Our Bitvavo Review
In the search for a reliable, European cryptocurrency exchange, Bitvavo certainly is one of the most popular trading platforms to choose from.
In this Bitvavo review, we have personally tested and rated the Bitvavo crypto exchange in numerous important aspects that can help you determine whether Bitvavo is the right exchange for you or not.
What is Bitvavo?
Bitvavo is a European cryptocurrency exchange from the Netherlands that is known for offering a wide selection of cryptocurrencies while maintaining very low trading fees that make it highly cost-efficient to trade crypto on Bitvavo.
Since Bitvavo's launch during the crypto bear market in 2018, the Bitvavo exchange has gained massive traction among European crypto traders, recently reaching 1 million active users trading 175+ different cryptocurrencies on their platform.
On Bitvavo's website and mobile app, users can trade crypto with both a user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate, as well as a trading view for advanced crypto traders, making Bitvavo a great option for crypto investors of any skill level.
Bitvavo Registration
To get started trading on Bitvavo, users can sign up for a new account on Bitvavo's registration page , where they are prompted to enter some basic personal information.
It's important to note that only users from roughly 31 accepted countries from mostly the European SEPA region can create an account on Bitvavo:
Bitvavo Accepted Countries |
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🇦🇹 Austria, 🇧🇪 Belgium, 🇧🇬 Bulgaria, 🇨🇭 Switzerland, 🇨🇾 Cyprus, 🇨🇿 Czech Republic, 🇩🇪 Germany, 🇩🇰 Denmark, 🇪🇪 Estonia, 🇪🇸 Spain, 🇫🇮 Finland, 🇫🇷 France, 🇬🇧 United Kingdom, 🇬🇮 Gibraltar, 🇬🇷 Greece, 🇭🇷 Croatia, 🇭🇺 Hungary, 🇮🇪 Ireland, 🇮🇹 Italy, 🇱🇹 Lithuania, 🇱🇺 Luxembourg, 🇱🇻 Latvia, 🇲🇹 Malta, 🇳🇱 Netherlands, 🇳🇴 Norway, 🇵🇱 Poland, 🇵🇹 Portugal, 🇷🇴 Romania, 🇸🇪 Sweden, 🇸🇮 Slovenia, and 🇸🇰 Slovakia |
This means that unfortunately, users from outside of Europe - except in some countries like Switzerland - will have to look for other cryptocurrency exchanges excluding Bitvavo.
Bitvavo KYC Verification
Like all European exchanges, Bitvavo requires users to verify their identity before being able to trade crypto.
The good news is, that Bitvavo doesn't have a daunting KYC process like many other crypto exchanges, as Bitvavo processes KYC verification via a simple mobile app that doesn't involve video calls or long document verification processes.
The only two things most users will need to verify their identity on Bitvavo are a government-issued ID document and a smartphone.
In my experience with Bitvavo, the KYC process on Bitvavo consisted of scanning my ID document and speaking out a few displayed words while recording a video. Overall, this process was straightforward and done within less than two minutes.
When I personally registered on Bitvavo, the entire process from registration to KYC verification on Bitvavo took only around 5 minutes, and similar can be heard from other users of Bitvavo, which makes this crypto exchange very suitable for beginners who get demotivated by complicated registrations.
Therefore, in terms of speed and ease of registration, Bitvavo has rightfully received a rating of 96/100 points in our Bitvavo review.
Is Bitvavo legitimate?
Despite lacking an official exchange license, Bitvavo is required to register with the Dutch Central Bank for AML compliance, which gives the Bitvavo exchange a certain amount of legitimacy.
Still, as the European crypto sector is in its early days, there is no regulatory instance that strictly monitors Bitvavo's financial obligations, risks, and consumer protection, which may be worth considering.
Bitvavo has a clean record of operating a reliable crypto exchange ranging back to early 2018, which makes Bitvavo highly trustworthy after all.
In terms of regulatory compliance Bitvavo makes a very legitimate impression, and it's possible for Bitvavo to gain a full exchange license at some point in the future.
Bitvavo Security
Bitvavo has many impressive security features in place that reach far beyond the usual protection you'd expect from a crypto exchange, including
Account hack insurance of up to 100.000€ per account
White-listed withdrawal addresses, preventing hackers from withdrawing your crypto to their wallet
2-factor authentication
Anti-Phishing codes displayed on the platform, allowing you to verify whether received emails are indeed from Bitvavo
Secure cold storage for crypto funds of users
We noticed that especially the user-facing security measures like required identity checks before processing withdrawals on Bitvavo are very strict, which may be perfect for users fearing hacks of their account, but also potentially a bit annoying for those who are fine with just 2FA.
The wide range of security features makes Bitvavo seem like a highly secure cryptocurrency exchange despite not being audited by central authority bodies, which in past crypto cases such as the FTX collapse wasn't as relevant as the internal security measures anyway.
Bitvavo Payment Methods
To start trading cryptocurrencies on Bitvavo after registering and verifying your identity, it's required to top-up your account balance with a payment method of your choice
The Bitvavo crypto exchange offers numerous deposit methods depending on your region, but most importantly: SEPA Bank transfers and PayPal.
A crypto exchange accepting PayPal is a rare occurrence and therefore is something that makes Bitvavo stand out from the vast majority of cryptocurrency exchanges. Therefore, PayPal deposits mark yet another positive aspect of Bitvavo that makes the process of buying crypto a lot easier and is hence worth highlighting in this Bitvavo Review.
Fees | Speed | Amounts | |
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SEPA Bank transfer | 0% | 1-2 working days | €1-1.000.000 |
PayPal | 2.00% | Instant | €1-10.000 |
Bancontact | 0% | Instant | €1-10.000 |
Sofort | 2.25% | Instant | €1-10.000 |
iDEAL (NL) | 0% | Instant | €1-10.000 |
Giropay | 1,75% | Instant | €1-10.000 |
EPS | 1,75% | Instant | €1-10.000 |
Note that Bitvavo currently misses credit card deposits on their crypto exchange, which may be significant for crypto investors relying on instant credit card payments.
Bitvavo Cryptocurrencies
Before registering on Bitvavo, it's important to take a look at whether the trading platform offers the cryptocurrencies you wish to trade.
On Bitvavo, you will most likely find all your favorite cryptocurrencies, as the Bitvavo exchange is known for offering an ever-growing collection of currently around 175 different cryptocurrencies, which makes Bitvavo a suitable exchange for all sorts of crypto traders.
On Bitvavo, you will find all sorts of popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Cardano, Solana, Dogecoin, Polkadot, Polygon, Shiba Inu, TRON, Avalance, Uniswap, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, and Cosmos, and any more available for both buying and selling.
For its quality and quantity of available cryptocurrencies, Bitvavo has received a rating of 96/100 points in this Bitvavo review.
Also, because Bitvavo is a spot exchange, users can withdraw cryptocurrencies to their own crypto wallets and are not limited to letting Bitvavo handle the custody of their coins, which marks a plus point towards our Bitvavo Rating.
Cost-Efficiency
Perhaps the biggest factor in our Bitvavo review where the crypto exchange shines is cost efficiency, as Bitvavo offers the lowest average trading provisions of 0-0.25% of all the European crypto exchanges we have tested so far.
We believe that the high cost-efficiency in both basic and advanced modes is currently the main selling point of the Bitvavo exchange, as the exchange still lacks some features such as a crypto savings plan, as we will explain below.
Take a look at our separate post on Bitvavo's fees for a detailed overview of this topic.
Trading Crypto on Bitvavo tested
As Bitvavo caters to both beginners as well as advanced traders, the Bitvavo exchange has both an easy and advanced trading mode on its platform.
This makes Bitvavo very flexible and recommendable to crypto investors of any skill level, as it's possible to start out investing with Bitvavos easy mode and switch to the advanced trading mode later on in the future.
Bitvavo Easy Mode
With Bitvavo's easy trading mode, users can buy and sell crypto with the click of a single button, making it impossible to do any critical mistakes even for beginners that are unfamiliar with the complicated crypto trading interfaces.
The simple trading mode is very useful for beginning investors because Bitvavo automatically creates buy- and sell orders at the current market price by clicking on "Buy" or "Sell".
Something special about Bitvavo's easy trading mode is the fact that even in this mode, Bitvavo does not act as a broker - which would result in higher surcharges - but instead processes your buy and sell orders as simple market orders on their actual underlying crypto exchange.
My positive practical test experiences of trading on Bitvavo in simple mode lead to the conclusion that Bitvavo is also suitable for beginners who do not want to risk big mistakes when executing advanced trading orders.
We have given Bitvavo 91/100 points in terms of ease of usage in this Bitvavo Review 2024.
Bitvavo Advanced
For experienced crypto traders who know how to use advanced trading interfaces, Bitvavo offers an advanced trading mode with a trading chart and granular order options, such as Limit- and Stop Limit orders.
Using the advanced trading mode on Bitvavo is especially useful for creating limit orders for high amounts of money or during volatile crypto markets, where a market order from the simple buying mode could result in some unwanted slippage.
Note that despite having an advanced trading mode, Bitvavo remains a spot exchange that does not offer leverage trading.
As mentioned before, there are no big advantages in terms of cost-efficiency on Bitvavo when using the advanced mode, which means that for the vast majority of crypto investors, using the advanced trading mode on Bitvavo will not be a must.
Bitvavo Features
Another point that we paid attention to in this Bitvavo review was the available exchange features on this trading platform.
Bitvavo Features | |
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Recurring Buys | Yes |
Mobile App | iOS App, Android App |
Web Version | Yes |
Crypto Staking | Yes |
Crypto Lending | Yes |
Leverage trading | No |
Signup Bonus | Buy €10.000 crypto at 0% fees for first 7 days |
Withdrawable Crypto | Yes |
Bitvavo is known for its Recurring Buy feature – one of the best crypto savings plans in the European region, which is not only cost-effective but also supports all cryptocurrencies. This is particularly important for many crypto investors, especially beginners who don't want to log into their exchange regularly to buy crypto manually.
Furthermore, Bitvavo has support for various types of orders when trading, and provides the ability to withdraw cryptocurrencies to your personal wallet, covering all the essential features of good crypto exchanges.
Overall, I find the selection of features on Bitvavo to be sufficient but maybe not as quantitative as on the biggest global crypto exchanges. In terms of quality, however, features on Bitvavo seem superior to all potential alternatives.
As a result, Bitvavo has received a rating of 90/100 for its features in this Bitvavo review 2024.
Bitvavo Crypto Staking
On Bitvavo, users can enable staking of their eligible crypto assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Cardano, which will allow them to generate yield on their crypto holdings while theoretically being able to withdraw or sell their cryptocurrencies at any time.
Staking your cryptocurrencies on Bitvavo may be useful to those not wanting to deal with the self-custody of their crypto assets and doing staking fully on their own.
Unfortunately, on Bitvavo you can only enable staking for all of your cryptocurrencies collectively. Should you enable staking and own coins that do not have proof-of-stake blockchains, such as Bitcoin, Bitvavo could lend out your bitcoins to third parties with a potential risk of total loss as stated in their ToS.
If you want to stake and feel confident being your own crypto custodian, it's generally recommended to withdraw your coins to your personal wallet, where you can stake your crypto assets on your own and generate higher yields than on Bitvavo, while not being forced to lend out your non-proof-of-stake coins.
Test Results: Bitvavo Rating
Based on objective facts and our personal experience after testing Bitvavo, we have created a Bitvavo rating based on registration speed, ease of usage, tradable coins, and features on the exchange.
Bitvavo has received a very high final rating of 94/100 for their exchange taking into consideration all testing factors.
Bitvavo Rating | |
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Registration Speed | 96% |
Simplicity | 91% |
Coins | 96% |
Fees | 97% |
Features | 90% |
Final Rating | 94% |
Final Words: is Bitvavo good?
Summing up this Bitvavo review, Bitvavo is a great European crypto exchange with fast registration, many tradable coins, and most importantly very competitive trading commissions.
Since Bitvavo also offers a simple trading mode with uncomplicated market orders without any disadvantages in terms of cost-efficiency, Bitvavo stands out positively from all other cryptocurrency exchanges in terms of beginner-friendliness.
We recommend Bitvavo to both beginners and experienced cryptocurrency traders to trade cryptocurrencies efficiently.
Despite Bitvavo not being overseen by any official regulatory body and missing automatic DCA, Bitvavo leaves very little room for criticism, making this exchange a recommendable, general-purpose crypto exchange with cost-efficient trading.
As a result of our test, we believe that as of 2024 Bitvavo is one of the best cryptocurrency exchanges available on the market.