Luno Review: Africa & Malaysia's most popular Bitcoin Exchange as of 2017

Many users who are familiar with LocalBitcoin and other Bitcoin services may find that the fees that vendors charge for Bitcoin can be rather hefty. One common option among traders/investors/enthusiasts of cryptocurrencies is to opt for using an exchange to purchase their Bitcoin.

A growing favorite of ours is the Exchange, Luno (Formerly known as BitX)

Luno is a Bitcoin company that's headquartered in London. Though it operates within Nigeria, South Africa, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Not to mention 35 other European Countries.
These guys have quite an influence through their quality Wallet Services which facilitate the storage and transaction of Bitcoin (and not long ago, Bitcoin Cash). And most notably, their exchange between fiat currency and Bitcoin.

Recently as of the 9th of November 2017, Luno has introduced Ethereum into their wallets which is amazing news.

Team and Backers

Founded in 2013, Luno achieved a USD$824,000 seed funding round in 2014. With further $4 Million in 2015, and $9 Million in 2017. All this with the goal to expand its exchange operations and services across Europe. This is an astounding feat and their growth is clear and evident. These are the investors that fuelled Luno:

Their team has variety of skilled employees from a pethora of backrounds such as engineering, finance, and industry. But like us crypto-enthusiasts, their unity resides in the poassion to revolutionise the way people use money.
With a diverse group from all over the world, many employees have track records having worked at top multinationals such as Google, Amazon, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Ernst & Young, and more.

Trading Fees

Having used Luno for serveral years, they offer very affordable rates which are miniscule to even consider.

Deposit Fees

Depending on the method of deposit, almost all bank transfers for numerous countries are free. Though, transfer through Debit or credit card via PayU in Nigeria will incur a 1.58% fee.

Withdrawal Fees

A rather small fee is incurred on withdrawals and the comparisons from country to country can be seen in the table below

Sending and Receiving fees (of Bitcoin/Ethereum)

-Sending Bitcoin and Ethereum will vary dynamically depending on the network traffic, charging a nominal fee. The fee is considered dynamic as the traffic is a big factor. Whereas Bitcoin Cash has no fee to send.

-Receiving Bitcoin will incur a BTC 0.0002 fee, but is free for Ethereum.

Instant Buy/Sell

This feature provides a quoted exchange rate which includes the fee for a quick trade. The fee will always vary due to the market conditions between the buyers and sellers. Though as security to protect price slippage, they've implimented a volume limit per transaction, though not limited to consecutive trades. Here's a pretty simple explanation provided by Luno on how their Buy/Sell limit works.

Exchange Fees

With regards to Trading on the Luno Exchange, there exists a standard Maker / Taker Fee (when placing a limit order).

Simply put:

Maker Orders

If you place a buy order at a price BELOW all of the current sell orders, you are anticipating a price drop unti a seller settles to sell their Bitcoin at that price. Until then, the trade is pending. This is considered a Maker Order. Once it is filled and you are able to buy from that Buy order, you are charged a MAKER FEE.

Taker Orders

Whereas, If you place a buy order at a price ABOVE all of the current sell orders (you want to purchase them NOW). This is considered a Taker Order. The second your order is filled and your trade is complete, you are charged with a TAKER FEE.

This applies to Sell limit orders too. Simple, right? But what are the fees? This will vary as it is determined by your trade volume over the last 30 days The Fee Bracket will be shown. Below you can view the fees:

Security

There is the standard KYC method upon registration which might be a hassle, but gives confidence in Luno for engaging in business with you, as well as abiding by local regulations. They offer the standard Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) which is a standard to ensure your account is less likely to be compromised.

Another feature which ought to be a staple amongst other exchanges (which Luno offers) is an authorization email that is sent upon sending out funds from your Luno Wallet.

Furthermore, they offer several services to help recover passwords or lost 2FA codes due to not having access, even a manual reset. The security is quite tight but it all boils down to the users behavior with his data.

Interface

One thing I love about Luno is their minimal designed layout. Upon registering, one has to add a beneficiary account for depositing and withdrawing Fiat Currency and the steps are just easy. All you need is on the left side menu from displaying your wallets to your transactions (So be it in deposits, withdrawals, trades, and transfers).

They've always stuck to the Blue and white design which is easy on the eyes. I've always felt that the learning curve was minimal and anyone can start trading on Luno.

Trading View

The trading view is rather comprehensive, with the current order book and spread on the left, a chart of the prices over time in the middle, and the recent trades and volumes on the right. All you have to do is fill in the amount of BTC you wish to purchase, and the price per BTC in your quoted currency. This applies to Sell orders too.

Currently with the newly launched Ethereum Wallet, you can instantly send, receive, buy, sell and store ETH. But because it is very new, you Can't trade ETH on the Exchange YET. The Luno staff will send an update when it is ready, which i'm pretty excited about since it may cost less for me to purchase ETH than buying Bitcoin and finding another Altcoin Exchange to buy my ETH!

Overall Review

All in all, Luno is the first exchange in my country which I've dipped my feet in and have always been satisfied with the services they offer.

Deposit Times

Have always taken less than 2 hours for me. But it is stated on their site it is maximum up to 24 hours. Bitcoin transactions occur after 3 confirmations.

Withdrawal Times

Will vary from the Banks and the Country. you can check out their cut off and withdrawal release times here. Though in my experience, it had always taken about a day, maximum 2 days to receive my withdrawals.

They're clearly expanding and not showing any signs of weakness, therefore i'm very comfortable engaging in my crypto-trades on their platform. But regardless, I'd always make sure to send my Bitcoin out of the Exchange and into my Desktop/Hardware Wallet to be safe. Check out KeepKey, a highly recommended offine wallet for safe storage of your cryptocurrencies.

Regardless, Luno is pretty awesome and its major competitors include CoinHako and XbitAsia for the South East Asian Region. Reviews on those Exchanges will be coming up soon! Till' then, Thanks for reading and do follow for more reviews and tutorials.

If you're from Malaysia, I would definitely recommend signing up with Luno