Crypto Exchange Review: Coinfield

General Information

CoinField is a new crypto exchange that entered the market in February 2018. Initially, it only served Canadian customers, but it has since updated its service and spread worldwide. As-is, it’s available in 193 countries, covering a good chunk of the world.

Starting off in one country is rough, especially if that location isn’t a major trading hub. For example, an exchange that starts off only serving US citizens would have a much easier time spreading out than one that focuses on a smaller country. As such, Coinfield’s start in Canada was somewhat of a hindrance to the company. We assume that it wanted to set up a strong position in the country, then leverage that as a marketing tool and proof of validity. However, that doesn’t seem to have worked out as the firm intended.

Instead, they made an assumedly smaller than predicted impact in Canada and rushed worldwide to recuperate their losses. However, walling off a large portion of the world as soon as you start can be a recipe for disaster. The exchange has already built a reputation as a Canada-only exchange, forcing away potential users. CoinField seems to have realized its error, as it currently displays the fact that it serves 193 countries prominently on its landing page.

However, we can’t hold the rocky start against the exchange, as it could’ve been a symptom of many things. Mismanagement, faulty predictions, shifts in the market, or overambition can all cause such issues. As such, we’ll proceed to judge the company in its current state, determining how well it treats its customers. We should note, though, that the exchange is far from without flaw, even when we ignore its roots.

Let’s have a closer look on it in this Coinfield review.

Coinfield – Primary Features

As we stated in the opening of our CoinField review, the firm had an odd initial period. It’s as if it was undecided on what it wanted to accomplish exactly and ended up panicking. The commotion led to the company doing a lot of things halfway, without the chance to shine anywhere. Since then, it’s updated and reshaped itself a bit; however, the sudden shift took its toll. It’s apparent that in making sure its transition to a global service succeeded, the company had to cut costs on a service level.

However, let’s start on a positive note instead of a negative one. We’d like to use this section to present some of CoinField’s top features:

• Fiat Deposit Methods

Fiat deposits have become a crucial part of cryptocurrency exchange services because many prominent firms have enabled them. That puts pressure on newcomers to match those services in order to stay competitive. Luckily CoinField has had fiat funding methods for accounts right from the start (or very early in its service, at least).

• Low Fiat Deposit Fees

To match the service above, the CoinField also has low fees, making the deposits more beneficial. With digital currency exchanges, it’s not uncommon to see hefty charges on fiat deposits. Those often reach the area of somewhere between 5-10%. That can make them borderline unviable as a funding method. CoinField’s are much more reasonable, sitting at 2.95%.

• High Security at Coinfield
  

High security is a somewhat relative term in the cryptocurrency exchange world. Firms often lack any sort of formal regulation, and safety is a matter of how they secure customers against outside attacks. In that regard, CoinField does pretty well, employing a series of customer protection features. However, the company seems to have loose ends on the inside.

• Quick Sign-up

Signing up with CoinField is a matter of seconds rather than a long wait. The exchange achieves this by employing a service called Equifax that manages to speed up the registration process drastically. However, signing up like that doesn’t let you access the full feature list.

• Account Structure

Pairing with the previous section, the exchange managed to organize a healthy balance of registration speed and anonymity. It does that by making its account structured into three tiers. Each level requires the user to provide more personal info for access to more features. As such, users that prefer to remain entirely hidden can stick with the first account, and those that don’t care as much can progress.

Security

As we noted in the previous section of our CoinField review, the practical security measures are quite nice. It uses cold wallet storage and has top-grade SSL encryption. On top of that, it’s never been a victim of cybercrime, meaning their protection methods are working. However, although that does paint an attractive picture, there’s also a fair share of issues with the exchange.

For example, its low-ish volume and customer count makes it a less attractive target for hackers. That lessens the impact of the fact that it was never hurt by cybercriminals. On top of that, the firm seems to be a bit shady when it comes to customer treatment. We’ve run into multiple accounts of customers complaining about the firm using questionable methods to stop them from withdrawing/accessing their accounts. The nature of the reports means that they aren’t concrete proof against the broker, but their volume makes them unignorable.

So while it seems you’ll be safe from the outside, the broker might be a more significant threat than hackers. We don’t have enough evidence to call CoinField a scam, but it’s definitely enough to warrant caution.

Fees & Conditions

The fees at CoinField seem as if they’re a bit all over the place. Earlier in our review, we mentioned their low fiat deposit fees as one of its main strengths. Surely enough, the exchange has some of the lowest fiat fees in the business, making it appear as a viable method. However, once you start trading, the fees skyrocket, making earning money a difficult task.

For example, the trading fees max out at 0.25%, which is 2-3 times higher than most competitive exchanges. That means you can get an experience at least twice as good elsewhere. Additionally, its withdrawal fees are higher than other exchanges as well. Each withdrawal has a flat rate of  0.001 BTC, which is higher than most percentage-based charges.

Furthermore, you’ll get double-charged no matter which deposit method you use. While fees on fiat funding often come with extra charges, coin funding is normally free. With CoinField, even crypto deposits come with a 2% or $15 (whichever is higher) charge. That means the funds you invest go through three (deposits, trading, withdrawals) draining methods before they come out.

As for the trading conditions, they aren’t that great either. The broker seems to lack passive income functions, for example. The trading methods are limited, as the exchange only offers investment trading, without the opportunity to trade on futures or derivatives. That also means there isn’t any leveraged trading.

This is where the impact of the firm’s flip-flopping is most noticeable, as its trading experience was nearly entirely neglected.

Funding Methods at Coinfield

We already discussed the exchange’s funding methods in multiple places throughout our CoinField review. However, we can take one last complete look. The firm offers affordable fiat funding with six major currency options. On the other end, the crypto investment methods come with charges, which makes them significantly worse than they are with other firms. Recently, it’s also introduced bank wire deposits for specific countries, notably the UK.

Currencies

CoinField has quite a limited selection of coins, barely going over 20. The exchange does include multiple major currencies, but it falls flat compared to other competitors. It’s not uncommon to see exchanges offer hundreds or even thousands of different currencies, blowing CoinField out of the water.

Coinfield Review: Conclusion

CoinField has some decent qualities that can serve very specific customers. For example, traders that primarily fund their accounts with fiat currencies and invest in major crypto might not find any issues with the exchange. However, if you’re someone looking for a bit more variety and broader functionality, there are much better alternatives. As such, it’s difficult to deem CoinField as anything more than a potential beginner choice.

Sadly, even that falls through since the exchange seems morally gray at best. As such, we hesitate to recommend it to anyone before it sorts out its issues. The firm has some potential and room for growth in the future, but its current state is sub-par.