The cryptocurrency market today has a fairly large number of exchanges, which sometimes complicates the choice. At some websites, a small number of coins are supported, while others are not reliable since they belong to offshore companies and do not provide data on the ultimate owners. One of the fairly reliable cryptocurrency exchanges focused on the European market is the LiteBit trading platform. Let’s take a closer look at the exchange. Is LiteBit really safe to use? Read this review and find out.
- Litebit Overview
- LiteBit Features Review
- LiteBit Fees Review
- How to Use LiteBit?
- Customer Service
- Is LiteBit Safe?
- Conclusion
Litebit Overview
“Why is it so hard?” - that is the question that LiteBit creators asked before they started the project when they wanted to buy Litecoins in 2012. Money had to be transferred to a shady organization abroad. And people had to wait and see if they would really get their Litecoins. There has to be a better way.
The platform has been operating since 2013 and is part of the structure of 2525 Ventures B.V. The head office of the company is in the city of Zoetermeer, the Netherlands.
The creators of the site deliberately chose a completely “white” activity and base in the Netherlands. The laws in force in the Netherlands and the EU apply to litigation in which LiteBit is involved. Carrying out its activities, the site strictly complies with the requirements of the law and requires this from customers.
Olivier van Duijn is the CEO of Litebit. Among the team, there are Kenny Rokven - Executive Director, Caroline Huls - CMO, Arthur van Lier - COO, Corrien Verschuure - CFO, etc.
LiteBit is available in a web and IOS versions. You can download the IOS version here.
On the LiteBit platform there is a fairly large number of coins, and not only the most popular. Currently, the exchange supports about 51 digital coins. Among them are BTC, ETH, BCH, XRP, ADA, TRX, BAT, POLY, LTC, ENJ, PART, QTUM, RDD, NAV, STRAT, RADS, CRW, OK, XVG, XZC, UBQ, XLM, POWR, OMG, SNT, SYS, SRN, MANA, ZRX, MCO, RVN, SOLVE, ORBS, DENT, BNB, DUSK, LINK, LOOM, MATIC, NLG, DOGE, PPC, FTC, BLK, VIA, DGB, DASH, GRS, XMY, ETC, PIVX. Periodically, new cryptocurrencies are listed on the platform.
The interface language can be displayed in English, Dutch, French, and German.
Also, LiteBit was awarded the title of the best crypto broker 2019.
However, not all countries are allowed to use LiteBit, in accordance with the Litebit general conditions the residents of the United States of America do not or only limited tolerate the offering of services relating to cryptocurrencies.
Litebit Features
With LiteBit, cryptocurrencies can be purchased directly with euros and paid for with the most widely used payment methods such as iDeal, Mastercard, VISA, Bancontact, Sofort, Giropay, SEPA, MyBank, and EPS.
The platform provides users with several services:
- Purchase and sale of cryptocurrency
- Own wallet
- Convenient token price notifications
The service introduced its own internal currency - credits. 1 credit is equal to 1 euro. You can purchase them in your account. Credits allow you to pay for purchases instantly, without waiting until the money comes from your bank account. And this is a guarantee that you will buy a cryptocurrency at a bargain price.
In addition, to replenish your credit balance, you must pass the first level of verification on the service. If necessary, loans can be withdrawn to your bank account.
The platform also has an affiliate program. To become a member, you need to place a referral link on your website or social networks and attract new customers to the site. You will receive 0.5% of the turnover of your referrals. They will be credited to your account in LiteBit internal currency - credits.
Litebit Fees
LiteBit charges a fee of about 2% per transaction. This means that, if we use Bitcoins and it has a market value (average price between purchase and sale price) of €1, the price of Bitcoin on LiteBit is determined as shown below:
Example calculation:
The purchase price of Bitcoin:
Offering price + 2% LiteBit fee = Purchase price LiteBit
€1.10 + €0.022 = €1.12
The sales price of Bitcoin:
Asked price - 2% LiteBit fee = Sales price LiteBit
€0.90 - €0.018 = €0.88
The difference between the purchase and sales price at LiteBit in this example is 21.43%, while the difference between supply and demand is as much as 18.18%. LiteBit is only responsible for 3.25% of the difference in this example.
How to Use Litebit
Registration on the LiteBit exchange
When registering a new user on the site, you will need to enter:
- Your full name
- Date of birth
- Password
- Nationality
Also, here you can confirm that you are aware of the risks involved in cryptocurrency trading and agree with the LiteBit terms and conditions. Don’t forget to indicate whether you want to receive notifications and click the "Create Account" button.
We go to the mailbox and find a message from the exchange with a link to verify the email address. Upon successful confirmation, you will be directed to the page with the message “Verify your email”.
After registering for an account, it must be verified.
In the third step, Litebit asks us to verify our phone number. After you entered your number the bot will send you the authentication code to your device to complete the verification. Once received, put it into the appropriate line and click “Next”.
In the next step, you should choose the way you want to protect your personal data. Either with SMS or Authenticator app. Tap to the appropriate option and complete the verification process.
Congratulations! Your account has been created. Now you can go to buy cryptocurrency or go to your account.
Verification
In this review, we will also check how to go through the Verification process and why it is important. Confirm that you are the owner of the account if you want to increase the maximum turnover for the month.
The corresponding section is located in the “My Account” section and is accessible by the “Verification & Limits” button.
Verification is divided into 3 stages: phone confirmation, address confirmation and ID confirmation.
It is not necessary to complete the procedure - it can be interrupted after the first or second step. Depending on the degree of verification, the limits on the turnover of trade operations performed from one account are the following:
Since we confirmed our email and phone number at the initial stage when creating the account, we start with the 2 stages of verification — confirmation of the address. Here LiteBit Exchange asks us to provide them with our Address, Zipcode, City, Date of birth and Gender. There is nothing complicated with filling the lines. Once it’s finished, press “Go” to jump on the next step.
At the final step, you can start the ID verification, just press the button “Start ID verification”.
In case you want to verify your ID, fill in all the fields with information about yourself, and layout 3 photos for verification: front side of the document, the back of the document, selfie, which shows a photo of the passport holder.
After reconciling data by LiteBit specialists (during the workdays), you will be provided with increased limits on trading operations.
The LiteBit exchange also provides verification of bank accounts. It is required to comply with Dutch law for trading platforms.
You can verify your IBAN and start trading immediately. Also, you can get back to this option later, the button is located in the “My Account” menu, in the “Verify payment method” section.
A bank account can be verified in several ways, via Ideal, Sofort. SEPA or GiroPay.
A separate procedure is provided for cardholders of the Bancontact payment system. They can be verified in the menu “Verified Bancontact cards”.
After confirming your identity and verifying bank accounts, you can replenish wallets and start trading cryptocurrencies on LiteBit.
Trading
LiteBit trading interface is located in the “Buy” section of the main menu of the website.
It is not as functional as on competing exchanges, but there is everything necessary for successful work.
To buy cryptocurrency, fill in all the fields in the “Buy Bitcoin” section. By the way, its name changes depending on the type of digital money - if you want to purchase, for example, Ethereum, then the page will reload and the name will become “Buy Ethereum”.
To create an order, you will need the amount of the purchased tokens, the receiving address, payment method and don’t forget to choose whether it’s a LiteBit or External wallet.
In the “Order Summary” menu, you see how much the acquired asset is worth (in this case, bitcoins) and what is the administration fees. The “Total” field contains the total transaction value.
You will see the cryptocurrency exchange price chart on the right side of the screen.
You can display cryptocurrency rate fluctuations both in the last hour and in its entire history. If you hover over any point on the chart, you can see how much the token cost on a particular day and hour.
LiteBit does not have chats, trading statistics, or other things familiar in the trading interfaces of other exchanges. But there is one useful option that is useful to any trader. It's about the “Bitcoin price notification” - the function of notifying the user that Bitcoin (or another cryptocurrency) has reached a price.
If the value of an asset rises or falls to a predetermined mark, you will immediately receive a message by email or telegram.
If you see that the price of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency is good for buying it, but now there is no money on the account, you can purchase “credits”. As it was mentioned in the LiteBit review, this is the internal LiteBit currency used by the administration to lend users funds for trading. Having bought “credits” and paid for the token, you will sell them at a higher price, return the money to the exchange and take the profit for yourself.
After receiving income from cryptocurrency trading, you need to withdraw it from LiteBit wallets.
Withdraw funds
You can get to your wallet on the service using the link “My Wallet”, which is located in the top menu. Here are all the cryptocurrencies available on the site. In front of each of them has buttons for buying, selling, withdrawing coins. Here you can also view all the latest transactions.
The fields required for filling in the window that opens are “Address” (wallet number where tokens will be sent) and “Total Receive Amount” (transfer amount). The values in “Withdrawal Cost” and “Total Withdrawal Amount” will be calculated automatically.
To confirm the withdrawal, enter the password in “Account password”, and then click on “Withdraw”. The funds will go to the cryptocurrency wallet when the network issues the required number of confirmations.
Security
You can protect your LiteBit account in two ways - by changing the password and connecting two-factor authentication.
You need to enter a new combination to access the site only when there is a suspicion of hacking. In the “Account password” menu (MyAccount section, Settings item) enter the updated password, repeat it and fill in the field with the old combination.
It will be changed right away, and from now on you can only use a new password to enter the site.
Two-factor authentication is a better way to protect your account and money stored in wallets. LiteBit, like competing exchanges, uses the Google Authenticator service.
If you want to enable two-factor authentication, go to Settings from the “My Account” menu, find “Two-step authentication” and click on “Change your 2FA settings” in case you have chosen the SMS authentication method.
LiteBit is taking other measures to ensure the safety of users. 100% of funds held by customers on the exchange are transferred to “cold” wallets without access to the Internet. When transmitting information, SSL encryption is used, which is why the theft of information on the way from the user to the site server is impossible.
Customer Service
If you have any problems, you can contact the LiteBit support by filling out the appropriate form on the website or by calling. The latter option is available only during business hours from 9 to 21 European time.
You can also learn about the latest news and updates from LiteBit social media. There are the LiteBit accounts on social media: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin.
Members of the cryptocurrency community who have experience working with LiteBit are positive about the exchange.
The main advantage of the platform, according to its users, is the work with fiat money. The company offers a choice of 8 recharge systems in euros, which is enough for most investors. Verification is divided into 3 stages, due to which everyone establishes an optimal ratio between the limit of trading operations and the information transmitted to the exchange.
Another LiteBit advantage appreciated by users is the technical support service. Operators can be contacted 24 hours a day by e-mail and from 9 to 21 hours Dutch time by phone. Employees of assistance services will help to solve the problem as soon as possible - usually, one resolution by email or one call is required to resolve the situation.
The platform also has a rating of 8.7 on Trustpilot, which is considered a fairly high rating! Also, the exchange was rated by about 2000 users.
Is Litebit Safe?
The service was hacked several times. However, the attackers could not withdraw the money of customers. As for personal data, they were only partially stolen. Among the stolen items are password hashes, phone numbers and home addresses of site users, as well as bank account numbers.
Two-factor authentication is a better way to protect your account and money stored in wallets. LiteBit, like competing exchanges, uses the Google Authenticator service.
LiteBit is taking other measures to ensure the safety of users. 100% of funds held by customers on the exchange are transferred to “cold” wallets without access to the Internet. When transmitting information, SSL encryption is used, which is why the theft of information on the way from the user to the site server is impossible.
The efforts of developers aimed at improving the security of LiteBit yield results. Another reason to entrust the exchange with your funds and to be sure that LiteBit is not a scam.
Conclusion
LiteBit cryptocurrency exchange is a project that can withstand intense competition and take its place in the market for trading platforms.
LiteBit administration does not pursue the top positions in the ratings, concentrating on developing a convenient service for its European customers. Daily, transactions amounting to 750-800 thousand dollars are made on the platform, and this result allows it to confidently be one of the worth using exchanges. There is no reason to say that LiteBit is a scam.
Despite the fact that LiteBit is an experienced player on the market, the company's management plans further development of the platform.
The LiteBit review will not be complete if you do not consider the pros and cons of the platform. Therefore, we will dwell on them in more detail below.
Pros:
- Large selection of cryptocurrencies.
About 50 coins are available to users and the exchange is constantly updating the list of available tokens.
- Separation of the verification process into several stages.
As a result, each user chooses which option is the most acceptable in his/her case.
- Convenient purchase of tokens using bank cards and transfers.
European users have a choice of different payment methods.
- Prompt and qualified technical support.
You can quickly solve the problems that have arisen, not only with the help of a ticket but also by phone during business hours.
- High-quality protection of funds and data.
2-factor authentication, the use of SSL and offline data storage are the main methods that the platform uses to ensure security.
- The ability to purchase cryptocurrency without full verification.
True, small amounts are available.
- Reliable internal wallet.
Even during the hacking, hackers could not withdraw the funds of customers stored in the service’s wallets.
Cons:
- The exchange is mainly aimed at working with European users.
Convenient payment methods are provided for them.
- Lack of extensive localization of the interface.
Users from the CIS countries seem to not particularly interest the website.
- You cannot buy cryptocurrency using PayPal.
At the same time, the company plans to include this in the list of payment methods.
If you are a user from Europe, then LiteBit is a good choice to start cryptocurrency trading. But it is better for traders from other regions to look at other websites - LiteBit administration is focused on the Old World market and does not plan to expand the business.