Bitvavo Review

Do you live in the European Union and are searching for a great cryptocurrency exchange?

Bitvavo might be the cryptocurrency exchange for you if that’s the case. This article will review the Bitvavo exchange. We will cover the fees, customer experience, and offer a final verdict on Bitvavo.

Bitvavo Review

This section will individually review all the aspects of Bitvavo in comparison to other exchanges. 

Fees

The most important aspect of any cryptocurrency platform is the fees that the exchange charges.

Fortunately, Bitvavo does a great job with this aspect. 

The fees are low at 0.25% for buying and selling if trading on Bitvavo’s books. However, the fees are lower if you sell as a market maker. 

Maker fees are 0.15% and taker fees are 0.25%. The big difference is that those fees can decrease dramatically if you have a large enough trading volume. 

The lowest possible fees on Bitvavo are -0.01% for a maker and 0.04% for a taker. 

There are no deposit fees charged by Bitvavo. And the only withdrawal fees on Bitvavo are miner fees when withdrawing cryptocurrency. 

Deposit Options

Another important aspect of a cryptocurrency exchange are the deposit options available on the exchange. Bitvavo has a total of eight separate deposit options. They are the following:

• iDEAL
• Bancontact
• SEPA transfer
• EPS
• Giropay
• MyBank

The deposit fees vary based on the method, but the only fees are charged by the vendor and not by Bitvavo. 

All deposits other than SEPA have a maximum deposit of 10,000 Euros. SEPA has a maximum deposit of 1,000,000 Euros. 

We give Bitvavo high ratings when it comes to the deposit options available. Unfortunately, it is not possible to deposit United States Dollars on Bitvavo, which is fine because Bitvavo is aimed at customers residing in the European Union.

Verification Process

Bitvavo does require a verification process to trade cryptocurrency on the exchange. This is unfortunate, but it is standard practice for a cryptocurrency exchange that accepts fiat deposits and withdrawals.

The good thing with the verification process on Bitvavo is that it’s fast and easy. 

For that reason, we give Bitvavo a high rating for its verification process.

Security

Security is another important feature of any cryptocurrency exchange. Bitvavo takes security seriously when it comes to your personal security. Two factor authentication is encouraged, email verification is required for all withdrawals, and identity verification is required for large withdrawals. 

In addition to that, your fiat currency is stored on Stichting Bitvavo Payments (SBP). SBP is a separate entity than Bitvavo, so your money is safe in the event that Bitvavo goes bankrupt or some other problem arises with Bitvavo.

One last thing, all cryptocurrency on Bitvavo is stored in cold storage, which is very secure. It’s unlikely that any Mt. Gox hacking incident will occur on Bitvavo with cold storage in place. 

Functionality

The functionality of Bitvavo is great. The layout of the website makes it easy to use. 

More importantly, Bitvavo is available on iOS and Android, so you can do trades from your phone with no issues.

We give Bitvavo high ratings for the functionality of the exchange.  

Trading Pairs

This is one area where Bitvavo lags behind compared to other cryptocurrency exchange. Bitvavo only has 150 different digital currencies available.

But it’s not as many as it could be.

The good news is that Bitvavo has EUR trading pairs with all major cryptocurrencies. And they do have BTC trading pairs with all the altcoins on the platform. 

It would be better if they had more fiat trading pairs or offered altcoin trading pairs with more than just Bitcoin, but it’s a smaller exchange.

Languages

The language support on Bitvavo is great, which is what you would expect from a cryptocurrency exchange catering to the European Union. Bitvavo is offered in the following languages:

• English
• Dutch
• German
• French
• Spanish
• Italian

Unfortunately, the blog that Bitvavo writes to keep users updated on the behind the scenes aspect of Bitvavo is only written in English. 

Fortunately, Google Translate does a good job for all the languages in the European Union.

Trading Volume

Trading volume is an oft overlooked aspect of a cryptocurrency exchange. An exchange with low trading volume is bad because it makes selling cryptocurrency difficult. 

Bitvavo has a trading volume of about 4 million Euros per day, which is high enough that you should not have any difficulty selling your cryptocurrency. 

In addition to that, the spread between the buying and selling price is about 0.60%, which is small enough that it is not difficult to sell cryptocurrency shortly after buying it. 

Customer Service

The customer service on Bitvavo is something that we are not pleased about. The response time is generally slow if you have an account with a small amount of money on it.

That is a common problem with cryptocurrency exchanges, so we do not view it as too much of a negative.

But it would be nicer if Bitvavo had a more responsive customer service team compared to other cryptocurrency exchanges. 

What could use improvement on Bitvavo?

We do not really have any problems with Bitvavo as an exchange itself. The fees are low, the withdrawal and deposit options are plentiful, and it’s easy to use. 

Our only real complaint about Bitvavo is that the customer service is a little slow. But that is not too big of a problem because you should not need to use the customer service line that often because Bitvavo does not have many problems. 

Final Verdict on Bitvavo

We recommend Bitvavo if you want to purchase major cryptocurrencies with the Euro and live in the European Union.

It’s not the best choice for altcoins because it does not have many altcoins and only offers Bitcoin/altcoin trading pairs. 

But the low fees on fiat deposits and withdrawals combined with the extremely low trading fees make it one of the better cryptocurrency exchanges for purchasing major cryptocurrency with fiat currency in the European Union.