I registered with Bitvavo 9 months ago. The low costs, Dutch platform (also international available), and ease of use made me decide to try this exchange at the beginning of this year. I want to share my experience with you. I first did extensive research, and now I share in this review how Bitvavo works, what I think of it, and the pros and cons.
Create your account here and trade the first €1000 for free during the first week >>
What is Bitvavo?
Bitvavo is an exchange where you can buy, sell and store cryptocurrency.
They are located on the Herengracht in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
When I first bought crypto a few years ago, Bitvavo didn’t exist yet. Therefore, it is a whole new player because it has only been around since 2018, but they immediately took the fast train and are already the market leader in the Netherlands. Moreover, they want to become no 1 in Europe.
In addition to Dutch, Bitvavo is also available in English, Spanish, French, German and Italian. So it is also available in Europo for users from 27 countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom.
Bitvavo won the 2021 Cashcow awards for best crypto broker.
Which crypto can you buy at Bitvavo?
Bitvavo does not stand still. At the beginning of this year, you could buy and trade about 50 cryptocurrencies. In the meantime, there are more than 150:
- 0x, 1inch
- Aave, Aavegotchi, AdEx Network, Aelf, Aion, Akropolis, Algorand, Alpha Finance Lab, Ankr, Aragon, Ark, Arweave, Audius, Augur, Automata network, Avalanche, Axie infinity
- Balancer, Bancor, Band Protocol, BarnBridge, Basic Attention Token, Binance coin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV
- Cardano, Chainlink, Chiliz, Compound, Coti, Cartesi, Celer network, Chromia, Civic, Clover Finance, Curve dao token, Dia, Dai, Decentraland, Decred, Dent, Dfi Token, DigiByte, District0x, Dogecoin
- Enjin, EOS, Enzyme Ethereum, Ethereum Classic,
- Forth Governance token, FTX Token, Fantom, Fetch.ai, Filecoin
- Gas, Gnosis, Golem
- Helium, Holo
- ICON, iExec RLC, IOST, IOTA, Injective protocol
- Just
- Keep network, Komodo, Kusama, Kyber network
- LTO Network, Linear, Lisk, Litecoin, Litentry, Livepeer, Loom Network, Loopring
- Maker, Marlin, Mask network, Metal, Mirror protocol, Myneigboralice
- Nano, NEM, NEO, NKN, NULS, Nebulas, NuCypher, Numeraire
- Oasis network, Ocean Protocol, OmiseGO, Ontology, Ontology Gas, Orchid, Origin Protocol
- Pancakeswap, Perpetual protocol, Phala network, Polkadot, Polygon, Polymath, Power Ledger, Pundi X
- Qtum
- Rally, Ravencoin, Reef, Ren, Reques Network, Reserve Rights, Ripple
- Skale network, Serum, Shiba inu, Smooth Love potion, Solana, Status, Steem, Stellar, Storj, StormX, Stratis, Steamr, Superfarm, ShushiSwap, Swipe, Synthetix
- Tellor, Tether, Tezos, The Graph, The Sandbox, Tomochain, Tron
- Uniswap, UMA, USD Coin, Utrust
- VeChain Thor, Verge, Vertcoin, VeThor Token, Voyager token
- Winklink, Waltonchain, Waves
- Yearn Finance
- Zilliqa
Create your account here and trade the first €1000 for free during the first week >>
How does Bitvavo work?
Bitvavo is very easy to use. To get started you must first create an account. After that, you can start by depositing euros into your account and then buy and/or trade cryptos with it.
Create an account
If you want to start with Bitvavo, you must first create an account. It’s free to do and very simple.
Create your account here and trade the first €1000 for free during the first week >>
You choose between a personal and business account. Most likely you will need a personal account. I’ve contacted support to ask for info about a business account, but it’s more likely if your main activity is trading crypto. And if that is not your main activity, your minimum annual investment should be €50,000.
You enter your name and email address and then go to the next step.
You have to fill in 2 extra questions (you can skip these):
What is the main reason for creating an account?
What is the main source of your wealth?
Bitvavo needs to know who you are and for that, you need to verify your identity. This is also the case with the other brokers and an obligation for registration at De Nederlandse Bank.
You can prove your identity in three ways: via an identity card, passport, or driver’s license.
If you create your account on your computer or laptop, it will create a QR code so that you can scan the code with your mobile and complete the following steps. You can now take a photo of your identity card, passport, or driver’s license with your mobile.
Then you can comb through your hair because you have to take a selfie. Again to show that you are real.
If everything is in order, your computer will know and you will be notified that all your documents have been received. Now your account has been created and you can login Bitvavo.
You will notice that Identity Verification is still “pending”. That’s because they check that first. 20 minutes after creating my account I got a message that my ID verification was successful.
The last verification needed is your bank account link. But that happens automatically with your first payment.
Add Euros
With other platforms, you buy Bitcoin or other cryptos directly. At Bitvavo there is an extra step in between. You first deposit an amount in Euros into the Bitvavo account. With that amount, you can purchase your desired crypto.
Depending on your country, you can deposit via, SEPA transfer, SoFort, Mybank (France, Italy, and Luxembourg), Giropay (Austria), EPS (Austria), Bancontact (Belgium), iDeal (Netherlands).
Buy crypto
If you have euros in your Bitvavo account, you can buy crypto from it. As I mentioned, you have a choice of over 150 coins. The minimum amount of crypto you can buy is €5. This is ideal if it is your first time either buying crypto or doing something through Bitvavo. This way you can immediately see how it works without having to invest very large amounts in crypto right away.
Advanced Mode
In the advanced mode, you get to see charts and moving numbers as you might know from the stock exchange. It can seem very overwhelming at first, but if you check more carefully, you will notice that it is all rather not so bad.
The advantage here is that you don’t just have to buy or sell at the market price, but you can also set a limit order or stop limit. If you set the stop limit, your cryptos will be sold as soon as they drop to a certain level. This is to prevent it from sagging even further and you have (largely) lost your money.
By default, this layout is in dark mode (black screen with white letters), but by clicking at the top right you can also put it in normal mode (white screen, black letters).
Bitvavo Wallet
Your cryptos can be stored in the well-secured hosted wallets on Bitvavo. You don’t have to do anything special for this. You automatically receive such a wallet for each digital currency.
This wallet makes it easier to transfer, receive and trade money.
Please note, you don’t have any private keys, and as you know “Not your keys, not your money”. That is why you can also store your crypto on your own (hardware) wallet.
Staking
If you do save your crypto’s on Bitvavo, you can choose to turn staking on or off.
If staking is on and you leave money in your account, you can start making money with your crypto. That is the case for 16 of the coins. In the overview of all coins, you see a green S next to the coins that you can stake.
You will receive a percentage of the number of cryptos you have. The reward will be paid out in the same currency. The calculation of the income is done daily and you will receive it every Monday.
Withdraw money
You can only transfer Euros from your Bitvavo account to your bank account. So if you have Bitcoin in your account, for example, you will first sell it. The amount in Euro (minus costs) will then appear on your account. You can withdraw these euros and send them to your bank account.
What are the costs by Bitvavo?
Since Bitvavo is an exchange and not a broker, they can offer much lower transaction costs than other platforms.
You only pay 0.25% trading fee if you trade for less than $100,000 in 30 days. That can become even less if you start trading for larger amounts. From $100,000, the trading fee is 0.20% and that drops to 0.04% when trading over 25 million in 30 days. These are the costs as a taker. You accept the offer.
As a maker (you place the order) the costs are also lower. Then the maximum number of trading discounts is 0.15%, which also decreases if you trade for more than €100,000.
You don’t have to pay any costs for the payment methods, Bancontact, iDeal, and SEPA bank transfer. For other payment methods, you may have to pay a relative amount (%), EPS (1,75%), Giropay (1,75%), Mybank (1,5%), Sofort (2,25%).
If you withdraw crypto, the costs depend on how busy the network is and which currency (crypto) you want to withdraw. For example, for Bitcoin, it is currently 0.00001 BTC, for Ethereum 0.006 ETH, and for Neo it is 0.
Is Bitvavo safe?
Bitvavo takes several measures to safeguard its platform (and your money).
Firstly, you can secure your account with two-factor authentication (2FA). I would definitely recommend you do that. You can find this in your account settings. This can be done via Google Authenticator.
If you log in on a different device than usual, an e-mail will also be sent to you so that you can confirm that it is you.
They also do device & IP management, security notifications, whitelist recording, and anti-fishing security.
You can leave money on Bitvavo, so you want to know whether it is all stored safely. Fortunately, most of the cryptos are kept on cold wallets by them. This is separate from the internet and therefore the safest way. These are then kept in safes of the highest security level. To cater for unexpected events, these cold wallets are spread across multiple locations.
The data centers are also secured, they use API security, and employees are logged so that they can immediately detect if unusual actions occur. Employees are screened and receive regular training to become aware of the safety risks and how to deal with them. Security audits are performed after each major system update to prevent leaks.
Bitvavo app
Are you one of those people who does everything with their app? Then you can download the Bitvavo App so that you can always check your coins. The app is very user-friendly and I use it daily. You can buy crypto with it but not trade with it. For that, you use the advanced mode on the desktop.
Advantages and disadvantages of Bitvavo (review)
It’s super easy to sign up with Bitvavo. This makes it very suitable for novice crypto investors or traders. The layout of the dashboard is very clean so that the system actually shows itself.
Does this mean that it is not suitable for advanced users? No, not at all. Bitvavo is definitely suitable for advanced users as you can switch to an advanced interface with trading functions.
You can buy crypto with 8 different payment methods. SEPA Transfers are completely free of charge.
Because you don’t need your own wallet, the threshold to start is extra low. You can also earn some extra money through staking. But of course, you can also store your purchased cryptos on your own hardware wallet.
You can contact customer service by sending an email. They also respond fairly quickly and I am always well helped. What is not possible, however, is to have contact with them by telephone. I don’t mind that myself, since I don’t like telephones, but for some, that can be a disadvantage.
