Our pick: Binance
Though Coinspot is a great crypto exchange for investors beginning their crypto journey, we consider Binance to be the better crypto trading platform overall. This is due to a number of factors like their low trading fees, tight spreads, strong reputation for security, an extensive earn/staking feature, and wide range of additional features.
Binance has advanced trading options available for more serious traders, whilst also offering a beginner’s setting called Binance Lite.
If you live in Australia and you’re on the hunt for a crypto exchange to buy and sell digital assets, you’ve likely heard of Binance and Coinspot. They’re considered to be two of the best Australian crypto exchanges as they both offer competitive trade fees, many tradable cryptocurrencies and have a range of additional features.
This guide provides a detailed comparison of both exchanges, pinning Coinspot against Binance to uncover which exchange is best. We’ve used both Binance and Coinspot extensively and conducted thorough research to give a fair comparison of both trading platforms, focusing on trade fees, spreads, customer support, number of cryptocurrencies, staking/Earn, security, learning material and additional features.
Binance summary
Website | Binance.com |
Headquartered | Caymen Islands |
Trading fees | 0.1% |
Supported coins | 360+ |
Fiat currencies | AUD, USD, NZD & 50+ |
Deposit methods | Bank transfer, POli, PayID, credit/debit card |
Pros
- Low trading fees (0.1% fee for spot buy and sell orders)
- Strong security reputation
- 360+ supported cryptocurrencies
- NFT marketplace
- Advanced trading options (margin & futures trading)
- Crypto staking on multiple cryptocurrencies
Cons
- Poor customer service
- Platform can be too complicated for beginners
Binance is the largest crypto exchange in the world by trading volume and one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges in Australia. It is available in over 140 countries and is considered to be one of the most advanced and functional crypto apps on the market. Binance Australia is the Australian operation of Binance that is registered with AUSTRAC and complies with national digital asset exchange laws.
Binance was founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao in Hong Kong, though the company is headquartered in Caymen Islands.
More info: Binance Australia review
Coinspot summary
Website | Coinspot.com.au |
Headquartered | Melbourne, Australia |
Trading fees | 1.00% |
Supported coins | 370+ |
Fiat currencies | AUD |
Deposit methods | Bank transfer, POli, PayID |
Pros
- User-friendly interface
- 370+ listed cryptocurrencies
- NFT marketplace
- Staking on 22+ coins
- helpful customer support
Cons
- Higher fees than other exchanges
- Large spreads
Coinspot is the biggest exchange in Australia with over 2.5 million users nationwide. Founded in 2013, Coinspot is one of the more established exchanges available to Aussies. Its app is very intuitive and easy to use, making it a great option for beginners looking to buy their first cryptocurrency.
More info: Coinspot review
Coinspot vs Binance: Detailed comparison
Trading fees
Binance charges a 0.1% trading fee for all spot buy and sell orders, meaning an $1000 purchase will incur a $1 fee. This is considered very competitive when compared to other exchanges. Additionally, if you hold the Binance coin (BNB), you can reduce these fees by up to 25%.
Coinspot, on the other hand, charges a 1% fee for all instant buy and sell orders. Coinspot’s market orders, which allows users to trade crypto directly with other Coinspot users, only incurs a fee of 0.1%. Unfortunately, there are only 15 coins available for trading through Coinspots market.
Deposit and withdrawal fees
Binance does not charge AUD deposit or withdrawal fees via bank transfer, OSKO or PayID. There also no Binance fees for depositing crypto from an external wallet into your Binance account. There is a fee for withdrawing crypto from your Binance account, though this is not charged by Binance, but rather the network you are sending the crypto on.
Coinspot does not charge fees for deposits or withdrawals via bank transfer, POLi, PayID, or OSKO. They do charge a 0.9% fee for BPAY deposits and 2.5% fee for a cash deposit.
Fees winner: Binance
Overall, Binance has a more competitive fee structure, allowing users to save money and trade freely without having to worry about high trading fees. Coinspots instant buy and sell orders fees are 10x higher than Binance’s spot fees, which is too high, especially if you’re considering trading often. Additionally, just by holding the BNB token, users can reduce their trading fees.
Spreads
A spread refers to the difference in the actual price of a crypto asset and the price it is sold to you. The smaller the spread, the better it is for the users. Binance has a good reputation when it comes to spreads, having progressively tightened them over the last 12-24 months. Right now, their average spread is less than 1%.
Coinspot customers have reported spreads upward of 4%, however, their average spreads sits around 2.1%.
Spread winner: Binance
Just like trading fees, Binance is incredibly competitive when it comes to spreads. Their average spread is considerably lower than Coinspot’s which hands them the victory in this round.
Customer support
Being the massive global exchange that it is, Binance has at times struggled to keep up with the huge influx of customer queries and complaints. During busy periods, it can sometimes take weeks to get a response from Binance’s customer support team. Their support staff are also predominantly based overseas, which can often lead to communication issues.
Coinspot has a strong reputation for customer support which is reflected in their 4.5/5 star rating on TrustPilot. You can get help almost instantly via live chat customer support which is available 24/7. Of course, like all exchanges, they have struggled when large volumes of customer messages are coming through, but you can typically expect a response within 10 to 20 minutes. Additionally, the majority of their customer support staff are based in Australia.
Customer support winner: Coinspot
Coinspot takes this round quite easily given their reputation for providing helpful customer support. Despite Binance’s best efforts to onboard enough customer support staff to scale with the enormous growth of their platform, they have developed a rather poor reputation for customer support.
Number of cryptocurrencies
Binance lists over 360 cryptocurrencies for trading on its platform. This includes large coins like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and XRP and a range of popular altcoins.
As it stands, Coinspot currently lists 370+ cryptocurrencies for trading.
Cryptocurrencies winner: Tie
It would be unfair to pick a winner in this category as there is only a couple of cryptocurrencies that seperate the two of them.
Staking/Earn
Staking refers to securing a Proof of Stake blockchain by locking up your crypto tokens. As a reward for doing this, the staker will receive a reward of the coin they are staking, usually represented as a proportionate percentage of the coin.
Binance offers several ways for their customers to earn passive income on their crypto. These are all grouped under the feature ‘Binance Earn’ which is one of the best staking platforms in Australia. As it stands, you can earn up to 52% APR through this feature. The options under Binance Earn include:
- Fixed savings
- Flexible savings
- Dual Savings
- Liquid swap
- Launchpool
- DeFI staking
- Locked staking
Though there are extensive options for Binance users to earn passive income on the crypto coins, the Earn feature can be confusing and overwhelming, particularly for beginners.
Coinspot staking, on the other hand, is very straightforward. They currently list 20+ coins for staking, allowing users to earn up to 78% APY. Coins available for staking include ETH, ADA, SOL, DOT, MATIC and several others.
Staking/Earn: Coinspot
Coinspot takes the cake in this round given the ease of use of its staking feature. Despite Binance offering more earning options, we found their Earn feature to be over complicated. With Coinspot staking, simply purchase one of the eligible cryptocurrencies, input how much you’d like to enter into staking and then confirm your order.
Security
In cryptocurrency, security is extremely important. With the huge spike in interest in cryptocurrencies over the years, there has been a large influx of fraudsters trying to scam or steal from inexperienced investors. Therefore it’s crucial that exchanges invest ample resources in securing their customers’ accounts.
Being the huge crypto exchange that they are, Binance has had to ensure that their platform security is top notch. They employ the following security measures to ensure the safety of their users funds:
- Two factor authentication (2FA)
- real-time monitoring
- multi-signature and threshold signature schemes (TSS)
- Security alerts
- API access control and device management
- Advanced data encryption
- Know Your Customer Procedures (KYC)
Coinspot is an AUSTRAC-registered exchange that has a very strong reputation for security. They were awarded the ISO27001 certification which is the gold standard for information security management. They employ security features like Two Factor Authentication (2FA), offline cold storage, anti-phishing phrases and custom withdrawal restrictions to secure their customers’ accounts.
Security winner: Binance
Though both Binance and Coinspot have shown strong dedication to securing their platforms, there can only be one winner. Binance have gone above and beyond to ensure that they have the maximum security possible to minimise all threats of scams and cyber theft. Of course, some Binance customers have complained that they’ve fallen victim to scams. It’s important to stay vigilant and know how to spot a scam. Click here for more information on crypto scams.
Learning material
Quality learning material can help a beginner investor understand more about what they’re investing in and can help them make more informed trading decisions. Afterall, crypto is still very new, and the industry is constantly evolving, with new coins and new use cases.
Binance has created a highly popular learning platform called Binance Academy which features helpful guides and resources on all things crypto and blockchain. You can also earn crypto rewards by learning about blockchain through their feature ‘Learn and Earn.’
Keep in mind, you don’t need to be a Binance customer to access this content, but you will need to sign up to claim your rewards.
Coinspot doesn’t offer much in the way of learning material. They have a blog on their website which has some written resources on different crypto topics. This content is quite basic and isn’t highly detailed meaning anyone eager to learn will probably find alternative resources.
Learning material winner: Binance
This round isn’t all that close. Binance is clearly more committed to educating their users through theirAcademy and Learn and Earn feature. Coinspot could be doing more to provide educational content to assist their users in making more informed investment decisions.
Additional features
Binance and Coinspot are both feature-rich crypto exchanges. Although we won’t be going into depth about all of their features, we’ll cover off on a few of the main ones. For more info visit our in-depth Binance review and Coinspot review.
Binance offers some incredibly useful features and is constantly adding new ones all the time to improve their user experience. We’ve already covered a few such as Earn, Learn and Earn, Binance Academy but there are several other features for customers to enjoy. Firstly, they have an NFT marketplace where users can browse and purchase a range of popular non fungible tokens. They also offer a prepaid Visa card which allows users to purchase goods and services with their crypto. The card works the same as any credit or debit card.
Lastly, Binance offers several advanced trading features such as margin trading and futures trading. These are high-risk trading strategies that allow traders to borrow funds to speculate on the future performance of an asset.
Coinspot also has an NFT marketplace that lists popular NFT collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club, Vee Friends and World of Women. The process of buying NFTs in Australia can be long-winded and complicated. However, Coinspot users can now quickly and easily purchase NFTs using the crypto they have in their wallet.
Other Coinspot features include:
- Referral program: Earn $10 Free BTC by referring friends to the platform
- Bundles: Save on trading fees by purchasing multiple cryptocurrencies in one trade with Coinspot bundles. Multiple bundles available.
- Mastercard: a crypto debit card allowing users to make purchases with their digital assets.
Additional features winner: Tie
Both Coinspot and Binance offer their users great features to improve their overall experience with their app. They are two of the only exchanges that have NFT marketplaces where users can buy and sell NFTs, something that was particularly hard to do until just recently.
Overall winner: Binance
Having used both Coinspot and Binance extensively, they differ in several ways. Coinspot is a great trading platform for beginners due to its easy-to-use interface and great customer support. Binance is more suited for serious traders looking to trade more frequently and take advantage of the low fees.
We consider Binance to be a better overall option for crypto investors as they took the victory in the following categories:
- Trading fees
- Spreads
- Security
- Learning material
Binance has millions of customers who use their platform on a daily basis which is a testament to the incredibly intuitive and intelligent trading platform they have built.
If you’re looking to compare alternatives to Coinspot and Binance, you can view some options below.
Exchange Website | Cryptocurrencies | Fees | Supported | Visit Website |
---|---|---|---|---|
351 | 1.0% | AUD | Join Coinspot | |
330+ | 0.6% | AUD, USD & NZD | Join Swyftx | |
250+ | Varies | AUD, USD, GBP & more | Join Crypto.com | |
280+ | 0.5% | AUD | Join Digital Surge | |
400+ | 0.1% | AUD, USD, NZD & GBP | Join Binance | |
140+ | Varies | USD, NZD & GBP | Join Coinbase | |
50+ | Varies | AUD & GBP | Join Coinjar Exchange | |
40+ | 0 | USD, GBP & more | Join Nexo |