Unocoin Cryptocurrency Exchange Review

What is Unocoin?

Unocoin is a cryptocurrency exchange offering digital currency trading services and enabling buyers and sellers to buy and sell Bitcoin through the platform. Unocoin was founded in July 2013 by Sunny Ray, Sathvik Vishwanath, Harish BV, and Abhinand Kaseti and is reported to be India’s first entrant in the crypto space. The company started out at Tumkur, Karnataka and later shifted operations to Bengaluru. 

Source: Unocoin.com

The exchange is exclusive to India and users need to register on Unocoin and verify their email ID before they can gain access. Users will also need to provide a pan card which is essentially a permanent account number issued by the Indian Income Tax Department. Users are also required to provide proof of address, phone number to complete the verification process. Once verification is complete, they will be able to buy or sell bitcoin through their Unocoin account. These requirements are barriers to entry for those Indians who may not have a permanent address or the necessary documentation to get KYC’d on the exchange. However for the hundreds of millions of legible Indian residents, this exchange is one of the most widely used in the country and could be a gateway into the world of crypto for them. 

How to Register on Unocoin Exchange

To register on the platform, you need to go to https://unocoin.com and click create an Account button. Following that you need to register with your mobile number and password of your choice. A user’s password must be a minimum of 8 characters and maximum of 15 with mandatorily 1 capital and 1 small letter, 1 numerical and 1 special character. Once you’ve set your password, then click submit. The next step is to enter the OTP that’s sent to your registered mobile number. Once the OTP is successfully validated, you will be redirected to the security questions page. There you can input your responses as requested and submit your answers (six of the questions are mandatory). Once successfully submitted, you will be redirected to a profile setup page where you can then set up your user profile. 

To begin trading, transacting or storing Bitcoin or Ethereum on Unocoin platform, you need to get verified. Once you’re a verified user, you can start either sending crypto to peers who may or may not have a Unocoin Wallet. As a verified user you can also request bitcoin/ether from someone. 

Unocoin Exchange Platform Fees

Unocoin charges a fee of 0.7% to buy or sell bitcoin. Over an extended period of usage (minimum 60 days) and a significant transaction volume on your account, there will be an upgrade to “Gold Membership”. With this upgrade the transaction fee drops to 0.5% and gives you a higher transaction limit per day. A government levied IGST of 18% will be charged on the transaction fee. For example, if you are buying bitcoin for 10,000 INR, then the transaction fee at 0.7% will be 70 INR and the IGST on that transaction fee would be 12.6 INR (Rounded up to 13 INR). Hence you will end up paying 10083 INR in total. Unocoin’s IGST number is 29AABCU8112D1ZI.

There is no fee when you send bitcoin to an email-id of a Unocoin user. When sending bitcoin to a bitcoin address, Unocoin collects a fee of 0.0005 to 0.0009 BTC (the fee is set dynamically depending on the network congestion and will be displayed while sending out the bitcoin to a bitcoin address) that is deducted from your Unocoin balance which is paid to the mining network that validates, processes and secures your transactions. There is no fee for receiving bitcoin or storing your bitcoin on the Unocoin wallet. However, storing your crypto on non-custodial wallets or hardware wallets like Ledger or KeepKey no fee to store your bitcoin in the Unocoin wallet. Unocoin also offers lending services whereby verified users will be able to obtain a loan in USDT against pledging collateral in bitcoin.

Source: Unocoin

Strengths

• According to the company, the Unocoin platform has over 1.2 million registered users.
• Users need to deposit a minimum amount of INR 1000 to transact on the platform (give or take US$15). To buy bitcoin, you can buy as little as INR 200 worth of Bitcoin on Unocoin and get started (with transaction fees so high these days that may not be the case). Its customers can also opt for Systematic Buying Plan (SBP) to buy bitcoin at regular intervals of daily, weekly, or monthly for as low as INR 10 only.
• Unocoin provides a platform for users to buy or sell bitcoin with Indian Rupee (INR).
• The bitcoin exchange enables users to buy or sell bitcoin by matching their order with other users.
• The exchange offer over the counter (OTC) trading making it easier for users to bulk trade.
• Unocoin has a user mobile app that makes it possible for users to buy, sell, store, accept and use crypto on the go.
• Customers are provided with a special bitcoin address which auto sells Bitcoin.
• The platform offers what they call ‘first-of-its-kind Systematic Buying Plans (SBP)’ for Bitcoin.
• Users can recharge their mobile or direct-to-home (DTH) with bitcoin via Unocoin. 
• The platform has an address book where users can store multiple wallet addresses. Users can also opt to generate paper wallets to keep their digital currencies safe.
• Unocoin offers a merchant gateway service thus allowing online businesses to accept Bitcoins as a mode of payment.
• The company seems to have a decent emphasis on security. Apparently they store most user funds offline. The set of multiple addresses for offline storage are generated on a computer that has never been (and never will be) connected to the internet.The address/private key pairs are encrypted with AES-256. They are also sealed in envelopes and stored in multiple safe deposit lockers. This acts as a measure against hacking, loss, and theft of user funds. In addition, the wallet provides optional 2FA. Read more about their security here. 
• The company has some well-known backers including: 

Source: Unocoin

Weaknesses

• Unocoin wallet only supports BTC and ETH unlike exchanges such as Coinbase, KuCoin, Binance, OKEx, etc. 
• If you lose the credentials of your wallet, you will lose your crypto assets and Unocoin will be unable to help you to restore them. This may not be a negative – depends how you look at it. 
• Some people believe the stringent verification processes are not necessary. 
• Fees & Bitcoin prices can be higher than on other popular cryptocurrency exchanges. 
• Unocoin is a centralized exchange which means the long-term success of the platform is depended on the company being well managed as it continues to grow but overall Unocoin seems to be a good option for India where there has been some push-back at times, as far as embracing crypto and businesses that are innovating in the space and operating within that part of the world.  
• Some online reviewers claim customer support can be a bit slow at times.