The Best Crypto Exchanges in Australia

It is known among Australian cryptocurrency traders that Swyftx is one of the best, if not the best, exchange to use. They are one of Australia’s most prominent and long-standing exchanges for good reason. Low fees, an easy to use platform and a wide range of cryptocurrencies.

Swyftx burst onto the scene as a legitimate way for Australians to engage in cryptocurrency investing. They met the high demand for a liquid exchange that complied with all Australian taxation and cryptocurrency regulations. Overtime, Swyftx has continued to innovate and remain dominant with a range of features.

Swyftx is perfect for Aussies as the platform is made specifically for you. Unlike many other exchanges, you don’t need to pay expensive currency conversions. Instead, Swyftx allows you to buy cryptocurrency instantly using AUD with no deposit or withdrawal fees. The fact that Swyftx is so specialized for Australians is actually one of its only downsides. Swytfx only accepts AUD for deposits, making it extremely difficult for any other nationality to use the platform. 

For Swyftx, trust between their platform and investors is crucial and they take security extremely seriously. Swyftx utilizes both cold and hot wallet storage. Meaning that they store some of their funds online, whilst the majority of funds are in an offline storage system. This makes it excessively difficult for hackers to gain access to any Swyftx user’s assets. 

They also supply a variety of other security features such as breached password detection, two factor account protection, biometric authentication, KYC verification, and others. 

Another factor that makes Swyftx so popular is the variety of assets it offers. There are over 270 different cryptocurrencies that can be traded on the platform. With such a diverse catalog of coins, beginner and expert traders should have no difficulty staying interested with the platform. 

What keeps investors loyal to Swyftx is their focus on user experience. The platform has a simple and customisable interface that allows investors to make the exchange their own. Swyftx even offers a Demo feature that is crucial for beginners. With Demo Mode, beginners can experiment with the trading platform without actually risking any real money. 

The user experience is topped off by a quality customer support system. Swyftx is one of the few crypto exchanges that has a live chat where you can always talk to a support team. Nothing is more stressful than having technical difficulties when money is on the line, so it is reassuring that help is always there if you need it. With Swyftx, you won’t have to wait hours, or even days, to get help like you would with other platforms.  

What’s surprising about Swyftx is that they can offer great security, customer service, a user-friendly experience and still charge minimal fees. As stated before, there are no deposit or withdrawal fees when using AUD. 

Swyftx also touts the lowest spread of any Australian exchange. Spread refers to the difference between the buy and sell price of a cryptocurrency, beginners who are not cognisant of high spreads can end up losing significant amounts of money. Knowing this, you may expect trading fees to be high to make up for this, but they sit at a low .6%. 

When all this is taken into consideration, it is not surprising that so many Australians trust Swyftx for their crypto needs.

CoinSpot began in 2013 as one of the first crypto exchanges for Australians. This early start allowed them to capture a large portion of the market despite the rise of other exchanges like Swyftx. CoinSpot has remained prominent among Australian exchanges due to its ease of use, high security, and the wide range of digital coins offered. 

Like Swyftx, CoinSpot is optimized for Australian users. You can buy digital assets with AUD and expect zero deposit fees. CoinSpot is far superior when compared with peer to peer Australian exchanges because you can instantly purchase or sell crypto with the press of a button. With less established peer to peer exchanges, you must wait for another trader or e-commerce counterpart to negotiate a price before purchasing the digital asset. 

One of the few downsides with CoinSpot is that they only support AUD for deposits and you cannot use credit cards to purchase crypto. However, this should not be a big deal for most Australian investors. 

CoinSpot excels in an easy to use interface, making it ideal for those who are new to cryptocurrency investing. However, they don’t dumb down the platform to make it more simple. Instead, they allow experienced investors to use an additional price chart window found on CoinSpot’s dashboard. With this price chart, investors can conduct all kinds of technical analysis. Also, CoinSpot is optimized for high speed day traders. The exchange provides a list of hotkeys in the dashboard to buy and sell coins extremely quickly.  

These great features are even better knowing that you can buy or sell just about any cryptocurrency you can think of on CoinSpot’s exchange. With over 300 different digital assets, beginner traders can get their hands on some of the big name cryptocurrencies while advanced investors can diversify into little known altcoins. 

If you are having any issues using CoinSpot, they have a customer support team that operates between 9am-8pm AEDT on weekdays and 9am-5pm AEDT on weekends. While they don’t provide 24/7 support, if you contact them within working hours you receive high quality service. If you do need help outside of the support team’s hours, you can still contact their help desk that operates at all hours of the day. However you will need to fill out a ticket which will be responded to within 24 hours. 

To top it all off, CoinSpot is the most secure Australian exchange. CoinSpot can make this claim since they were the only exchange to be awarded with an ISO 27001 certification. ISO 27001 is the international standard that outlines the necessities for implementing an information system. They also offer a plethora of security features such as offline storage, custom withdrawal restrictions, two-factor authentication, and geo-lock logins.

CoinSpot is a top notch exchange that is a smart choice for any Australian investor. If you are looking for a variety of coins to purchase, user-friendly interface, and great security, you can’t go wrong with CoinSpot.

Although Independent Reserve is not as well known as top Australian exchanges like Swyftx and CoinSpot, they have been around for a long time. Independent Reserve began as an Australian cryptocurrency exchange in 2013 and has continued to grow since. 

Independent Reserve is based in Australia, but unlike Swyftx and CoinSpot, they allow investors to use other currencies besides AUD. Investors can deposit AUD, USD, SGD, and NZD fiat currencies. 

One of the drawbacks of Independent Reserve is that they don’t offer as wide a variety of digital assets as their competitors do. They focus on the top cryptocurrencies, only offering 26 different coins. This is not a big drawback for individuals that are only interested in investing in Bitcoin or Ethereum, however, those with an interest in altcoins will have to go elsewhere. 

Another downside for Independent Reserve is that they don’t have a customer support live chat feature. If you want to get into contact with customer support, you will need to write out a help ticket for their Support Desk and wait for a response. 

What makes matters worse is that their user-interface is not as easy to navigate, it honestly feels somewhat outdated and clunky. So, if beginners are having trouble getting used to Independent Reserve’s clunky interface, they won’t have a live chat to help guide them through the early stages of investing. 

However, another upside for Independent Reserve is that it has a great security system. Their exchange is phenomenal at keeping user data confidential and digital assets secure. Independent Reserve’s main servers are located at two Tier 3 data centres in Sydney, Australia. This ensures that all personal information is secure as it is encrypted multiple times with keys spread across four data centres.

If you are extremely anxious about hackers stealing your cryptocurrency, Independent Reserve has a unique feature to deal with this. They are the first Australian exchange to offer insurance on digital assets. There are a variety of different coverage plans they offer. For example the Starter insurance plan provides $20,000 AUD in coverage for just $300 a year. 

Independent Reserve is a reputable exchange that isn’t a bad choice. If you can overlook a somewhat poorly designed user interface and lack of customer support live chat, there are still a lot of great features. 

Unlike the previously discussed exchanges, eToro was not created or optimized for Australian users. However, Australian users can get access to the platform’s unique features if they are willing to pay the conversion fees for transferring AUD to USD.  eToro is a popular multi-asset brokerage with over 13 million users located in 140 different countries. 

What makes eToro unique is that they have social trading features. Social trading allows investors to follow the trades of other top investors through eToro’s CopyTrader system. This allows beginner traders to replicate trades made by experts in real-time. To make this possible, eToro operates with full transparency. Meaning that all client’s data concerning gain percentage, risk score, and portfolio composition are available to other users. 

Experienced traders are also able to utilise the 30 crypto pairs offered by eToro. Crypto pairs are coins that can be traded for one another. For example, an investor could exchange a portion of bitcoin into Ethereum instead of selling off their bitcoin and purchasing Ethereum with a fiat currency. Another thing that experienced crypto investors appreciate about eToro is their high level of security. eToro began in 2007 and has never experienced a successful hack.

There are a bunch of unique features that eToro has, but there are a few downsides. For one, the customer support is lacking. While they advertise 24/7 support, it’s hard to get a hold of an agent in a short amount of time. Another potential downside for investors is that they currently only offer 17 different cryptocurrencies. While they do offer Dogecoin, if you are looking for lesser known altcoins you will need to go elsewhere. 

eToro supplies a great deal of features with generally low fees. While they don’t utilize direct trading fees, they do make money off of the spread. The spread is the difference between the buy and the sell price. When using eToro, you will be buying crypto at a slightly higher price and selling at a slightly lower price than the actual market value. For example, the spread for BTC is .75%. 

While the conversion rates can be tricky for Australian users to deal with, if eToro’s unique features, like CopyTrader, sound right for you it may be worth the premium.

Digital Surge is another Australian based crypto exchange. While not as popular as other exchanges, it is a reputable exchange. Being based in Australia, you won’t have to deal with any conversion rates like you would with eToro. Although Digital Surge does not offer any crypto pairs, you can purchase as much as you desire using AUD.

This exchange is known to be great for beginners due to its user-friendly interface. Digital Surge is focused on making cryptocurrency investing accessible to the average Aussie. To help with this, they charge low fees. Trade fees for buying and selling sit at 0.5% and can go all the way down to 0.1% if you are trading a high amount of volume. Unlike other exchanges, Digital Surge has zero hidden fees. While other exchanges boast similar trade fees to Digital Surge, they make the majority of their money with ridiculously large spreads. That’s not the case here. 

They also have a great customer support service. It can be accessed by the Live Chat on their platform or by email. Further, the support team is based in Australia so you won’t need to deal with things like language barriers. The support team is so great that they are even known to provide beginner investors with educational resources to help them get started. 

Digital Surge also has a good handle on security. They have a multi-layered security system that is updated regularly. For added security, they store a high majority of digital assets in cold storage, which makes hacking basically impossible. Their system seems to be working great as there has not been any reported hacks or thefts from Digital Surge users. 

Digital Surge is a solid pick for both beginner and advanced crypto investors. Not only do they have solid security, low fees, and great customer service, they also offer 250+ different coins. So, for any Australian looking for a phenomenal exchange doesn’t need to look further than Digital Surge.