GateHub Wallet Review 2022 - Is It Safe?
The crypto revolution in the past decade has seen the emergence of a new industry with several blockchain companies cropping up to offer financially related services. One of the popular blockchain platforms within the crypto community is GateHub. This is largely due to its blockchain wallet but the platform actually offers more than just wallet services as it provides an exchange functionality.
In this review, we would be looking at a detailed insight into what GateHub stands for and its operations within the cryptocurrency industry. In addition, we would highlight the major features and security questions regarding this platform.
By the end of the review, you will be able to have sufficient information regarding GateHub and will be able to figure out is GateHub safe and answer other significant questions critical for those who think of using this platform.
- What Is GateHub?
- Where Is GateHub Located?
- GateHub Wallet Review
- GateHub Exchange Functionality
- GateHub Fees
- Is GateHub Safe?
- Customer Service
- Conclusion
What Is GateHub?
GateHub is a blockchain company launched in 2014. The company headquarters can be found in the United Kingdom. Since that moment the platform has become one of the key financial service providers within the cryptocurrency sector. Originally launched as a wallet for Ripple currency, GateHub has evolved in the past few years to encompass other financial instruments to its platform. Moreover, despite the special place Ripple occupies within the GateHub functionality, the company claims to act independently from the Ripple team.
Currently, it offers different services which include its popular crypto wallet, an exchange platform for trading crypto pairs, and an advanced payment portal that uses Ripple technology to make cross-border transactions.
GateHub does not impose strict restrictions on withdrawals and storing cryptos which is one of the major advantages that attract users to the platform.
Where Is Gatehub Located?
GateHub is primarily located in the United Kingdom although it is considered that the founders of GateHub Limited company are the citizens of Slovenia. It is registered and regulated by the UK authorities which makes it a credible blockchain organization. Gatehub supports a number of fiat currencies alongside popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and many others. It’s important to mention that despite the fact that GateHub is the UK-based company, the exchange doesn’t support GBP.
In addition, the crypto platform offers services to all countries of the European Union, Australia, the United States, and Canada. Users can also register from outside these nations as long as they are able to verify their identity on the platform.
GateHub Wallet Review
The most popular service rendered by GateHub Limited is its famous crypto wallet. The wallet which was initially launched for Ripple currency has been extended to support other currencies in recent years.
GateHub Wallet is regarded as one of the best and safest in the market. The Wallet has a simple interface and wide functionality. In addition, all funds stored in the wallet are 100% backed in the advent of hacks.
GateHub wallet provides users with analytics (can be found in a tab of the same name). The info from this tab includes the net worth of the user’s portfolio, up to date prices, graphs, and so on.
GateHub wallet has an intuitive interface that might fit all kinds of cryptocurrency users regardless of their experience. The wallet is open-source. It means that anyone is welcomed to offer improvements, fixing the bugs, and terminating the vulnerabilities. The use of the wallet requires sharing a wide spectrum of personal data with the company although this data is not accessible for any member of the GateHub team. The transactions get recorded in Ripple Ledger.
GateHub supports eight cryptocurrencies which include Bitcoin (BTC), Ripple (XRP), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Dash (DASH), Augur (REP) and Xaurum (XAUR).
In addition, the wallet has a payment gateway that allows you to deposit funds via fiat currency. At the moment the payment gateway supports transactions in the US dollar, Euro, Chinese yuan, and Japanese yen. GateHub accepts payments in fiat currencies via SWIFT and SEPA transactions. This makes GateHub an entry-level platform meaning that it can be used for the purchase of the first cryptocurrencies by the people who at the time have no cryptocurrencies at all.
However, one needs to verify her/his identity before she/he can make fiat money deposits. The users are required to fill the personal details and upload a copy of the ID and proof of the address. The process of verification can take some time (usually a few days) as the company needs time to verify the presented data.
If it’s needed to fund a GateHub wallet for urgent transactions it is advisable to deposit digital currencies as this is quick and requires no verification (of course, this option is not available for entry-level customers who have no cryptocurrencies). GateHub is available on multiple platforms with mobile versions for iOS and Android devices.
Another nice feature available for GateHub wallet users is called Instant Payments. That's the way to send XRP to other GateHub users in the twinkle of an eye. A registered user only needs to put in the recipient’s name, email address or XRP Ledger address and tap on the Send button. The payment is sent via the XRP Ledger. More than that, it is possible to exchange this money with other currency "at the best rate" (according to the website) although we cannot guarantee that this price is truly the best one.
Starting a GateHub account is easy as well. All that is needed to sign up is inserting an email address and setting a password on the wallet website, agree to terms and conditions, and save a recovery code. After the verification of the identity, one can start using GateHub.
GateHub Exchange Functionality
Besides the functions typical for other multi-currency wallets and Instant Payment feature, GateHub provides a full-fledged cryptocurrency exchange platform. The interface contains most of the features that can be found on most of the top cryptocurrency exchanges: there are charts, market depth graph, price charts, trading volume, and so on and so forth. The transactions take place on the XRP Ledger.
The exchange supports 11 markets containing XRP-based pairs. These markets are XRP/USD, XRP/EUR, XRP/BTC, XRP/BCH, XRP/ETH, XRP/ETC, XRP/REP, XRP/DASH, XRP/XAU, and 2 XRP/CNY markets. The other markets are based on pairs containing ETH, BTC, USD, and EUR. Having an opportunity to buy precious metals via the interface integrated into the cryptocurrency wallet is quite a rare thing and this option makes GateHub quite special. Even aside from precious metals, such functionality is not a usual thing for crypto-wallets.
The platform doesn't specify the types of orders available for traders so the trading process is limited only to placing the Open Orders which are usually being Limit Orders. Such a lack of diversity in the supported types of orders can be regarded as a drawback. However, even the Limit Order feature is not always available on many cryptocurrency exchange (sic!) platforms so having this option integrated into the wallet platform is rather a good thing even though many platforms focused on trading can offer a wider set of available order types.
Another option of the currency exchange provided by GateHub is the Exchange feature that can be found in the Trade section of the website. The instant exchange is executed at the market-based current price. There’s a warning on the website that such an action can be quite costly in comparison to a usual exchange via the order book. To avoid the losses it is recommended to check the current rates on the market. The order is not executed if the amount turns out to be too bad for a user.
GateHub Fees
Gatehub has a well laid down rule for its fees for both deposits. One major thing about the platform is that it mandates that Ripple holders must have a minimum of 20 XRP in their wallets. This means that if a user makes a deposit of 100 XRP, only 80 XRP will be made available for transactions.
This is a general protocol for most Ripple wallets and it is important to note that. Gatehub fees are some of the lowest in the market and the platform does not charge transaction fees for most of the coins on its platform. Although it’s fair to say that GateHub users pay bigger fees for SEPA transfers and wire transfers than users of some of the other platforms.
All the supported cryptocurrencies can be deposited on GateHub for free. Commissions for withdrawals of different cryptocurrencies vary from coin to coin. Bitcoin withdrawals are charged with 0.001 BTC fee which is higher than on many other exchanges. Ethereum withdrawal fee is 0.005 ETH. On the other hand, some of the coins can be withdrawn without any fee collected by the exchange. For example, Dash and Ripple coins can be withdrawn for free.
Since all transactions done on the platform are done via Ripple blockchain technology, Gatehub collects trading fees depending on the coin that is traded by the user. The trading fees for other coins are pegged at 0.3% apart from Bitcoin that has a transaction fee of 0.2%. This could be explained by the fact that Bitcoin is the most traded cryptocurrency within the crypto sphere.
Besides fees, it’s important to consider that the exchange imposes limitations over the minimum amounts of deposits and withdrawals. The minimum deposits are as follows: the minimum amount for the Bitcoin deposit is 0.00338 BTC, for Ethereum it is 0.05236 ETH, for Ethereum Classic this amount is 1.5286 ETC, for Dash, it's 0.0449 DASH, and in the case, if Augur is deposited the minimum amount is 0.68288 REP.
The minimal amounts available for withdrawals are the following: 0.01 BTC for Bitcoin, 0.1 ETH for Ethereum, 0.5 ETC for Ethereum Classic, 0.5 REP for Augur, and 0.01 DASH for Dash.
Is GateHub Safe?
GateHub has several mechanisms put in place to protect its platform and the accounts of its users from security breaches. The most important one is the Two Factor Authentication that requires a one-time password to be sent to the user’s mobile device any time someone attempts to log in. This code cannot be obtained another way than from the application (Google Authenticator or a similar one) installed on the only device of the account owner.
More than that, GateHub requests for email confirmation whenever a new IP address or device attempts to log into the account. Both email confirmation and 2-factor authentication prevent unauthorized logins.
GateHub uses a military-grade algorithm to help secure the accounts of its users. This has been further reinforced since the hack attack in 2017 in which more than $5 million in cryptocurrencies were stolen from the platform.
This was due to hackers breaking into the exchange’s centralized servers and taking advantage of the loopholes in its security. Since then, there have not been any major security breaches on the platform as it encrypts all of its data which further secures the personal details of the platform users.
In addition, GateHub cannot access the login keys belonging to users as these keys are stored on a separate server from the main server. This is similar to what most security agencies use with the downside is that if a user loses his login details, it would be virtually impossible to regain funds.
According to various polls, GateHub is considered as one of the safest crypto platforms on the market of the cryptocurrency-related products.
Nevertheless, it’s necessary to mention the issues highlighted by GateHub users on various social media platforms and Internet forums. For example, on Twitter, there are recent messages of alleged GateHub users with different queries. For instance, there is a person demanding to recover his "hacked" funds. It's hard to say whether this man refers to a GateHub hacking incident or his funds were lost because his credentials were accessed in the wake of phishing or somehow else. It's not clear if this person did anything to protect his account in the first place (enabling 2-factor authentication and so on). It is unclear what "hacked fund" this user is talking about -- is it a 2019 platform hacking or the hacking of his personal account? The GateHub Twitter account didn't publically react to the message. The same day another person posted several complaints regarding stuck funds asking to unlock his account. Later, he added a message in which he writes: "Gatehub asked fore picture for unlocks account. Whats going on". Obviously, this is a typical situation when users get annoyed by the KYC-check. This happens on (perhaps) any KYC-compliant platform. On the one hand, it may be concerning if GateHub forces users to perform sudden KYC-tests excessively, but on the other hand, people willing to use the law-abiding platforms have no choice other than dealing with KYC. Unfortunately, we don't have enough information to figure out if GateHub is misusing KYC checks. The only good sign is that there are not many similar complaints. It means that most probably the case mentioned above was an example when the user does not agree to perform quite usual actions. However, the lack of public responses to these queries is rather a disturbing sign.
One of the Reddit users stated in the post that he discovered that the balance of his account became zero XRP without any reason. There was a discussion about how it could happen and the post has attracted some public attention. Later the user admitted the zero balance turned out to be a glitch and his XRP coins are still on his account. Considering the other analyzed reports, we should say that it's not likely that GateHub is a scam or providing a poor service.
Customer Service
GateHub has extensive customer support options and it is not surprising since it offers multiple crypto services. The crypto platform is active on popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.
In addition, users can send complaints and inquiries via email to the customer support team. However, there are a number of complaints from users regarding the slow response to requests by the customer support team. This is one major flaw for any crypto platform but it would be fair to admit that unfortunately, many cryptocurrency platforms have the same issue.
There is a well-detailed blog where new information is regularly updated regarding the latest developments on the platform. Also, one can find an extensive FAQ section that properly tackles popular problems faced by users on the platform.
Checking through the FAQ section it can be said that it provides detailed useful information through the series of articles covering the popular topics. Moreover, it’s possible to find articles informing users about potential scams associated with the unauthorized use of the GateHub name.
Conclusion
After a comprehensive overview of the platform, it can be concluded that GateHub is legit. For years, GateHub was widely used by many people and even despite the hacking incident the company didn’t lose the public trust. Throughout time, the platform was keeping on developing and providing a decent service.
The GateHub wallet is well-received in the industry and the option of buying cryptocurrencies directly from the bank account is also a nice feature. At the moment the only major issue is the customer support that needs to be faster in responding to users' queries.
In conclusion, GateHub is one of the crypto platforms appealing to both the beginners and the advanced crypto users. If you are interested in using it, you can find more information about it in this guide.
I’m here since 2016. I can say that I have had some issues but eventually I can admit I haven’t lost any money and it seems to me it’s a very important thing. I always received the responds from the support and they were trying to help me out.
