for example, Coinbase sells only Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin). Livecoin, in contrast, has more than 100 crypto/fiat trading pairs, giving its customers convenient ways to buy the coins they want, without first having to buy Bitcoin in order to make a subsequent trade.

Livecoin is not regulated (and thus not available) in the United States. In the rest of the world, Livecoin resides in something of a grey area, legally speaking. As a broker of a novel asset class, many countries simply don’t have a regulatory framework for exchanges like Livecoin. This gives some users pause, as does the lack of formalized verification of new users on Livecoin.

Nonetheless, Livecoin appears to conduct itself in a professional manner, from the way it adds and maintains features, to the way it fixes problems through customer service. Livecoin has yet to suffer a large hack, as so many other crypto exchanges have. Thus, even though Livecoin isn’t as transparent as some other coin exchanges, it’s possible that it’s just as secure, if not more so.

In reality, you can’t really expect a universal cryptocurrency exchange to be transparent in every detail. It simply wouldn’t be possible to offer Livecoin’s high level of features (particularly the fiat>crypto pairs) and tick off every box regulatory bodies from around the world could create. So while not a sure thing, Livecoin seems to be above board. Still, it might not be the best new crypto exchange for newcomers.

So, while Livecoin offers an unbelievable range of fiat-to-crypto trading pairs, the exchange can be a little much for new users to handle. Livecoin is many things, but it’s not exactly simple. For this reason, we like to highlight one of our favourite alternative crypto investment platforms:

. eToro has a number of useful features, allows users to copy profitable traders and has a seamlessly easy-to-use interface.

Signing Up With Livecoin

Signing up on Livecoin is really easy. Simply go to the site, click “sign up”, and add the limited amount of information requested. Livecoin doesn’t ask for much more than a working email address, to which they will send a verification email with a link you need to click before you can use the platform. You can then fund your account through various methods and start trading.

That’s how you do it unless you want to fund you account with a bank transfer (as many users will). In this case, you’ll be delivered to a contact page, where you will have to make your request directly, in writing. This is unusual. Typically, platforms like these will have a formalized system that gets the information needed to satisfy various international banking laws. Because Livecoin doesn’t make it clear how they handle this, there’s no way to know what you’re signing up for, before you enter into a dialogue with Livecoin. This is an example of the regulatory “Grey area” we discussed earlier. It seems to work for people, but we would prefer greater transparency.

Livecoin Fees

We’re pleased to say that Livecoin’s fees are much lower than one would expect from an older international exchange. It’s not unusual to see fiat exchanges like this take 4% or more of each trade. Trading fees on Livecoin start at just 0.16%, and can be discounted all the way down to 0.02% with sufficient trading volume. There are numerous deposit and withdrawal fees (too many to write out here). You can find these on the Livecoin website.

More relevant to most traders is the cost of funding an account. Most payment methods are free for account funding (though this is not always true, and Livecoin simply doesn’t list the cost for credit cards). The costs are more clearly seen at withdrawal, with Livecoin taking some percentage of cash withdrawals, or some set amount of cryptocurrency depending on the coin. You can see this complete breakdown here.

If you choose the right funding pathways, Livecoin can be quite affordable, giving you access to an enormous range of altcoins with fiat currency. The price you’ll pay will likely be much cheaper than what you’d pay for Coinbase or the like.

Trading on Livecoin

Trading on Livecoin will be natural for anyone with experience on this kind of exchange. For newcomers, the standard buying options are Market and Limit orders, the two most basic trading forms in all kinds of markets. Market orders are trades completed as soon as they’re ordered, at the lowest price currently available on the market. Limit orders only kick in when a coin’s price hits a level chosen by the user in advance. Say you want to buy 50 NEO, but only when (and if) the price hits $50. Your limit order will wait to be filled until 50 NEO become available on Livecoin at the price of $50 or less.

Transferring Coins Off of Livecoin

As many of you will know, it’s never a good idea to keep coins you own on centralized exchanges like Livecoin. That’s because exchanges don’t specialize in long term coin storage. Their specialty is trade brokerage. Exchanges like these are routinely hit by hackers, who make off with millions in coins. This has never happened to Livecoin, but you should still choose digital wallets that you control for each coin you buy on Livecoin. Withdrawals will incur a small fee, but once your coins reach your wallet, they’ll be a lot safer than they would be on the exchange.

Livecoin Customer Service

Livecoin has 24/7 customer service in several different languages, available by chat or email. Because this service is so wide ranging, it’s impossible to say if customer service is consistent across all languages and platform eras. However, Livecoin’s reputation is pretty strong in this regard. If you’re worried about customer service, check out crypto forums like Bitcointalk, where you’ll find a lot of opinions about Livecoin customer service.

Is Livecoin Easy to Use?

Is Livecoin easy to use? It really depends on who you ask. We find Livecoin to have a fairly simple user interface, especially for those who have experience with more complex exchanges like Bittrex. On the other hand, new users may well be mystified with the way Livecoin works. There is also no Livecoin app, so younger users who don’t use desktop services routinely may find it inconvenient to buy cryptocurrency using Livecoin.

All in all, we think that Livecoin is easier than the average exchange, but its inherent complexity and the lack of formalized verification for some deposit options makes it, perhaps, a little more than the brand new user will want to tackle. With experience, Livecoin can become a truly useful exchange for anyone. Don’t let this scare you. If you’re willing to take the time to learn a new exchange from scratch, with no previous experience, it’s possible to be successful with Livecoin. Just take care in doing so.

Final Thoughts on Livecoin

Livecoin is an unusual cryptocurrency exchange; and that’s not a bad thing! It offers a wide array of altcoins that can be purchased with fiat currencies of three kinds: USD, Euro, and RUR. It is also available for people in countries all around the world, with the exception of the United States. Livecoin has a long history of service, operating without major incident since 2013.

On the other hand, Livecoin’s massive global reach means that they operate outside of the formal governance of many of the countries in which they are available. This puts some users ill at ease. Despite this, our research about and use of the platform indicates that this is a strong, credible service, offering real value through scrupulous means.

Livecoin seems to be a good representation of the libertarian cryptocurrency dream – an exchange operating on its own terms, but without taking advantage of its customers. Livecoin offers a real service, and we’re glad to give it our recommendation.