Founded in 2011, Bitstamp is a well-established cryptocurrency exchange platform with just over 30 available cryptos. While this may be a smaller array than some exchanges, it’s more than enough to satisfy most beginners, and its simplified fee structure makes it an easier (albeit slightly pricier) point of entry for newbies. That said, more advanced users may want access to more coins or lower trading fees.
Who Should Use Bitstamp?
With its easy-to-understand fee setup and the ability to purchase crypto with fiat currency right from a bank account, credit card or debit card, Bitstamp can be a good option for those just wading into the world of crypto and looking to stick to the major coins or even more popular altcoins.
Advanced traders, however, may be frustrated by the relatively small amount of available cryptos, lack of margin trading and comparatively high trading fees. Those looking to earn rewards on their crypto by staking will also currently have to look elsewhere: Bitstamp’s recently released Ethereum staking program, in which users loan out their ether holdings so others can use them to verify transactions on the ETH blockchain, is not yet available in the U.S.
Regardless of your experience level (or even the crypto platform you choose), though, you should be cautious when investing in crypto. Not only is cryptocurrency liable to experience sudden price changes, but it’s also vulnerable to hacking.
Bitstamp experienced such a hack in 2015, when a phishing scheme led to the theft of nearly 19,000 Bitcoin, worth approximately $5.2 million at the time. Bitstamp reimbursed users for any losses and seems to have used the incident as an opportunity to improve its security.
However, it’s important to recognize all of the risks that come with investing in crypto: You aren’t just risking swings in prices; you’re also potentially risking your whole investment itself if the exchange or wallet where you hold your crypto is hacked. This is why some crypto investors like to withdraw their cryptos from exchanges and hold them in so-called cold wallets disconnected from the internet.
Bitstamp Features
Quality Basic Services
Though Bitstamp does not support more sophisticated investing options (like margin trading), it focuses on offering basic services done well on its website and app. These include an easy-to-use instant buy platform and four different order types that may appeal to more advanced traders looking to take advantage of short-term price fluctuations.
1. Instant orders: In the U.S., you can use automated clearing house (ACH) transactions to instantly deposit funds from your bank account into Bitstamp and immediately start trading; in most states you can also use a credit or debit card, though this may be subject to higher fees from Bitstamp and your card issuer.
2. Limit orders: Set a price at which you would prefer to buy or sell a specific cryptocurrency.
3. Market orders: Buy or sell cryptocurrency at the best available market price, which can sometimes be a better price than what is available through instant order.
4. Stop orders: Set an entry or exit price point for your trades to limit potential losses stemming from sudden price fluctuations.
5. Trailing stop orders: Set an entry or exit price point for your trades based on a set bottom that may be adjusted upward if the price rises above its current value. This ensures you always keep the same spread between your stop price and the current price, helping you capture potential gains you otherwise wouldn’t with a simple stop order.
Security
Two-factor authentication is now standard for all investors performing key account functions, and Bitstamp reports that it keeps 98% of its digital assets offline in cold storage and all assets are insured. That said, it ranked on the lower side of crypto exchanges in our review when it comes to security as determined by crypto exchange security evaluator CER, signifying it may still have room to grow to become a leader in this category.
Customer Support
Bitstamp provides 24/7 customer support, notably offering a phone support line for immediate queries. This kind of help is a pretty rare find in the crypto exchange space, so if being able to talk to a support agent on the phone is important to you, you may want to give Bitstamp a second look.
That said, if you prefer text-based help, you may be better served elsewhere: Unlike other platforms, there is no live chat if you have an issue. Instead, you can send a message to the customer support team that generally receives a response in between 24 and 72 hours.
Bitstamp Fees
Unlike most cryptocurrency exchanges, Bitstamp charges one flat fee percentage, regardless of whether your order is a maker (creates liquidity on the exchange) or a taker (reduces liquidity) or whether your order is made using the trading or instant buy platform.
This makes the fee structure much simpler to understand for those new to crypto investing, and those using the instant buy will benefit from industry-low fees assuming they use ACH, not credit or debit, to finance their purchases. Most other exchanges apply a surcharge to orders placed with their instant buy platforms.
While this brings Bitstamp’s fees into a competitive space for those using the instant buy platform, the platform’s fees are much more expensive for traders than you might find at competitors with more complex fee structures, even accounting for discounts given for high-volume monthly trading.
You’ll have to trade at least $10,000 a month before you see any decrease in fees and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars before you approach the low fees of some competitors, like Kraken or Binance.US.
In addition to these fees, you may run into a few other fees, depending on how you use the platform. You can expect to see a 5% fee for any credit card or debit card purchases, which does not include any fees charged to you separately from your bank or credit card provider.
Finally, while all crypto deposits and ACH deposits and withdrawals from U.S. banks can be made free of charge, each cryptocurrency is subject to its own withdrawal fee. If you plan to move a lot of cryptocurrency into an off-platform crypto wallet for ultimate security, you may want to choose an exchange like Gemini that offers lower trading fees and no withdrawal fees for a set number of transactions per month.
Bitstamp Pros and Cons
Pros:
1. Allows for cryptocurrency purchases using fiat currency via a bank account, debit card or credit card
2. Offers 24/7 dedicated phone customer support
Cons:
1. 2015 hack resulted in loss of $5.2 million worth of BTC
2. More limited range of available cryptocurrencies
3. No margin trading
4. Relatively high fees until you reach institutional levels of trading
Cryptocurrencies on Bitstamp
Bitstamp currently supports the following cryptocurrencies:
- Bitcoin (BTC)
- Ether (ETH)
- Tether (USDT)
- USD Coin (USDC)
- XRP (XRP)
- Uniswap (UNI)
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
- Litecoin (LTC)
- Chainlink (link)
- DAI (DAI)
- Stellar Lumens (XLM)
- AAVE (AAVE)
- Algorand (ALGO)
- Maker (MKR)
- Compound (COMP)
- The Graph (GRT)
- Yearn.finance (YFI)
- Synthetix (SNX)
- Paxos Standard (PAX)
- Basic Attention Token (BAT)
- Curve (CRV)
- UMA (UMA)
- 0x (ZRX)
- OMG Network (OMG)
- Kyber Network (KNC)
- Gemini Dollar (GUSD)
- Audius (AUDIO)
- Ethereum 2.0 (ETH2)
- Ethereum 2.0 Rewards (ETH2R)