If you’re looking for the best exchange in Australia, then you probably heard of Swyftx. Maybe it’s because of the thousands of ★★★★★ reviews. Or because it’s in the Top 3 Recommended of almost every comparison post.
Does it matter?
Well, crypto trading is competitive. You could go with popular choices like Binance or BitBuy. But why use the same exchange as everyone else when you can get an advantage?
Don’t just choose what’s popular. You can get better fees, trading options, and security. Could that platform be Swyftx?
Swyftx: The Best Crypto Exchange In Australia?
Alex Harper and Angus Goldman launched Swyftx in Brisbane, Queensland (2018). Around 200 employees work for the exchange today.
Since Bitcoin spiked in late 2017, Australia became one of the most involved countries in this space. Yet, crypto sounded like a distant concept for many, given how quickly things changed. And thus Swyftx decided to create the most user-friendly exchange in Australia.
So far, thousands of users seem to agree. Swyftx trades at least $120M per month since 2019 in Australia alone. Now that it has become international in 2021, you can imagine the growth.
But what does Swyftx do exactly?
It offers over 260 coins, including the Top 50 most traded, some ERC-20 (Ethereum) coins, DeFi projects, and even fan tokens. So while it’s below Binance’s 300, you have (1) more project variety and (2) USDT pairs for all coins. Swyftx keeps adding new tokens every few months.
The platform makes investing easy, including buy/sell, swap, and advanced options (e.g., bundling, stop-limits, recurring orders). To see how they work, let’s review the features:
Swyftx Account Overview
When you go to Swyftx.com, you can trade cryptos as soon as you sign up. What you can do in the exchange depends on your account level:
- Starter: Verify email.
- Bronze: Verify phone number.
- Silver: Verify ID documents. Unlocks crypto-fiat trading and recurrent orders.
- Gold: Complete KYC-0 (Security phone call). Unlocks fiat withdrawals.
- Diamond: Complete KYC-1 (photo of the ID + selfie). It’s requested for deposits/withdrawals only when your account is flagged or suspended. Diamond accounts have minimal chance of being flagged unfairly.
- Platinum: Complete KYC-2 (questions about the account purpose and source of deposits). Only requested for fiat withdrawals on flagged accounts.
If you just want to swap cryptos and then send them to another wallet, Bronze is good to go. If you want to swap crypto-fiat and withdraw to your bank, Gold Level is enough to unlock all features. And if you don’t want to worry about Swyftx suspending your account without warning, at least Diamond is recommended.
Trading and Payment Features
Trading in Swyftx looks different from what you’d find on CoinBase or Binance. You first find the coin you want, and then you choose what to do from the top menu. This way, there’s less information on-screen (more user-friendly).
As for trading features:
- Buy and Sell is crypto-fiat only, being fiat your default currency (top left corner). You can only trade what’s on your balance (found in the sidebar).
Both Buy and Sell have Limit and Stop orders. Stop executes the trade at your specified price while Limit only fills it. Limit executes the trade at market price (under the price limit as Limit Buy, above the limit as Limit Sell).
The Recurring order only appears for purchases if you already passed ID verification (Silver Account). You can choose the amount to buy, when, and for how long (or until you can’t buy anymore). To cancel, you go to the Orders tab.
- Swap will automatically sell to your default currency and buy the swapped token. Conversion fees up to 1.25%.
Other features include charting (with technical-analysis tools), price alerts, and token information (including the spread %). If you find a coin on Swyftx and want to add it to your Web3 wallet, you click on Explorer, and it will show the contract address on EtherScan.
- To Deposit/Withdraw you select the network (typically BTC / ERC20 / BEP20) and copy the deposit address. When you send it, it will appear on the history as Pending. How long it takes depends on the token.
For convenience, there’s Quick Deposit/Withdraw for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple.
What about payment methods?
For fiat withdrawals, you need to verify your identity (Silver Level). But Swyftx only allows this in Australia and New Zealand. As for 2021, you can’t withdraw fiat anywhere else yet.
Verified users can withdraw to:
a. Bank account in 2–6 business hours (instant transfer for OSKO accounts)
b. POLi (instant)
c. PayID (instant)
Otherwise, it’s better to withdraw crypto to an exchange that does have the method you want.
Fees and Limits
The exchange charges 0.6% in fees for every transaction (1.2% for swaps). High trading-volume discounts apply. And while it’s not as low as 0.1%, Swyftx is transparent on the hidden fees (which all platforms have).
Suppose you buy 1 BTC for 50,000$ in an exchange with 0% fees. On the order preview, however, they might cost $52,000$ for the same Bitcoin. That difference is the spread, and the average exchange has a 4% markup (not including fees).
Swyftx offers a 0.45% spread for Bitcoin and up to 1.7% for every other coin. 0% for Tether.
Token prices update every few seconds based on market standards.
As for deposits and withdrawals, there are no exchange fees. It depends on the payment method you choose and the mining fees of the coin’s network.
What about limits?
- Swyftx users can trade with no amount limit. Crypto withdrawals are also unlimited and free.
- The most AUD you can withdraw is 50k per day. 100k if ID-verified (unlimited deposit amount)
- You can only withdraw a minimum of 50 USD, whether it’s fiat or cryptocurrency
Security and Support
Swyftx is an Australian company licensed and regulated by the AUSTRAC. It also follows the KYC regulations, and (unlike Binance) the exchange has never been compromised since the launch. While it’s infallible, users get a sense of security when trading on Swyftx.
The exchange uses both cold and hot wallets to store cryptocurrency. And while 100% offline would be ideal, the hot wallets provide some exchange liquidity. Swyftx does recommend hardware wallets (Ledger Nano), and you can find them in the Shop (sidebar).
But how secure are online wallets? If you’re new to the platform, you’ll find that withdrawals are not easy. Not because of KYC, but because the button won’t appear until you manually set the addresses.
Let’s say you want to withdraw Ripple:
- Go to withdrawals and find XRP on the list.
- Click the plus sign (in Withdrawal Addresses).
- Enter your other wallet address.
- Select the mining network. BSC (way cheaper) may be unavailable, but ETH always does.
- Add a label and click Add
- A pop-up window will request a PIN sent to your phone
- When confirmed, it will appear in the list with the status “Confirm Email”
- When you confirm, log into Swyftx again
- Find again XRP in the withdrawal list, and now there’s the withdrawal option
- When you click and enter withdrawal details, you’ll need to approve the transaction. Depending on your settings, it’s a 2FA App code + SMS + email.
And that’s just for XRP. You have to do this with every coin unless you convert everything to one. If a hacker stole your account, they’d need all these steps, or else withdraw to your wallet.
If you ever have any issues, the support team will take care of it. They reply within a few business hours on live chat (or you request a free call back). And unlike bigger exchanges, you get quality support from native-Australian employees. Who probably work in the same building as the executives. Here’s the full team.
Other Features
The following features are not necessary for trading (but still help to improve the experience):
Swyftx Demo Mode
What makes Swyftx beginner-friendly is the interface and demo mode. It’s a simulated trading account to test how different investments will perform. You can find it at the top bar on the right:
Demo Mode, only on Swyftx
The demo account is separated from your real account. It starts with $10,000 (only USD accepted), which you can convert to any coin. You can also restart the account on Profile.
Disabled functions include deposits, withdrawals, recurrent orders, and bundles. They re-enable when you switch back to the real account.
Swyftx Tax Planning
While Swyftx doesn’t share your data with anyone, it must provide it to regulators (e.g., ATO) if requested. Since taxes will apply to crypto sooner or later, why not prepare just in case? The exchange partners with Koinly & CryptoTaxCalculator, so tax planning is easy.
On the sidebar, you go to Profile > About. You click the blue Download button under Tax Report (General). When you choose the format (CSV, PDF) and filters, you get a file like this:
In our Yield Farming guide, you can learn more about taxation for DeFi investing.
Swyftx Bundles
Diversification helps to minimize volatility risk in crypto. Here, Swyftx bundles the most relevant coins by category and trading volume. You’ll find this option at the bottom of the sidebar:
Swyftx Bundles
It doesn’t replace independent research, but it helps when you don’t know where to start.
Note that bundling doesn’t change the fees (1.2%). It’s still 0.6% to convert fiat to crypto and 0.6% to swap to all other coins. You can test it in demo mode.
While it seems unessential, bundling does help Dollar-Cost Average investors. If you buy a fixed amount of crypto every week/month, this is for you.
Swyftx Affiliate Program
The affiliate program becomes available after you validate your account. When a new trader signs up on Swyftx with your link, they can start right away (without KYC). And for all order fees they pay, you get 30% in commissions.
As long as they keep using Swyftx (known as the best platform for Australia), you keep receiving affiliate payouts every month. While writing this guide, there are about 9,000 affiliates and not more than 500,000 users worldwide. So if you like Swyfxt, this affiliate program is more likely to work than if you promoted already-known exchanges (like Binance).
Swyftx: The Verdict
As proven over and over, Swyftx is one of the most recommended exchanges overall. At least if you’re starting on crypto and need a reliable withdrawal method.
Maybe this exchange doesn’t have as many features (e.g., liquidity pools, NFT marketplace, P2P trading…), but it makes sure to over deliver on the few ones it has. There’s always time for upgrades, especially now with the huge number of new traders.
Now established in Australia, it’s yet to see what Swyftx can offer as a worldwide crypto exchange.
