CoinJar Review

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CoinJar is one of the most popular crypto exchanges in Australia and the UK that is at the forefront of innovation with several crypto products tailored for investors and traders. Individuals can buy, trade, and sell cryptocurrencies with ease using a safe and secure platform. In this CoinJar review, we compare and assess its top features, supported coins, trading fees, security, and customer service to determine if CoinJar is a good option.

Our Take

4/5

HedgewithCryptoScore

Bottom line:

CoinJar is a well-trusted exchange that has been servicing Australians for over a decade with minimal complaints. The team is constantly looking for ways to improve its product and has upgraded CoinJar’s user interface to appeal to beginners and intermediate investors.

However, the platform supports very few digital assets compared to some of its competitors, and its flat 1% fee can quickly become costly. Overall, CoinJar is still one of Australia’s most popular crypto exchanges and mostly lives up to this title by providing excellent services.

Visit Coinjar

Trading Fees:

1% to instant buy/sell, 0.1% on CoinJar Exchange

Currency:AUD, EUR & GBP

Country:Australia & UK

Promotion:

None available at this time

Pros and Cons

• Trustworthy exchange
• Crypto debit card for spending
• Sleek mobile app
• Easy to use platform

• Trading fees are too high
• CoinJar Exchange has poor liquidity
• APYs on CoinJar Earn are low

• Trustworthy exchange. CoinJar is AUSTRAC-registered and has experienced minimal disruptions to its service in over a decade of operation. CoinJar has never been hacked, boasts excellent ratings across customer review sites, and has seen 600K+ registered accounts on its platform.
• Crypto debit card. There are very few Australian exchanges that support crypto-based debit cards. The CoinJar card allows Aussies to spend their hard-earned digital currencies at participating merchants. The rewards aren’t as good as some international alternatives, but for Australians – it’s better than nothing.
• Sleek mobile app. CoinJar has one of the better mobile apps in the Australian crypto exchange market. In its early days, the app received a little bit of criticism from Android device users. However, it has evolved since our last review into an excellent and easy way for investors to trade digital assets while on the move.
• Easy to use platform. CoinJar has one of our favorite user designs of any crypto exchange we’ve reviewed – including both Australian and international competitors. The platform combines a de-cluttered and easy-to-navigate website with an aesthetically pleasing design scheme.

• Trading fees are too high. CoinJar charges a flat fee of 1% for all transactions – whether crypto-to-crypto or crypto-to-fiat. While this fee isn’t outlandish for the Australian market (CoinSpot charges similar fees), it is still on the higher end. Those with higher-volume aspirations in mind might prefer Swyftx (0.6%) or Binance (0.1%).
• CoinJar Exchange has poor liquidity. The CoinJar Exchange is an associated– but separate – platform intended for more advanced traders. The Exchange has much lower trading fees than the main platform but also suffers from low liquidity (compared to global exchanges). Users looking to make big trades can get hit hard by slippage costs, potentially eliminating any savings they would make on the trading fee.
• APYs on CoinJar Earn are low. The CoinJar Earn interest rates offered are currently less than 1.2%, which is much lower than users can find elsewhere to earn interest. That said, these figures are determined algorithmically and are subject to change.

CoinJar Comparisons & Alternatives

Exchange	Crypto Assets	Trading Fees	Rating	Promotion	Website	Review
Swyftx	320+	0.6%	Rating 4.8/5	$20 Bitcoin for creating a verified account	Visit Swyftx	Swyftx Review
Binance	350	0.1% (spot) and 0.02% / 0.04% (Futures)	Rating 4.8/5	Up to $100 welcome bonus	Visit Binance	Binance Review
CoinSpot	380	1% (instant), 0.1% (spot)	Rating 4.7/5	$20 Bitcoin for creating a verified account and depositing	Visit CoinSpot	CoinSpot Review

HedgewithCrypto has reviewed and compared similar platforms to CoinJar in these comparisons:

• CoinJar vs. Swyftx
• CoinJar vs. CoinSpot.

CoinJar At A Glance

CoinJar is a popular cryptocurrency exchange founded in May 2013 with an office located in Melbourne, Australia. The platform has since expanded its services to support investors from the UK and is registered with the relevant regulatory bodies in each nation. CoinJar is a reputable and trustworthy exchange used by over 600,000 users trading over $1.5 billion in crypto. The exchange is backed by some of the world’s most forward-thinking investors including Digital Currency Group, Boost VC, and BlackBird Ventures.

Top Features on CoinJar Reviewed

CoinJar Card

CoinJar Card is a crypto debit card that allows users to spend digital currency at any in-store or retailer that supports Mastercard. There are several retailers in Australia that accept crypto payments. The card can also be used to withdraw cash at any ATM or merchant with cash-out facilities. There are no activation or monthly fees.

However, all purchases (in-store or online) will incur a 1% fee. This 1% is returned to the customer in the form of CoinJar Reward Points which offsets the loss somewhat and is ultimately in line with the surcharge for using most traditional credit cards.

There is also a flat 1% fee for ATM withdrawals, and a foreign transaction fee of 2.99% – both of which are totally reasonable and comparable to traditional financial costs. Admittedly, the idea of crypto is to ultimately usurp banks with cheaper transactions, but while adoption is still low, these rates are perfectly fine.

CoinJar Card to spend crypto like a cash wallet.

The CoinJar Card is a great entry-level debit card for crypto enthusiasts due to the rewards it generates. In addition to 1% of transactions being converted to CoinJar Rewards points, every dollar spent will also earn cardholders another point. Overall, the low fees and flexibility of the CoinJar Card make it one of the practical crypto debit cards available to Australians. The CoinJar Card is one of only a couple of cards Australians can access, making it a de facto choice for crypto users after a local debit card. The rewards program on offer is quite useful, but international alternatives do have better perks on offer (such as Netflix subscriptions).

The CoinJar Rewards system has evolved into one of its landmark features even though it is a relatively new addition to the exchange. Points are fairly easy to come across, and there are a variety of ways to earn them:

• Owning and using a CoinJar Card
• Referring friends and family to join CoinJar
• Buy or sell crypto with AUD
• Using the CoinJar Rewards store

There are some really excellent services on offer that novice and more advanced crypto traders will find useful. This includes discounted subscriptions to tax assistants like Koinly and CoinTracker, gift cards to shops like JB Hi-Fi, Netflix, or Myer, or the ability to waive trading fees. Like most reward systems, the equation of money spent to coins earned is disproportional.

CoinJar released CoinJar Earn in late 2022 to let its customers passively generate income on digital assets. The service is what’s called a “pass-through” product – so CoinJar acts as a middleman between an investor’s crypto and a third-party earning platform. The earning system specifically uses Compound, an Ethereum-based DeFi app that rewards customers for contributing to liquidity pools.

Currently, the APYs on offer are rather low. They are determined algorithmically by Compound (CoinJar does not set the rates themselves), but investors can very easily find competitors with superior earning opportunities. Additionally, customers can only “stake” five cryptocurrencies, when alternatives like Binance or Lido offer earnings on 100+ assets.

Overall, the CoinJar Earn service is a nice addition to the growing list of features. It is extremely streamlined and well-designed, although is seriously lacking in flexibility. At the moment, only Australian residents can access the Earning program – UK investors will have to wait or use a different platform.

CoinJar Exchange

CoinJar has a partner platform dedicated to more advanced crypto traders called CoinJar Exchange. It's a different product from the CoinJar fiat-to-crypto exchange that has been established for many years. To make things convenient, you don’t need separate accounts to use each exchange – can use your registered CoinJar email and password to log in to either platform.

CoinJar Exchange is suited for traders that want to place advanced orders, interact with charts and view the Order Book. The interface is sleek, minimal, and clean, like the rest of CoinJar’s products. Although more experienced users will appreciate the CoinJar Exchange, it is still quite simple and is probably too light on features for professional traders. Not only that, but the exchange has pretty poor liquidity so high-volume investors might need to look elsewhere. However, intermediate users can possibly take advantage of the CoinJar Exchange’s much better fee structure (0.1% per transaction).

Customers have the ability to purchase multiple digital currencies in a single transaction by using the CoinJar Bundles feature. The advantage of buying crypto in bundles is that customers can quickly diversify their portfolio whilst incurring fewer transaction fees, rather than making individual purchases at a time.

The crypto bundles that CoinJar offers are fairly standard as they focus on high market cap coins. For example, users can purchase the Popular Trio bundle which includes Bitcoin (50%), Ether (46%), and Ripple (4%). One area of improvement for CoinJar could be the option for users to create their own bundles.

Like many other Australian crypto exchanges, CoinJar provides support for investors who want to invest in digital assets as part of their Super Fund. Due to standards set by the Australian government, users will need to create a Self-Managed Super Fund (SMSF) account that is separate from their personal account. Once that account has been approved, investors can take advantage of CoinJar’s local customer support, low fees on the trading Exchange, a personalized Over-The-Counter (TC) desk for high-volume trades, and simple End of Financial Year tax reporting.

It is important for all SMSF to understand the costs, risks, and regulatory nuances behind using super funds to invest in digital assets. For more information, read our Australian cryptocurrency SMSF guide.

Account Creation & ID Verification

Creating an account on CoinJar is incredibly easy and should only take a few seconds. All new customers need to supply is their full name, an email and a “strong” password. While these accounts can browse the website, most functions on CoinJar, like buying and selling Bitcoin, are locked until users complete ID Verification. This is a requirement for CoinJar to comply with AUSTRAC’s KYC and AML regulations.

Users that wish to complete identity verification must do so on CoinJar’s mobile app – there’s no option to complete it on the desktop platform. Although this move is intended to make the process a bit more seamless, PC users may find this quite inconvenient and more time-consuming than necessary. Once the app is installed though, verification should only take a couple of minutes, provided the customer has a government-issued identity document handy.

Supported Fiat & Crypto Deposit Methods

CoinJar supports several useful fiat deposit methods, particularly for Australians transferring AUD.

1. Bank transfers. Cash transfers from an Australian bank or financial institution. Transfers may take between 1 and 3 business days to clear.
2. PayID. Send near-instant payments from a supported Australian bank account. PayID deposits are supported by OSKO® and NPP which are available to use 24/7. A maximum limit of $100,000 applies and does not include any limits imposed by the financial institution.
3. Cash Deposit (Blueshyft). Deposit cash at over 1,300 supporting retail outlets in Australia using Blueshyft. Just note that cash deposits must be at least $50 and a maximum of $5,000 per 24 hours.
4. SEPA. For CoinJar users in Europe, they can deposit EUR using SEPA.
5. Faster Payments. CoinJar is also a registered crypto exchange in the UK. Residents can fund their wallets with GBP using Faster Payments.
6. Cryptocurrency. Transfers are limited to about 15 coins (including BTC, ETH, LTC, XRP, etc.,) only and generally take around 15 minutes to complete depending on network congestion.

Supported Crypto & Trading Pairs

CoinJar allows its users to convert AUD, EUR and GBP in exchange for over 50 crypto coins such as Bitcoin, XRP, Ethereum, Litecoin, ZCash, 0x, USD Coin, Stella Lumens, Maker, Compound, Uniswap, Yearn Finance, LINK, Omise Go, Basic Attention Token, Shiba Inu and Dogecoin. AUD and GBP are the base trading pair, but instant swaps can be made between supported digital currencies too.

The number of crypto assets supported by CoinJar is quite limited compared to nearly every competitor on both the Australian and international markets. For example, Binance and Swyftx have over 600 and 320 digital currencies respectively. This is one area CoinJar could improve to cater to savvy altcoin investors.

CoinJar Fees

CoinJar charges a flat 1% fee across all assets to buy, sell and swap crypto. This fee, while similar to competitors like CoinSpot, is higher than some investors will be comfortable with. It is worth considering cheaper alternatives like Binance (0.1%), or Swyftx (0.6%).

CoinJar customers can also instantly buy crypto without making a deposit. This is done via Mastercard, Visa, Apple, or Google Pay, which will incur a 2% fee. This fee is more than reasonable for such a service, especially in Australia.

The deposit and withdrawal fees on CoinJar are very reasonable.

CoinJar’s Ease Of Use

CoinJar is one of our favorite exchanges to navigate. The platform’s user interface is superb – modern, intuitive, and a delight to navigate. The color schema, placement of features, and structuring of web pages are both logical and aesthetically pleasing. From a purely visual and ease-of-use sense, CoinJar is an excellent performer.

Among all that praise, however, are elements to buying crypto on CoinJar that may not suit certain investors. While it’s easy to find specific digital assets and place an order, the platform is lacking in a lot of quality-of-life features that more advanced traders will be looking for.

For example, a quick dashboard of all past trades isn’t available, and there are no in-depth charting tools. Similarly, the dashboard doesn’t have great glance value for investors looking to quickly check up on their portfolio’s performance. A nice feature is the implementation of price alerts, where users receive notifications when certain coins hit a specific price.

Overall, CoinJar is a very good-looking, well-optimized cryptocurrency exchange that’s easy to navigate. That said, it is lacking in certain accessibility features like charts or fast, in-depth portfolio tracking that other platforms can offer. Moreover, there was no ability to apply Dollar-Cost-Averaging (DCA) to automate ongoing purchases. Investors will need to use an app like Bamboo to DCA into crypto with AUD.

CoinJar Mobile App

CoinJar has a well-developed mobile app available for both iOS and Android smartphone users. This lets customers access their accounts and crypto portfolios from anywhere in the world. In fact, CoinJar has slowly been streamlining its products onto the app, as the exchange inches toward being mobile-first. For example, identity verification and setting up the CoinJar card must be completed via the app. On top of this, most of CoinJar’s updated FAQs use pictures from the mobile app rather than the desktop platform.

Ultimately, the app boasts all of the same features as the main exchange (and may in fact be the superior platform). It has a 4.7-star rating on the iOS store, and a much lower 3.9 rating on the Google Play store. This appears to be due to a higher rate of occurrence for bugs on Android devices compared to iOS phones – something worth considering if choosing this exchange.

CoinJar Security

According to the website, CoinJar uses multiple strategies to protect its customer’s assets and information. CoinJar wallet uses a cold storage solution to store at least 90% of their customer's digital assets according to the website. The hardware wallets are stored offline in secure locations. The exchange also uses a multi-sig withdrawal process with multiple staff required to process withdrawals.

CoinJar’s team states that they maintain full reserves at all times, with sufficient assets to cover 100% of customer balances – an important consideration given the 2022 FTX contagion. Customers can also enable 2FA and biometric login to keep their accounts secure.

Customer Support

CoinJar support provides a comprehensive knowledge base with how-to guides and answers to frequently asked questions about the platform. The guide covers topics from verifying an account’s identity, depositing funds using a bank transfer, sending digital currency payments, and how to best secure a CoinJar account.

Unfortunately, the only way of reaching the customer support team is by sending a ticket with a brief description of the issue. Unlike most other Australian crypto exchanges, CoinJar does not provide a 24/7 live chatbot or phone support. Despite the lack of ways to contact customer service, tickets will be responded to throughout the week and even on weekends. We found the quality of customer service on CoinJar to be excellent. This is reflected in the platform’s TrustPilot score of 4.1/5 from 2,000+ reviews.

Frequently Asked Questions

Final Verdict and Scores

CoinJar is an Australian “legacy” exchange, being one of the longest-running platforms to offer Aussies the ability to buy and sell Bitcoin. The exchange has been around for over a decade, and in that time has expanded to service UK residents, offer an earning program, and boast one of the country’s best (and only) crypto-based debit cards. CoinJar has a superb track record for safety – it’s never been hacked, stores funds in cold storage, and has 100% reserves.

Of course, there are some negatives that potential customers will need to consider. CoinJar’s fees aren’t particularly cost-effective, and the depth of its features is rather lacking. Advanced (and even intermediate) traders will want to look elsewhere, particularly if they desire an exchange with a big list of supported assets.

Overall, the positives of CoinJar outweigh the negatives enough for us to call this one of Australia’s better crypto exchanges. The cons of using CoinJar will only apply to certain investors, while everyone will appreciate the platform’s excellent user interface, trustworthiness, customer support, and security. However, anyone wanting to actively trade crypto, use advanced features, or save a few bucks should consider some more well-rounded alternatives in Australia and the UK.