BitX started in 2013 by Marcus Swanepoel who was the co-founder and CEO of the company. They raised a huge amount from venture capital firms led by Naspers, Digital Currency Group and later followed by Venturra in 2015. So far they have earned around $14 million in four rounds of funding. In 2017, when they found the need to change, they re-branded BitX to Luno.
They offer mobile applications for both iOS and Android, and also have API bots that are equipped with automatic trading features. Luno kicked off with a fresh approach and plenty of enthusiasm, but eventually the enthusiasm slowed, with users complaining frequently on the network. Luno is only a Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange, meaning you will not find any other cryptocurrencies on the platform. You can however, purchase Bitcoin or Ethereum by using government issued fiat currencies. Luno is fully operational in many countries including – UK, Nigeria, Singapore, Malaysia, South Africa etc. In total they span over almost 40 countries.
They also offer wallet services to their users, who can utilize a Luno wallet to store both Bitcoin and Ethereum, but for security reasons, we always advise against storing your coins on exchange platforms and instead have them in a cold wallet offline. As Luno is fairly new in game, it has not been hacked so far, but that does not mean the website is completely secure or bulletproof, it just means it hasn’t been hit yet.
ADVANTAGES OF LUNO
Luno is not blessed with having the best online reviews from its users, but there still are many upsides and advantages that this website boasts. Some of them are –
- Luno has a dedicated mobile app, both for iOS and Android users. Many cryptocurrency exchanges do not have applications yet, some of the oldest exchanges operate only on web, so they are ahead of the game in this aspect.
- Luno Exchange has an innovative API for automatic trading.
- They have high security features, including 2FA (two factor authentication) for their users.
- The interface of their exchange and wallet, is both – easy to understand and user-friendly in nature. Newbies to the cryptocurrency market can get around it easily. There are no complex charts and graphs congesting the screen like many other trading websites.
- Unlike many exchanges that only accept their local fiat currencies, Luno has a multipurpose platform. It accepts a wide range of fiat currency, including EUR, ZAR, IDR, MYR and NGN.
- Luno has an instant buy/sell feature, which allows investors to get the price they intended to. However, there is a limit of minimum and maximum Bitcoins that you can buy. The limit varies according to the currency and payment method that you are using.
DISADVANTAGES OF LUNO
Luno has its fair share of downsides too, and it gets scrutinized and criticized fairly regularly in online forums and social media. Let us have a look at the loopholes in Luno.com –
- The biggest downside is the high fees. Luno charges its users almost 1% in fees, which is 4 times more than the standard 0.25% charged by most exchanges like Bittrex, Binance etc. These high charges have lead people to criticize Luno on many public forums and give it a bad rating. So despite the high fees, some of the feedback online may be unjust.
- Another problem with Luno is that it only has Bitcoin and Ethereum for the time being. To buy any other cryptocurrency, you will have to create an account on another exchange that support the coins you want. Only supporting BTC and ETH does limit users. On the flip side of this however, is that this exchange could be seen in a similar way to localbitcoin, where people can use it to cash out of their positions quickly, ie – the instant transactions.
- Luno does not support mobile wallets like PayPal, Neteller etc. Therefore the only way users can buy Bitcoins is through bank transfers. Even Credit cards and debit cards are not accepted on the Luno exchange, again limiting the users.