Digital Surge VS Coinspot 2023

Important: Due to their exposure to FTX (an exchange that went bankrupt following a liquidity crisis), Digital Surge has currently halted withdrawals and deposits.

Even though crypto is still an emerging market, it counts over 18,000 digital currencies and nearly 500 crypto exchange platforms, according to CoinMarketCap.

The large numbers and the overall market volatility don’t make it any easy for absolute beginners to choose their go-to coin and platform.

Crypto trading requires a lot of trial and error, as not all platforms provide high-quality services. A large number of exchanges have security loose ends, unrealistically high fees, and limited platform liquidity.

As a crypto newcomer, your best bet is to stick to the most popular trading platforms with loads of positive reviews.

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Lots of Aussies tend to immediately reach for globally operating exchanges, such as Binance and Coinbase, forgetting they also have a fantastic selection of top Australian crypto exchanges like Swyftx, Independent Reserve, Coinjar, Digital Surge, and CoinSpot.

In this guide, we’ll take a detailed, side by side look at two of the best crypto exchanges in Australia, Digital Surge and CoinSpot. We’ll take a look at all of the key aspects of these two platforms before we choose our winner.

Comparison Table

Features	Digital Surge	CoinSpot
Supported Cryptos	More than 300 cryptos	More than 350 cryptos
Trading Fees	0.5%	0.1%
Instant Buy/Sell Fees	0.5%	1%
Deposit Fees	POLi incurs a 2-3.30 AUD fee, PayID and bank account deposits are free of charge.	BPAY fee is 0.9%, cash deposits incur a 2.5% fee, while POLi, PayID, and OSKO are free of charge.
Withdrawal Fees	Free	Free
Average Market Spread	0.4%	2.2%
Regulatory Status	Regulated by AUSTRAC	Regulated by AUSTRAC
Customer Support	Live chat, help desk support ticket, and email.	Live chat, help desk support ticket, and email.
Deposit Methods	Bank transfer, POLi, debit card, PayID.	Credit card, cash deposit, bank account transfer, PayID, BPAY, OSKO, and POLi.

Digital Surge

Pros

• Super-easy to use thanks to the simple design.
• Supports advanced market trading orders and technical analysis tools.
• 300+ available cryptos.
• Users can invest crypto in their own self-managed super funds (SMSFs) through Digital Surge.
• Low trading fees.
• Very professional support team.
• The platform is regulated by AUSTRAC.
• Users can pay their bills with Bitcoin.

Cons

• Doesn’t support any fiat currencies besides AUD.
• No staking options.
• No credit card support.

CoinSpot

Pros

• One of the largest crypto selections among Australian crypto exchanges with 350+ coins.
• Supports numerous advanced trading tools and technical analysis features.
• Very responsive customer support.
• Some of the lowest fees for market trading among Aussie platforms.
• You can use a credit card to deposit AUD.
• The platform complies with AUSTRAC regulations.

Cons

• Doesn’t support margin trading or futures trading.
• Expensive instant buy fees.
• No option to pay bills with digital currency.

Crypto Selection

A lot of platforms only support a couple of tens of the most popular digital currencies, which might be enough when you’re a beginner, but their list probably won’t include all the assets you might be interested in once you become a bit more experienced in crypto trading.

When it comes to Digital Surge and CoinSpot, these platforms literally support all the cryptocurrencies you’ll ever need, with 300+ available on Digital Surge and 350+ on CoinSpot.

You’ll find all the leading coins and tokens like Bitcoin (BTC), Cardano (ADA), Tether (USDT), Sandbox (SAND), Gala Games (GALA), Enjin Coin (ENJ), Avalanche (AVAX), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ripple (XRP), Dogecoin (DOGE), Litecoin (LTC), Binance Coin (BNB), Cosmos (ATOM), Algorand (ALGO), Basic Attention Token (BAT), Fantom (FTM), Polkadot (DOT), Stellar Lumens (XLM), and a couple of hundred other altcoins.

Crypto Selection Winner: Digital Surge

Our winner is Digital Surge despite the fact that the platform has fewer available cryptos than CoinSpot. The decision is based on CoinSpot’s issues with securing sufficient liquidity for many of their low and mid-cap altcoins, which makes them more expensive to purchase.

Supporting a larger number of assets doesn’t always mean that those coins are available on better trading terms because liquidity influences asset prices.

Platform Fees

Sometimes, it’s worth paying a bit higher trading fees if you’re getting better services in return. However, the best-case scenario is finding a crypto exchange that offers both reasonable fees and high-quality services, which is exactly what Digital Surge and CoinSpot offer to users.

Digital Surge uses a market maker/taker fee policy that rewards makers with lower fees because they provide platform liquidity by placing market orders at prices different from the dominant platform price of a certain asset.

The trading fees start at 0.5% and can drop down to 0.1%, depending on your monthly trading volume. The platform also has a very handy Instant Buy and Sell option with a fixed fee of 0.5%.

Bank transfers, PayID and crypto deposits incur zero fees, while POLi transfers cost between 2 AUD and 3.30 AUD per transaction. Withdrawing fiat currency to your Australian bank account is free of charge.

CoinSpot fees for market orders are considerably lower, standing at 0.1%, and they can decrease even more depending on your monthly trading volume. On the other hand, the Instant Buy and Sell option is really pricey and comes with a 1% fee.

All advanced order types, such as recurring orders and take-profit orders, incur a 1% fee.

As for deposits, PayID and POLi are free of charge, cash deposits incur a 2.5% fee, and BPAY deposits cost 0.9% per transfer.

All types of withdrawals are free but keep in mind the standard blockchain transaction fee when transferring crypto to or from the platform.

Platform Fees Winner: Digital Surge

Despite the lower market trading fees on CoinSpot, our winner is Digital Surge because of the much lower instant buy/sell fee. A lot of beginners would prefer the Instant buy/sell option, which means they’ll end up paying quite a lot if they choose CoinSpot.

Crypto Market Spread

Besides platform fees, you should always pay special attention to the market spread because low fees are pretty much useless if a platform has high market spreads, which can happen as a result of low platform liquidity and poor trading volumes.

The spread is the difference between ask and bid prices for crypto assets.

The market spread is always changing in real-time, so it’s important to actively check the order books on an exchange to stay in the loop with the actual spread before you decide to trade cryptocurrencies.

Digital Surge is known for solid liquidity levels, which enables the platform to have low market spreads, with an average of 0.4%, while CoinSpot’s spreads are usually around 2.2%.

Crypto Market Spread Winner: Digital Surge

Our vote goes to Digital Surge, thanks to their more than five times lower market spread. Despite the lower CoinSpot market fees, users often end up paying more because of the high spreads. Purchasing crypto on CoinSpot becomes especially pricey if you combine the high spread and the 1% instant buy/sell fee.

Customer Support

Many crypto exchanges offer overall high-quality services, but when it comes to customer support, they perform under expectations, with unresponsive and unhelpful support teams.

It can get really frustrating if you have a problem with your platform account and you can’t reach anyone from the platform team for help.

Luckily, Digital Surge and CoinSpot provide top-of-the-line customer support. Both exchanges offer email support, help desk support tickets, and live chat support. It’s important to emphasise that the live chat support doesn’t depend on chatbots with limited functionalities.

Instead, users get to communicate with real people from the respective customer support teams. The support teams respond to customer enquiries in a matter of minutes, and they are very professional in providing their assistance.

Customer Support Winner

In this category, there’s a draw because both exchanges really provide exceptional support services, making sure users have their issues solved in no time. This is quite refreshing in comparison to some exchanges where users have to wait for days before they get a response from the support team.

Mobile Apps

Having a highly functional and user-friendly mobile app is simply a must for every popular crypto exchange. Users need to be able to access their portfolio at all times, regardless of their location, which is why exchanges tend to invest huge resources in updating their iOS and Android compatible mobile apps.

The Digital Surge app unites simplicity with the most advanced trading orders and technical analysis tools.

It’s great for beginners, but it also provides advanced brokers with all the order types and tools they need for implementing advanced trading strategies from the convenience of their mobile phones.

CoinSpot’s mobile app also comes with a very intuitive user interface that actually simplifies the web-based platform, which is a bit too complex for crypto newcomers.

Mobile App Winner: Digital Surge

In the category of mobile apps, it’s been quite difficult to decide on a winner, but in the end, the title goes to Digital Surge because their app offers a broader range of functionalities to users.

Fiat Currency Deposit Methods

One of the key characteristics users are looking for when choosing a crypto exchange is fiat currency compatibility. Users don’t want to spend time sending crypto from their private wallets to a trading platform just to fund their accounts.

That’s why reputable exchanges always enable users to deposit fiat currency through various payment methods and then spend that money on crypto later.

Digital Surge enables users to conduct AUD deposits into their platform accounts through PayID, bank account transfers, debit cards, and POLi. CoinSpot, on the other hand, has a bit broader range of deposit methods.

The platform supports debit cards, credit cards, direct cash deposits, bank account transactions, BPAY, and OSKO.

Deposit Methods Winner: Coinspot

Our vote goes to CoinSpot because the platform supports a broader range of deposit methods, such as OSKO, BPAY, and credit cards.

Platform Security

Platform security is a top priority for crypto traders, especially since cyber attackers are known to target crypto exchanges in the hope of finding security holes suitable for hacks.

Digital Surge is known for its great security measures, and many Aussie crypto enthusiasts consider it the most secure local exchange platform. Most of the platform’s digital assets are stored in company cold storage, out of the reach of cyber attackers.

User accounts are protected by a mix of passwords and two-factor authentication (2FA), requiring users to confirm transactions through email or mobile phone text messages.

CoinSpot doesn’t really fall behind Digital Surge in terms of implemented security features, but there’s a CoinSpot phishing campaign that’s circulating on the internet and targeting CoinSpot users with fake emails that are impersonating CoinSpot customer support.

Security Winner: Digital Surge

There isn’t any considerable difference in the security of these two platforms, but the fact that there’s a CoinSpot phishing campaign makes us give our vote to Digital Surge, simply because crypto beginners might easily fall for the phishing emails if they decide to use CoinSpot.

The Final Verdict

Both exchanges provide users with top-quality services, and it’s really difficult to decide which one is better, but like always, the answer lies in the details. Therefore, we chose Digital Surge based on the higher platform liquidity and the lower instant buy/sell fees.

Also, we have to admit that the CoinSpot phishing campaign was another decisive factor in Digital Surge’s favour.

Visit Digital Surge

 

Visit Coinspot

The Top Australian Exchanges Compared