Livecoin is a Bitcoin and altcoin exchange platform that offers many currency pairs, including trading altcoins for FIAT currency. The exchange was founded in 2013, by DELTA E-COMMERCE LTD from London, UK. Their servers are based in Metairie, Louisiana, US. Livecoin is a popular bitcoin and altcoin exchange platform found online at Livecoin.net. Find out how the exchange works today in our review.
What Is Livecoin?
Livecoin is a cryptocurrency trading platform that lets you trade bitcoins, altcoins, and fiat currencies. The exchange was launched in 2013 by a company named Delta E-Commerce Ltd. The company is based in London, UK, although the servers are located in Metairie, Louisiana.
Unlike other exchanges, Livecoin doesn’t seem to focus on one specific region or country. They’re a global exchange.
However, Livecoin does offer a number of features for Russians, and some of the instructional videos are in Russian – so for whatever reason, Livecoin is particularly popular with a Russian audience (although to be fair, cryptocurrency in general is popular with Russians).
Three fiat currencies are supported through Livecoin, including the USD, EUR, and Russian Ruble (RUB). If you’re trading less than $2000 USD per month, you’ll pay a fee of 0.20% per trade.
Typically, Livecoin sits around #15 on the list of the highest-volume cryptocurrency exchanges. It has a daily trading volume of around 2000 BTC per day. In comparison, Kraken and Poloniex (which hold the #1 and #2 spots) have a trading volume of around 40,000 BTC per day.
Livecoin Benefits
Some of the key features and benefits of Livecoin include:
Simplicity & Ease Of Trading:
Like all other exchanges, Livecoin promises to be easy to use and have a friendly UI.
Reliable Protection Of Funds:
Livecoin uses a cold storage system to protect users’ funds. You can also restrict access to your account using the GoogleAuthenticator system and a white list of IP addresses – something that not all exchanges offer. Livecoin has never been hacked, nor has it experienced any major security incident (to public knowledge).
Quick Deposit & Withdrawal:
Livecoin accepts deposits via credit cards, bank transfers, e-payments, and other common payment methods.
Affiliate Program:
Livecoin lets you earn money when you refer friends to the platform.
How To Use Livecoin
Opening an account with Livecoin is similar to opening an account on any exchange. Here’s how it works:
Step 1) Register an account at Livecoin by clicking the “Open Trade Account” button on the main page. Enter your login, email address, and password. You’ll receive a confirmation email, then be able to log into your account.
Step 2) Fund your account using whatever method you like. A number of different bank transfers, wire payments, and credit cards are accepted.
Step 3) Start trading.
Livecoin Fees
Overall, Livecoin has a competitive fee structure. Like most exchanges outside of the big ones, Livecoin wants to attract users with its low fees.
Livecoin lets you deposit and withdraw for free when using cryptocurrencies and certain payment methods (aside from the cryptocurrency network fees). However, if you’re depositing via bank transfer and other processes, then you could be paying a hefty fee:
Payeer.com: Deposit fee 7.5%, withdrawal fee 0.5%
PerfectMoney.is: Deposit fee 8.5%, withdrawal fee 0.5%
OkPay.com: Deposit fee 1.5%, withdrawal fee 2%
Wire Transfer (SWIFT): Deposit fee of $50 USD or 10 EUR, withdrawal fee of 15 EUR or USD 1.5% + $9
BTC-E Vouchers: EUR/EUR deposit fee of 5.5%, USD deposit fee of 2.5%
Meanwhile, trading fees are set at 0.20% for a trading volume between 0 and $2000 USD per 30 day period. If you trade more than $250,000 USD per month, your trading fee is 0.02%.
You can view a complete breakdown of Livecoin’s fee structure and other information on their website.
Trading On Livecoin
Trading on Livecoin is similar to trading on any other cryptocurrency exchange. Traders can access standard market orders, limit orders, and pending orders. Obviously, market orders and limit orders are available on most exchanges. Pending orders, however, are fairly unique.
Pending orders are automatically triggered when the price hits a certain level specified by the trader. Many traders like pending orders because they can hide offers from the books – which can avoid market disturbances when making large trades.
Livecoin does not offer margin trading, nor does it offer futures or derivatives trading.
Like other exchanges, you can view a variety of cryptocurrency and fiat currency pairs. You can trade LTC and USD, for example, or LTC and EUR, which means you avoid exchange rate fees found on other platforms (where you’re forced to trade your LTC for BTC before trading into EUR or USD).
This is one reason why Livecoin is popular among Russians: you can trade Russian rubles directly into cryptocurrencies.
Some of the available cryptocurrencies include bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Doge, Litecoin, Zcash, Augur, Factom, Ripple, Monero, Dash, DAO, Iconomi, Stellar, and many others.
Overall, the web browser interface is easy to use. Livecoin does not offer apps for Android or iOS, although their website is accessible from – and optimized for – mobile devices.
Livecoin Conclusion
Overall, Livecoin is one popular cryptocurrency exchange that supports fiat currencies like USD, EUR, and RUB. The exchange offers trading fees of 0.20%, and trading fees drop substantially when trading more than $2,000 per month (even as low as 0.02% when trading over $250,000 per month).
Like all exchanges outside of Poloniex and Kraken, Livecoin users may encounter more liquidity problems – especially when dealing with more obscure cryptocurrencies. However, Livecoin remains a popular option for users around the world – particularly Russians who want to avoid high exchange rates when dealing with RUB.