Swyftx VS Digital Surge 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.

Swyftx and Digital Surge vary to a certain extent in design and functionality but they were built for the same purpose — to bring cryptocurrencies closer to Australian users. Both Australian crypto exchanges make all efforts to deliver a winning combo of easy AUD-to-crypto purchases, competitive fees, and an amicable user interface.

So, it won’t be easy to choose a winner in this “crypto combat” for local supremacy. For that reason, we’ll make a head-to-head comparison between these two Brisbane-based crypto exchanges in terms of their key features and limitations.

VS

Before “the gun goes off”, you should know that Swyftx starts the race at an advantage, as it was the first crypto exchange to revolutionise the crypto landscape in Australia and introduce a user-centred approach to trading crypto, combined with superb customer support and neat design.

Digital Surge, on the other hand, followed the trend of easy-to-use crypto platforms presenting Pay Wizard, an innovative tool that enables Australian residents to pay their bills using Bitcoin (BTC).

Comparison Table

Let’s have a quick look at how these two local brands compare in the key competitive battlegrounds:

Features	Swyftx	Digtal Surge
Amount of Cryptocurrencies	350+ coins	270+
Trading Fees	0.6%	0.5%
Deposit Fees	free	PayID or Direct Deposit/OSKO — free POLi —$2 – $3.30
Withdrawal Fees	free	free
Average Spread	0.4%	0.4%
Payment Methods	PayID / Osko / POLi/ wire transfers	Bank transfer/ OSKO / POLi / PayID
Fiat Currency	AUD	AUD
Regulatory Framework	AUSTRAC	AUSTRAC
Customer Support	email, live chat, phone line	email, live chat

Swyftx

Pros:

• Clean design and easy navigation;
• Simplified registration and verification process;
• Phone-line customer support;
• Tax Report Calculator in compliance with the Australian legislation.

Cons:

• Not many options for advanced trading;
• Available only for Australian residents.

Digital Surge

Pros:

• Easy-to-use platform;
• In-exchange bill payment tool;
• Option for customised price alerts.

Cons:

• No credit card payments;
• Limited choice of trading pairs on the spot market.

Amount of Cryptocurrencies

Both Swyftx and Digital Surge are leading Australian exchanges in the number of supported crypto assets. On Swyftx, you can buy BTC, Ethereum (ETH), Cardano (ADA), Stellar (XLM), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), XRP, BNB, and nearly 300 other cryptocurrencies, including some DeFi tokens like Uniswap (UNI) and Sushi (SUSHI). The nearly same selection is available on Digital Surge as well. Both crypto exchanges support the Australian Dollar exclusively as a means of fiat payment.

Amount of Cryptocurrencies Winner: Swyftx

Even though the Swyftx coin list is a bit wider, it won’t make any difference at the beginning of your crypto endeavour when it’s best to focus on market-dominant digital assets with high liquidity.

Fees

While browsing for a good crypto exchange, you may come across some hot offers like “0.01% trading fee”, which is incomparably lower than the fee of 0.6% and 0.5% that Swyftx and Digital Surge offer, respectively. Let’s take one step at a time to explain this common misconception.

First, the 0.01% fee does exist in the crypto realm but on platforms that feature a different trading approach. Such low-fee exchanges are based on an order-book mechanism where buyers and sellers trade cryptocurrencies, with the exchange facilitating their transactions.

Crypto trading platforms are tailored for seasoned traders who want to make a profit from price fluctuations through speculation. In most cases, these pro-services don’t support fiat payments, and even if they do, fiat transactions go through third-party payment processors (which charge handsomely).

What we’re looking at on a beginner’s scale are crypto platforms that run as a brokerage service where you can instantly buy some crypto in exchange for your local currency. Here, you don’t have to place orders or read candlesticks — just insert the amount of your AUD investment, and the platform will automatically calculate the “crypto deal”.

Both our exchanges focus on this “retail” type of service and charge decently for the convenience they offer. However, you should know that they also have a spot market for more advanced traders.

Swyftx

Swytx charges a flat trading fee of 0.6% but with a possibility of downsizing if your trade volume rises within a given timeframe. The exchange has a zero-fee policy for AUD deposits and withdrawals, but you should keep in mind the transaction fees that come directly from the blockchain. In general, mining costs aren’t high and depend on the current network congestion.

Digital Surge

Digital Surge has a strictly defined tier system for calculating trading fees. Fees start from 0.5% and go down if your trades get larger in 30 days. Technically, you can reach quite a bargain, but you need to invest 1 million AUD for a trading fee of 0.1%.

When it comes to deposits and withdrawals, Digital Surge doesn’t charge anything except a deposit fee of $2-$3.30 for POLi deposits.

Fee Winner: Digital Surge

The volume-based pricing system of Digital Surge sounds more attractive, but given the fact that it’s more reasonable to start small, the difference between 0.5% and 0.6% won’t make any impact on your trade.

Spread

Unfortunately, we’re having an “extra” fee section for you to consider. When you buy certain crypto, there is an added fee called spread, i.e. the percentage difference between the buy and sell price.

In general, crypto exchanges subtly hide this cost by not calculating it in the “total check”, so users are usually caught unprepared for this lack of price transparency.

Both Swyftx and Digital Surge have the lowest spreads on the Australian market, which fluctuate around 0.45%. For comparison, their direct competitors, CoinSpot and Independent Reserve charge an average spread of 2.1% and 2.8% on each purchase, which is close to the industry standard of 2.4%.

Spread Verdict

Spread can be widely variable depending on the current price action of the coin being traded but Swyftx and Digital Surge have established a fair spread system for keeping a competitive edge. So, the competing exchanges are sharing the trophy in this round.

Customer Support

Swyftx deals with a considerably larger user base than Digital Surge but it has a devoted customer support team that successfully handles users’ inquiries. It’s one of the few crypto exchanges out there to offer a phone line apart from the regular means of support — email and live chat.

The phone lines are open 12 hours a day, but you can also reach out to the Swyftx team directly through their Facebook and Twitter channels.

On the other hand, Digital Surge sticks to the standard communication with its customers using live-chat support and email tickets. However, the strength of Digital Surge support care lies in the response time, which never exceeds more than a few minutes.

Customer Support Winner: Swyftx

Even though the high response time is crucial for the overall performance of the customer support team, real-time assistance will always be the most valued virtue when dealing with virtual accounts and blockchain transactions. So, this round goes for Swyftx.

Mobile App

Mobile apps have become an inseparable part of the package that crypto exchanges offer nowadays. This means that all well-established exchanges have launched a mobile version as a support to their web-based platforms. How good the crypto app is depends on its inherited functionalities from the original platform.

The Swyftx mobile app is doing a great job as it enables a nearly identical set of features for both Android and iOS devices. The company has recently presented a new, upgraded mobile app with a fresh UI design that allows you to make deposits, withdrawals and all other trading activities on the go. Moreover, it enables clear insight into your portfolio and balance.

Digital Surge mobile app is highly functional as well and offers the full experience in a flexible trading environment. Once you download the app, you can buy and sell crypto within a few clicks and set alerts based on your interests.

Mobile App Winner: Swyftx

Since both apps meet the criteria for a decent mobile package, the final choice will eventually fall down on your preferred feature set. However, Swyftx has recently revamped its mobile app, so we’ll acknowledge its efforts in improving its services by giving it a point in the mobile app category.

Deposit Methods

Both Swyftx and Digital Surge are tailored to ease the way for Aussie traders toward sleek AUD-to-crypto transactions. Thereby, their deposit methods are carefully selected to suit the common payment preferences within the country. Unfortunately, neither Swyftx nor Digital Surge has implemented an option for debit card payment yet.

Still, both exchanges support direct bank transfers, POLi and PayID, with the difference that Digital Surge also offers cash BPay payments.

Deposit Methods Winner: Digital Surge

The BPay option does put Digital Surge in a superior position but the fact that it charges a separate deposit fee for POLi payments prevents it from becoming an absolute winner in this category.

Security

Swyftx is a secure and AUSTRAC-regulated crypto exchange that complies with the applicable AML framework and implements high-security measures to ensure a robust environment for transmitting valuable assets.

This includes 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication), biometric authentication and KYC verification. Also, the exchange regularly assigns third-party security auditors to conduct detailed checkups and prevent internal data manipulation. As a result, Swyftx has a flawless security record and enjoys well-deserved trust among the local community.

Digital Surge is also considered a safe crypto venue, supported by the same security features as Swyftx. However, this exchange has better mechanisms for storing funds — it holds the majority of users’ holdings offline (cold wallets). Also, Digital Surge doesn’t have any records of hack attacks or data breaches.

Security Verdict

The cold storage enhancement may lead Digital Surge to a guaranteed victory, but Swyftx has served over 300,000 successful customers without a security concern, so we might as well call it a tie.

Final Verdict

You may find a series of similarities between these two Australian cryptocurrency exchanges and that’s because they share the urge to provide comfort for Australian users in making their first move towards crypto trading.

While we can’t single out which one is a more beginner-friendly marketplace or judge the legitimacy of their pricing schedules based on lower fees, Swyftx seems to have the edge over Digital Surge.

Swyftx is showing far better market cap results and features an array of useful features, such as demo mode, tax calculator, and an open phone number. Digital Surge is also a good alternative for instant crypto purchases, but the Swyftx feature set feels more attractive for Australians at the end of the day.

Visit Swyftx

 

Visit Digital Surge

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• Swyftx vs Coinspot
• Binance vs Swyftx
• Kucoin vs Swyftx

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