AltCoinTrader vs. Luno | What Exchange Fits You The Best?

In this article, we will compare two exchanges that might not have that much in common but they are both industry veterans operating since the mid 2010s, they both collect small fees, and they both support only a small amount of cryptocurrencies. These exchanges are the UK-based trading platform Luno and the South African crypto exchange AltCoinTrader. We will review the main features of these exchanges one by one so you will get an idea of which of these platforms suits you better. We'll do our best to provide you unbiased facts so you will make your own conclusion.

1. What Is AltCoinTrader?
2. What Is Luno?
3. AltCoinTrader vs. Luno (table)
4. AltCoinTrader vs. Luno (details)
5. Conclusion

What Is AltCoinTrader?

AltCoinTrader is a South African cryptocurrency exchange launched in 2015. As of April 2022, the exchange can't boast a huge liquidity. According to CoinMarketCap, it occupies the position below the top 150 exchanges sorted by 24h trading volume. The exchange supports around 30 currencies. By modern-day standards, it's quite a small number of coins. However, we must say that AltCoinTrader has a good selection that includes most of the top crypto coins. Most of the top 15 crypto coins by market cap are supported on AltCoinTrader (except for stablecoins which are limited to Tether). Privacy coins Zcash and Monero are also in place. Several niche coins like Basic Attention Coin, Polygon, and Namecoin are supported, too. So if you are not interested in the constant increase of the currencies you hold, you will have an opportunity to diversify your portfolio anyways. 

On top of trading, AltCoinTrader users can earn via the Easy Save feature. Any cryptocurrency supported on the exchange can be locked for a specified period of time in exchange for interest. For BTC, this interest is 4%, for other crypto coins it can reach up to 10%. AltCoinTrader collects competitive fees — both takers and makers are charged with a 0.1% fee per trade. On the P2P (easy buy/easy sell) platform, the fee is only 0.75%.

What makes AltCoinTrader an important platform for South Africa is that it supports the local fiat currency, the South African rand (ZAR). People who don't have any cryptocurrencies yet can use AltCoinTrader as a gateway platform to enter the larger crypto market like Binance, HitBTC, or other huge exchanges. On AltCoinTrader, you can sell and buy crypto for ZAR via the P2P markets. Another rare option supported by AltCoinTrader is that you can sell and buy gold (XAU) and silver (XAG). Despite the obvious fact that AltCoinTrader is best suited for users from SouthAfrica, the exchange is available globally. It's worth saying that the residents of the sanctioned countries won't be able to use OTC accounts. AltCoinTrader can be accessed via iOS and Android-based apps or via web-browser.

What Is Luno?

Luno is the crypto exchange launched in the United Kingdom back in 2013. It is one of the oldest active crypto exchanges. As of April 2022, Luno has offices abroad including South Africa and Singapore. Luno supports only 13 cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Bitcoin Cash, Chainlink, Litecoin, Uniswap, USD Coin, etc. Apart from cryptocurrencies, Luno supports several fiat currencies. They are EUR, AUD, GBP, ZAR, ZMW, GNG, SGD, UGX, MYR, and IDR. This allows users from many lands to access the cryptocurrency markets effortlessly. Fiat money can be deposited via bank transfer. You can see that USD is not supported on Luno. The US investors are not allowed to trade on Luno. In terms of liquidity, Luno is among the 100 leading crypto exchanges in the industry. It doesn't have a big trading volume, however, its performance is quite decent.

The exchange can be accessed via the web-browser or the mobile app (both Android and iOS are supported). One of the Luno's selling points is the high grade security. The platform is subjected to regular independent audits. The safety level on Luno can be compared to the one of banks. On top of that, the platform boasts a strong trading engine and API. Trading fees charged by Luno are low — only 0.1% per trade. All in all, Luno is a reliable and swift platform that, however, lacks some of the popular features and has not much crypto coins to offer.

AltCoinTrader vs. Luno (table)

AltCoinTrader vs. Luno (details)

Supported coins

Both exchanges support only a few tokens. Happily, both of them support key currencies, such as Bitcoin, Ether, and stablecoins. Nevertheless, traders who want to have more options will definitely be disappointed by the sets provided by AltCoinTrader and especially by Luno. In terms of supported crypto coins, AltCoinTrader is much better than Luno, though. Another notable fact is that AltCoinTrader allows trading gold and silver. This feature is quite rare among the crypto exchanges. On the other hand, Luno supports many fiat currencies when AltCoinTrader is limited to South African rand.

24h trading volume (as of April 2022)

In terms of trading volume, without a doubt, Luno excelles AltCoinTrader. Liquidity is a crucial factor for the exchange. On AltCoinTrader you have a bigger risk that your order will be left unfilled for a long time and the price will seriously change. Making plans or using trading strategies can be tough on AltCoinTrader. Luno has 10 times better liquidity than AltCoinTrader.

Trading fees

Both exchanges charge low trading fees. It’s safe to say that both platforms have nearly the lowest rate among the centralized exchanges (HitBTC, actually, charges even less than 0.1%). The advantage of Luno is that it offers fee discounts for those who trade in large amounts.

Withdrawal fees (BTC)

As for withdrawal fees, Luno beats AltCoinTrader again. AltCoinTrader charges quite an average fee of around 0.0005 BTC per Bitcoin withdrawal where Luno takes only 0.000043 BTC. This rate is much lower than withdrawal fees on most crypto exchanges. By this measure, Luno is one of the cheapest exchanges in the industry.

Security

Both exchanges are considered to be trustworthy and safe. We can’t say that any of them does a poor job to keep the users’ funds secure. Nevertheless, Luno does more to ensure that users' money won’t end up stolen. Apart from the standard security features like 2fa and others, Luno uses audits from the independent professionals. Not all the exchanges keep data in vaults while Luno does.

Centralized?

Both exchanges are centralized. There are many fans of centralized and decentralized exchanges. We can’t comment on this.

Additional features 

Additional features are quite different on these exchanges. AltCoinTrader is good for more options of earning money. We mean the OTC market and locking your coins to earn interest. Luno is known for high quality educational materials which can be especially good for newbies. Automated trading is another interesting feature. It’s not as good as full-fledged trading bots. However, it can serve as an introduction to automated trading or just add some extra profits to your wealth.

Available

It seems that Luno is not as available as AltCoinTrader. At least, it cannot be accessed in the USA. AltCoinTrader users from the US are advised to do their own research on whether they can trade there or not.