Indacoin

It’s one thing for a cryptocurrency exchange’s developers to catch your attention. It’s another thing entirely for them to hold it and persuade you to trade with them for weeks, months, and perhaps even years to come. I’ll investigate whether Indacoin can do the latter—which is actually harder—throughout this Indacoin review. One thing’s for sure, though. Indacoin has no trouble in capturing your attention.

The first thing you see when you access the website is “Indacoin provides an easy way to buy Bitcoins and 700 other cryptocurrencies.” That’s right—seven hundred cryptocurrencies. Scroll down a little, and something else is bound to catch your eye: you don’t even need to register to use this service.

Straight away, you’re hooked.

The question remains, however, whether or not there’s substance to back up these stylish and effective claims, and that’s exactly what I plan to find out in this Indacoin exchange review.

Let’s start.

Indacoin Key Features

Indacoin is a cryptocurrency exchange based in the UK, and it offers a massive range of cryptos to trade.

Here are a few of its most noteworthy features.

Markets

This is Indacoin’s most eye-catching feature, and it’s not even close. A ridiculous selection of altcoins, totalling over 700, makes this one of the most versatile cryptocurrency exchanges on the market, even when compared to the best Bitcoin exchange sites.

Let’s face it; you can buy Bitcoin from just about anywhere. Indacoin goes beyond that. It makes it possible for you to buy every vaguely famous crytpo in existence.

Mobile App

This is an area in which many exchanges are still found wanting. Not so with Indacoin. The developers make a pretty big deal about the Indacoin app on their website, and deservedly so.

This app—available on both iOS and Android—aims to give traders the full functionality of an exchange, even when they’re on the move. It’s secure, powerful, and extremely well rated by users.

API

APIs are a great way to both boost the functionality of your platform, and make it appealing to the more serious traders out there.

Specifically, this API allows Indacoin users to let people purchase cryptos from their website. There are also different types of API available, which allow different levels of Bitcoin trading

Education

With its APIs, Indacoin certainly caters to the more experienced users. That does not mean, however, that it abandons the newbies out there.

Indacoin provides an excellent basic introduction to cryptos for its users, to help newcomers get up to speed. It explains their appeal, how they differ from traditional currencies, how various cryptos differ from each other, and so on.

Most exchanges assume a base-level knowledge about cryptos. Indacoin makes no such assumptions, which is a pleasant change.

Supported Currencies

It’s unusual for an exchange to make its sheer number of supported currencies the standout feature. With Indacoin, however, it’s completely understandable. If you want to buy a cryptocurrency with a credit card—any cryptocurrency—you’ll probably be able to do so here.

Indacoin supports over 700 cryptos. Obviously, all the big hitters are present and correct: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin cash, and so on. On top of that, there’s also an enormous range of lesser-known altcoins, stretching from Bumbacoin, to ChessCoin, to CondenSate (whose symbol is RAIN—bravo!). I actually really enjoyed simply browsing this list and learning about all the oddly named cryptos I’d never heard of!

There’s also a decent range of fiat currencies in place. In addition to the two most popular for a cryptocurrency purchase—USD and EUR—you can also use GBP, RUB, and AUD.

Thanks to its ludicrous number of supported currencies, Indacoin offers almost unparalleled flexibility for traders.

Indacoin Signup and Login

On the Indacoin website, there are quite a few mentions of how easy to use and simplified the platform is. This certainly applies to the signup process, which is one of the most streamlined I’ve come across.

You have to fill in two fields at the first stage, with one of those simply being a randomly generated code.

The second stage is only slightly more involved. Even here, though, you simply need to enter two Indacoin login details—a password and a username.

After that, they’ll send you a confirmation link. Click on the link there to activate your account, and that’s it!

It’s important to note here that you don’t actually need to register in order to buy Bitcoin from Indacoin. You’ll always need to enter some details—like an email address and phone number—but you don’t technically need to create an account.

Finally, logging into your Indacoin account after you’ve created it couldn’t be easier. You just enter your username, password, and another randomly generated code, and you can get straight back in.

Interface

My Indacoin review has actually gotten off to a very positive start! Unfortunately, however, things take a slight downward turn when it comes to the interface.

On the plus side, it must be said that everything looks very nice. The blue, white, and gray color scheme is sleek, modern, and easy on the eye. The blocks of text are kept down to a minimum, and the calls-to-action stand out well.

That said, I did find some problems with the actual interface.

Firstly, there’s no way to access your user area from the main website. To do that, you must go to the Products drop-down menu, click on Trading Platform, and click on your user name.

A whole different area of the site—for more complex Bitcoin trading—will be opened up. Only there can you find your personal details. The website doesn’t explain this, and it’s bizarre that they tucked away such an important area like this.

Another, more minor irritation was the lack of any kind of “About Us” page. Aside from a few lines on the homepage, and a few more in the FAQ section, there’s very little information at all about who exactly the Indacoin team is. When you’re asking people to buy Bitcoin with a credit card on your website—which is a lot of trust to ask for—I’d say that’s a big mistake.

Both of these issues were minor irritations rather than massive problems. The Indacoin interface isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough.

Markets

While Indacoin does support a ridiculous number of altcoins, you can’t trade all of them against each other. For the record, you can’t actually sell any cryptos here either; you can only buy them.

Purchases must be made using one of six currencies: USD, EUR, GBP, RUB, AUD, and BTC. You can’t buy cryptos with any altcoins, not even Ethereum or Litecoin. Still, this is the case with any other well-known best website to buy cryptocurrency, so I wouldn’t overly criticize Indacoin here.

Regardless, those six aforementioned currencies can be used to buy every other cryptocurrency on the platform.

Trading Tools

This was the first major disappointment I encountered during my research for this review.

On its homepage, Indacoin clearly states that “powerful analytics tools let you capture the best momentum for entries and exits.” This is extremely misleading.

In the more simplistic trading section, they give you some very basic information about a few cryptos—24 hour volume, market cap, current price, and so on. This is the kind of information you could get absolutely anywhere, and does not qualify as “powerful analytics.”

As an alternative to that simplistic area, Indacoin also offers a “Trading Platform.” That sounds a bit more complex, right?

Well, it isn’t!

It looks cooler, with a dark background that’s clearly supposed to resemble the layout of genuinely complex trading platforms. Despite this, the “powerful analytics” here consist of … one Indacoin price chart. With no indicators whatsoever. Not even volume—which you do get in the basic section.

Amazing. What “powerful analytical tools” these are!

That line might refer to the APIs that are available. I don’t think it does, though. Those APIs are there to let people add cryptocurrency payments to their own websites. That’s cool, obviously, but it’s got nothing to do with actual crypto trading.

False Promises

Lots of crypto exchanges merely offer basic trading tools. We shouldn’t single out Indacoin for that. What I take issue with here is that Indacoin pretends that it offers something more. It hints at being a complex platform, suited for experienced traders, but it’s really not.

However the mobile app is way better when you compare it to the desktop version. I won’t go into a full Indacoin app review, but it really does do a great job of enabling on-the-go trading. You can use it both to carry out trading and to send cryptos directly to another person’s wallet. It has an excellent reputation amongst users, with strong ratings on both the iOS App Store and Google Play.

How to Make a Deposit

If you’re using the main section of the site to buy cryptos, using a fiat currency, you don’t technically make a “deposit.” Instead, you simply directly buy the crypto, which is then stored in your Indacoin wallet.

Unfortunately, your options for doing this are incredibly limited. You can literally just use a credit card (which in turn must be MasterCard or Visa).

Annoyingly, Indacoin demands that you verify your card before you can use it. At the first stage, this means accepting a phone call in which they’ll give you a four digit code to enter. Often, you’ll then also need to complete an Indacoin video verification, in which you show your face next to your ID. Obviously, for fans of anonymous crypto trading, this will be a big turn-off.

Other options

Alternatively, you can also use the Trading Platform section of the website to make your purchase. In that case, you do make deposits into your account. I have no idea why you’d actually want to do this, firstly because you incur a deposit fee (detailed shortly), and secondly because you don’t actually get any benefits from doing it.

If you’re using Bitcoin to purchase another crypto, then depositing that BTC into your Indacoin wallet is extremely easy, a happier part of this review.

Once you’ve indicated how much BTC you want to spend, they’ll give you a QR code and an address. Then, you simply use one of these to send the Bitcoin from your usual wallet to your Indacoin wallet. The webiste requires only two confirmations for Bitcoin deposits, which means you can usually complete them quickly.

How to Make a Trade

This next section in my review focuses on cryptocurrency and how to buy it!

The purchasing process is extremely streamlined. This will suit casual traders to a tee, but there’s really no option for more experienced users.

The only trades you can make are market orders, i.e., buying cryptos directly at their market price. There’s no opportunity to buy them using limit orders. Also—as I mentioned earlier—you can’t sell cryptos here; you can only buy them.

Technically, you do have a choice of where to purchase cryptocurrency. You can use either the main section or the so-called “Trading Platform” to make your purchases. Both effectively work in the same way, though.

You begin by picking the crypto you want to buy and selecting which currency you’ll use for the purchase. Then you simply enter how much you want to spend, and Indacoin will automatically calculate the amount of your chosen crypto you can afford.

If you’re using the main section of the site, you’ll then need to enter your card details to complete the purchase. If you’re using the Trading Section, you’ll use funds that you’ve already deposited into your account.

Again, this is all great for beginners, but it certainly won’t satisfy traders who need more control over their deals.

Indacoin Fees

Technically, Indacoin does give you the option to make fiat deposits. In practice, however, it seems like they really don’t want you to. In fact, they charge a ridiculous 9% commission for doing so. Seeing as you can just make a purchase directly using your card instead, I would obviously not recommend doing this.

Bitcoin deposits, by contrast, are completely free from charges. All cryptocurrency withdrawals, which will obviously follow your purchase, are also free of fees.

Trading Fees

This probably represents the low point of my Indacoin review. Indacoin is extremely reluctant to divulge any information about its trading fees, to an extent that borders on the unacceptable.

It gives almost no details about how it calculates trading fees. In the FAQ section, it simply says fees are “based on numerous factors.” Great! Maybe you could … let us know what some of those factors are?

Indacoin simply calculates its own fees, using some hidden calculator, for each individual transaction. Even then, the website doesn’t tell you how much they are. The website simply includes them in the overall price of the transaction. Based on those prices, though, they are extremely high.

For reference, $3,000 should buy you about 0.47 BTC at the time of writing. On Indacoin, it gets you 0.38 BTC, which is only actually worth $2,430. Whether that’s through terrible exchange rates, or some massive hidden fees, that is an absolutely awful deal.

The fees are opaque and extremely high, and they’re something that Indacoin should change. They alone may be enough to put off many potential users.

Trading Limits

Many of the larger cryptocurrency exchanges out there don’t bother with trading limits. It may be a sign of Indacoin’s lack of size, therefore, that it does indeed have some pretty tight limits in place, which we’ll detail now in this Indacoin review.

The website limits users to a maximum spend of $200 on their first purchase. You then need to wait four days before buying again, and they’ll cap that purchase again at $200. Seven days after the initial purchase, you can make a $500 transaction, and 14 days after that you can buy $2,000 worth of cryptos. After a month, there are no longer limits on your account.

Like all exchanges, Indacoin has maximum order sizes in place. In this case, however, they’re extremely low. With Bitcoin, for example, you can only buy a maximum of $3,000. While that might be fine for more casual buyers, it’s hardly going to satisfy the heavy rollers out there.

Security

You may well ask, “Is Indacoin legit?” The honest answer is probably, but it’s impossible to be sure.

A running problem with Indacoin is its lack of transparency. While this was a fairly big issue with its trading fees, it’s a massive one when it comes to security.

Indacoin gives out almost no information whatsoever about its security measures. In fact, literally the only security-related thing I could find on the Indacoin website was that it only accepts 3D Secure cards. That’s it.

From a website that’s asking you to potentially spend lots of money, and entrust your card details to it, this is unacceptable.

Customer Service

I’ve generally been pretty damning about this exchange. The Indacoin support section does represent a rare bright spot, though.

Live chat—something that’s still missing from many of the larger exchanges out there—is present and correct. There’s also an email address and phone number you can use, both of which you can clearly see. The customer service team does a decent job of responding to Twitter enquiries, too.

Unfortunately, the FAQ section does not maintain the same standards, which is poor to say the least. There are nowhere near enough articles, with many of the ones that are present being extremely brief. There isn’t even a search function. So I must say for my Indacoin review, you’d better hope Indacoin’s staff answers your direct enquiry quickly, because you won’t be getting much help here.

Indacoin Reputation

It should be a given that a crypto exchange (or any website, for that matter), would tell you a bit about themselves. At the very least, they should have an “About Us” section, right?

I’m sorry to keep repeating myself here, but this is yet another area in which Indacoin is remarkably opaque.

You’re told that the company started in 2013 and has headquarters in London—and that’s literally all there is. There’s no information about who’s running the exchange, and therefore whether or not they know what they’re doing. You can’t find any information as to how many people use the exchange. There’s basically no information about anything!

You won’t be surprised to learn that critics have generally been unimpressed with Indacoin, with many focusing on its high fees. As for user reviews, the Indacoin Reddit page is completely dead, and the exchange receives a mere 6.4/10 average rating on Trustpilot.

In short, Indacoin doesn’t have much of a reputation, and whatever reputation it does have is pretty negative.

Conclusion

It genuinely brings me no pleasure to write a negative crypto exchange review. I’m well aware that people have invested countless hours into every exchange I look at, and I respect that.

In the case of this Indacoin review, however, I didn’t really have a choice. Simply put, there’s very little to like about this exchange—and a lot to dislike.

Perhaps the biggest issue of all is the trading fees. There’s no explanation as to how they’re calculated, but they end up taking a massive chunk out of your trade.

A close runner-up in the “biggest problem” stakes is the lack of information about security measures. Why on earth should people entrust their money and information to an exchange they haven’t heard of, with no guarantees of protection?

It’s certainly not all bad. The Indacoin mobile app is excellent, the customer support is above average, and the streamlined trading process is perfect for newcomers. These positives aren’t even close to offsetting the negatives, though.

Unfortunately, as it currently stands, Indacoin simply doesn’t represent a realistic option for cryptocurrency traders.