How to safely buy crypto through digital asset exchanges

There are hundreds, even thousands, of digital asset exchange points. Many of them have a similar design and interface, so the idea creeps in that they are all the same, and therefore it does not really matter which one you use to make a purchase or exchange. But it is not that simple. There are a number of criteria that can help you distinguish a real exchange point from a fake or fraudulent one. This will save you money and prevent unpleasant situations with scams (lack of payments). Read this article till the end to become an expert on this topic.

How to check if an exchange point is safe

If a friend advises you to exchange assets through a reliable “office”, first of all, pay attention to whether such a digital assets exchange point is a participant in independent monitoring. Exchange monitoring services are aggregators that monitor the exchange sites operations, rank them according to the best exchange rate, rating and reserves availability. They are also arbitrators in situations when one of the parties is dissatisfied with something, for example, the level of service or the funds transfer timing.

In order to be included in the database of such monitoring services, exchange points must meet certain criteria: be present on the market for at least 6 months, have a valid SSL certificate for organizing a secure HTTPS connection, correctly process GET parameters, and much more.

Where are we getting at? A clone site that was created on the fly in a few hours just to collect (actually steal) assets without making exchanges and payouts will not get there. Exchange points that are under monitoring have corresponding banners on the front page that confirm this. If you find the exchange point on the aggregator website’s list, it means that it is under supervision and is trustworthy. If there is no exchange point there, we advise you not to risk your assets and avoid it by all means.

There are quite a lot of virtual asset exchange monitoring services, so we will mention only those that are most popular among Ukrainian citizens. These are Kurs Ukrainy, BestChange, OkChange and Exchangesumo. All these services work with Ukrainian banks' payment cards (Privatbank, Monobank, Oschadbank, and others), as well as the most popular cryptocurrencies, electronic money, and various payment services and wallets. The mentioned services also have a large number of exchange points with Ukrainian “registration”. If for some reason the site will not be available, use a VPN or a “mirror” address.

Choosing an exchange point

When deciding on the exchange point where it will be more profitable to carry out the operation, go to the monitoring service website, and specify: the  asset name, the amount you want to exchange, and the asset you want to receive. The service will provide a list of exchange points, with the best offers at the top and the worst at the bottom.

This is what a selection of exchange points on the Kurs Ukrainy website looks like, which BTC/UAH exchange (Privatbank)

The results can be filtered at will, for example, by the number of reserves, and not by the best rate.

Most monitoring services have also implemented a rating system that assigns points to platforms based on the number of positive reviews, or lowers the rating based on the number of negative comments.

The exchange point can undergo an additional check that will result in the monitoring service and users’ trust level increase. Also, the point of exchange can confirm the status of a legal entity by providing certain documents registered with the tax authorities.

Other important indicators that influence the choice are the number of positive reviews, the market presence time and the amount of reserves. It is also worth paying attention to all this, without being tempted only by exchange rate alone.

View information about the exchange point on the BestChange website

You should also pay attention to the following things:

• whether the exchange rate is fixed at the time of creating the application;

• whether the exchange point works in manual or semi-automatic mode;

•whether the point pays out fiat funds through third-party payment systems.

Fixing the rate for the user can be either favorable or backfire – it all depends on where the rate will go during the transaction execution. If it is down, then it is better to fix the rate, but if it is up – do not, because in this case there is a chance to get more.

Manual or semi-automatic mode indicates that the operations are monitored and carried out by a person, and not an automated script, so there may be delays in time due to the human factor.

Paying out through third-party payment systems is considered mostly advantageous, but there is a technological dependency on the middleman.

After selecting an exchange point, the redirect function will transfer the customer's request to the point's website to place an asset exchange order. 

What to pay attention to

On the exchange point website, before carefully filling in all the fields, you should make sure of the following:

• order number issuance;

• availability of an online chat for prompt resolution of any issues • • with the support service (correspondence via e-mail will take much more time);

• whether the required number of confirmations of the crypto-asset is excessively high (the optimal indicator is 1-12 confirmations. The less, the better);

• whether registration is mandatory (forced registration indicates the collection of personal data of users, which is a violation).

The only thing left is to fill in the fields of the application form and perform operations according to the instructions provided by the exchange point. All operations without significant delays on the part of both parties take 10 minutes or less. After crediting the funds, if you liked the service, you can leave a positive comment on the monitoring service website. If there are certain complaints or dissatisfaction, be sure to leave negative feedback – both the aggregator representative and the exchange point will react to it. There have been no cases of such feedback being ignored.

That's all. Now you are practically an expert in exchanging digital assets through virtual exchange points. We hope that we helped a little in this matter, pointed out nuances, dispelled doubts or fears.