Crypto.com

Founded in 2016, Crypto.com has grown into a fully-fledged and well-known international cryptocurrency hub in a few short years. It's crypto ecosystem consists of Crypto.com App, Crypto.com Exchange, Crypto.com DeFi swap and Wallet, Crypto.com Pay, Crypto Earn, Crypto Credit, and many other services. Crypto.com works with regulatory institutions all over the globe, and aims to bring you the most convenient way to buy, sell, trade and spend cryptocurrencies. The Crypto.com App allows users to buy over 100 top cryptocurrencies at true cost, earn high interest on their crypto, manage their Crypto.com Visa Card, and easily make crypto payments, among many other rewarding features. The company’s Crypto.com DeFi Wallet is non-custodial, so users can have full control of their private keys.

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Crypto.com Review: Key Features

• Spend cryptocurrency with its well-known Crypto.com Visa Card and get up to 8% back on spending.
• Crypto.com App - Buy over 100 cryptocurrencies at true cost and manage the Crypto.com Visa Card, which allows users to pay for daily purchases with crypto.
• Crypto Earn - Deposit crypto and earn up to 8% (up to 14% for stablecoins), paid weekly in your deposited crypto.
• Crypto Credit - Secure crypto loan with up to 50% LTV.
• Crypto.com Exchange - Trade top cryptocurrencies with deep liquidity, the best execution prices, and the lowest maker and taker fees in the industry. You can also refer a friend to the Exchange, and get up to a USD 2,000 referral bonus and a 50% commission on their trading fees for a year.
• Crypto.com NFT - Users can access exclusive NFT collections by A-list artists, musicians, athletes, and brands by signing up to Crypto.com NFT. The user-friendly platform allows users to buy NFTs using just their credit/debit card, and sell collectibles in the Marketplace, where bidding starts at just USD 0.
• The Syndicate - Crypto.com Exchange traders can access The Syndicate and buy top cryptos like BTC, DOT, and ZIL at up to 50% off.
• Supercharger - Crypto.com App and Crypto.com Exchange users can deposit CRO into the Supercharger pool and earn popular DeFi tokens as rewards. The reward allocation is calculated every day during the Charging Period and is based on the liquidity provided by the user.
• DeFi Swap - It is a fork of Uniswap V2 and allows users to swap and farm DeFi coins at the best available rate. They can also connect to and safely store their crypto in the Crypto.com DeFi Wallet.
• DeFi Earn - Users are able to receive the best returns by depositing their tokens into the protocol with the highest APY at the time of the deposit. It’s currently integrated with Aave Lending V2, Yearn Earn V2, Compound, Cosmos Staking, and native CRO Staking.
• Crypto.com Price - Crypto.com’s price page provides an easy way for users to track on the latest token prices, market movement, market capitalization ranking, and token information.

Depending on your location, some Crypto.com features may not be accessible to you. For instance, lending services are not available to residents of Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, Malta, and the United States.

Background and history

Crypto.com launched as Monaco Technologies GmbH in June 2016. Founded by its current CEO, Kris Marszalek, the company started with the slogan, “Spend anywhere, without fees.”

In the first half of 2017, Monaco launched its own token, MCO, which was funded via an ICO. The ICO took place from May 18 to June 18, and Monaco managed to raise approximately USD 26,7 million worth of crypto by selling 12,135,542 MCO tokens (out of 31,587,682 in total supply).

In July 2018, Monaco announced its rebranding to Crypto.com and began shipping its Crypto.com Visa Card a few months later. At the same time, the company announced the launch of the Crypto.com Chain with its native CRO token.

In late 2019, Crypto.com launched its own crypto-to-crypto exchange, aiming to win a bigger market share amongst crypto traders. The company also introduced its Crypto.com Pay, Crypto Earn, and Crypto Credit, among other services, and Crypto.com Visa cards started shipping to the United States.

In 2020, the company launched its non-custodial DeFi Wallet and DeFi Swap services, and started delivering Crypto.com Visa cards to its European customers. The company also decided to phase out the MCO token completely by swapping it to CRO, meaning that from now on, Crypto.com Visa card users have to stake CRO tokens to earn rewards.

At the moment, the core management team at Crypto.com consists of:

• Kris Marszalek, CEO
• Rafael Melo, CFO
• Gary Or, Co-founder
• Bobby Bao, Head of Corporate Development
• Brent Diehl, Chief Business Officer
• Weiyi Zhang, Head of Trading
• Eric Anziani, COO
• Jason Lau, CISO
• Steven Kalifowitz, CMO
• Matthew Chan, CTO
• Antonio Alvarez, CCO

A complete list of current core team members and their advisory board can be found here.

At the time of writing, Crypto.com boasts of having more than 10 million users worldwide. The company’s headquarters are located in Hong Kong, but it has offices all over the world, including Malta, Bulgaria, Singapore, United States, China, Japan, Russia, India, United Kingdom, Australia, and Argentina. As such, it has grown into a global crypto giant with a rapidly increasing user base.

Crypto.com’s upcoming plans include scaling the presence of the Crypto.com Visa Card, launching additional features on the Crypto.com Exchange, and further developing its DeFi offerings and NFT platform.

Supported countries

Crypto.com is a fully regulated crypto company, meaning that it complies with all necessary financial and risk-prevention regulations. As a result, you won’t be able to use its services, be it the App or Exchange, anonymously.

Currently, Crypto.com is available in most countries, including the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia, Russia, Latin American countries, and some Asian and African states.

Upon registration, you will be asked to verify your identity. You will need to provide the platform with your:

• Full legal name
• Picture of a government-issued ID
• Selfie as proof of liveness

In order to get a Crypto.com Visa card, you will also need to verify your residence address with a recent (not older than 3 months) utility bill.

It can take up to 3 business days to get your account verified.

Crypto.com fees

Crypto.com is on the lower end when it comes to trading fees for centralized exchanges. Though different products are priced differently, it is one of the best fiat-to-crypto gateways in the crypto industry.

Crypto.com App fees

In our experience, the Crypto.com App is by far the easiest way to buy, sell, send, receive, exchange, and pay with crypto via Crypto.com. The app lets you deposit cryptocurrencies free of charge, allows free crypto to crypto exchanges, and supports free transfers to the Crypto.com Exchange and DeFi Wallet.

However, it charges a fee for crypto withdrawals to an external address which differs based on cryptocurrency being withdrawn.

Crypto.com Exchange fees

The Crypto.com Exchange charges trading and withdrawal fees. The trading fees are based on your 30-day trading volume, where get more discounts as your trading volume increases. You also have the option to stake CRO tokens and pay your trading fees with CRO. The more CRO you stake, the bigger your trading discount. As a bonus, you will get 10% p.a. earnings on your CRO stake. All you need to do is stake at least 5,000 CRO and pass KYC verification to earn trading fee rebates.

VIP retail clients on the Crypto.com Exchange can enjoy these rates:

When it comes to cryptocurrency withdrawals, here is a small sample of withdrawal fees for certain cryptocurrencies:

The Crypto.com Exchange charges standard fees for cryptocurrency withdrawals. There are no fees for cryptocurrency deposits.

The Crypto.com App also allows you to purchase cryptocurrencies directly with your credit/debit card. Users pay between0% -3.5% in credit/debit card fees, depending on their jurisdiction.

Crypto.com DeFi Swap fees

Unlike the App or Exchange, Crypto.com DeFi Swap allows you to connect your personal Ethereum wallet for simple and effortless ERC-20 token swaps. Typically, you will pay 0.3% fees to liquidity providers to support the running of smart contracts.

You can connect Defi Swap to your Crypto.com Defi Wallet account. When transferring crypto on the Ethereum network, you will have to pay gas fees. You can conveniently choose between average, fast, and super fast transaction confirmation speeds, where average and super-fast represent low and very high transaction fees respectively.

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Crypto.com Design and Usability

Crypto.com is a beginner-friendly crypto ecosystem that makes it super easy to acquire, exchange, and spend crypto. Besides, anyone can make use of its other crypto services like the Exchange, DeFi Swap and DeFi Wallet, staking, Earn, Pay, and Lending.

Crypto.com App

The easiest way to access Crypto.com's services is by downloading its mobile app. It lets you buy and sell cryptocurrencies, exchange fiat currencies, manage your Crypto.com Visa Card, access Crypto Earn and Crypto Credit, make purchases with crypto, and much more.

It also lets you track your portfolio, send coins to the Crypto.com Exchange, withdraw cryptocurrencies to external wallets, as well as manage deposits to the platform. Overall, Crypto.com App is like a Swiss army knife for crypto - it acts as your personal finance center for both fiats and cryptocurrencies.

The app is available on both iOS and Android devices and can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play.

Crypto.com Exchange

The Crypto.com Exchange is a dedicated crypto-to-crypto exchange that is aimed at more experienced traders. Accessible via the web platform, Crypto.com Exchange lets you trade Bitcoin (BTC), Tether USD (USDT), and Crypto.com Coin (CRO) base pairs. It also offers Derivatives and Margin trading with up to 50x and 3x leverage, respectively.

The Exchange itself has a neat design, but it is oriented towards traders and may not be easy to navigate for complete beginners. As of 2021 February, you can place limit, market, and advanced stop-limit/stop-loss orders.

Crypto.com Exchange users can also access Crypto.com Lending, buy newly-listed coins at a discount with The Syndicates, join Trading Arena competitions, and earn high yield by depositing CRO into Supercharger’s liquidity pools. Traders are also eligible for additional trading fee discounts by paying trading fees with Crypto.com’s native CRO tokens.

The Exchange can be connected to your Crypto.com App account, which makes it easy to transfer coins back and forth in case you need to make a deposit or withdrawal.

Crypto.com DeFi Swap

DeFi Swap is a relatively new DeFi exchange that can be easily connected to the Crypto.com DeFi Wallet. It lets you trade the hottest DeFi tokens in a non-custodial manner, meaning that you can swap coins privately and without compromising your private keys.

DeFi Swap can be accessed via the web, and mobile app.

Crypto.com Visa Card

Crypto.com App users can reserve a Visa card to spend their crypto assets. While the Midnight Blue card is free, other card tiers require you to stake a certain amount of CRO tokens, which grants you a composite metal card with extra benefits.

At the most basic level, you will get 1% back on spending as well as USD 200 worth of ATM withdrawals and currency exchange transactions per month. Higher card tiers enjoy higher withdrawal and exchange limits, as well as rewards like Spotify, Netflix, and Amazon Prime rebates.

It’s important to note that you can’t top up your Crypto.com Visa card with cryptocurrency, as it first needs to be converted to fiat currency, and then you spend dollars, euros, or other currencies of your choice.

Security Measures

Crypto.com practices a “Defense in Depth” culture, which means that security processes are embedded into all aspects of its business. As a result, the platform is one of a few crypto platforms that have not been hacked yet.

On the service side of things, Crypto.com keeps 100% of its user funds in offline cold storage. The security solution is in partnership with Ledger, and utilizes its institutional-grade custody solution Ledger Vault, which leverages technologies like hardware security modules (HSM) and multi-signature keys.

Additionally, Crypto.com cold storage has insurance coverage of USD 500 million, which includes direct and indirect coverage via custodians, physical damage, and third-party theft.

When it comes to protecting its hot wallets, Crypto.com uses HSM and multi-signature keys, too. The funds kept in its hot wallets are corporate funds and constitute just a fraction of the company's total holdings, which are sufficient for day-to-day withdrawal requests from customers.

In terms of fiat currency security, customer deposits are held in regulated custodian bank accounts all over the globe, thus benefiting from local regulations.

When it comes to infrastructure security, Crypto.com makes use of Amazon Web Services (AWS), which comes with the following security features:

• Network and web application firewall.
• Controlled encryption in transit with integrated Transport Layer Security (TLS) across all services.
• Automatic encryption of all traffic.
• Business continuity planning for outages and attacks prevention.
• Logging, monitoring, automatic threat detection, and real-time analytics.
• … and other industry-level security measures.

These infrastructure security measures work in tandem with a variety of internal Crypto.com risk controls:

• A dedicated internal team that screens all deposits for KYC, AML, and alcohol, tobacco, and firearms (ATF) compliance.
• All withdrawals undergo request screening to flag suspicious transaction amounts and velocity.
• Manual approval of large fiat and crypto transactions.
• Industry-leading AI analytics tools.
• Strict access control measures for both cold and hot wallets.
• Penetration testing via numerous attack vectors and external audits.
• Hacker One Bug Bounty program for responsible vulnerability disclosure.

On the user side of things, Crypto.com lets you protect your accounts with two-factor authentication (2FA), as well as a combination of a passphrase, password, biometric (fingerprint & face ID), email, and phone verification. Besides, its DeFi wallet lets you keep your private keys, meaning that you can self-custody your funds instead of relying on the security of the platform.

If you do want to trust Crypto.com with your funds, it is a highly secure and regulated crypto platform with numerous security certifications and assessments by top security auditors. Crypto.com has obtained the following certificates:

• ISO/IEC 27001:2013, ISO/IEC 27701:2019, PCI:DSS 3.2.1, Level 1 compliance and CCSS.
• ISO/IEC 27701:2019 Certification for privacy risk management by SGS.
• ISO/IEC 27001:2013 Certification for information security management by Bureau Veritas.
• Level 1 (highest degree) PDC:DSS standard for complying with strict requirements in the payment card industry.
• CCSS (Cryptocurrency Security Standard) - a series of strict security requirements for storing, accepting, and transacting cryptocurrencies.
• Adaptive (Tier 4) rating - National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Privacy Framework
• Adaptive (Tier 4) rating - National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework

As you can see, Crypto.com follows the “gold standard” for security measures and takes the security of its users' data and funds extremely seriously. As such, it is one of the safest crypto platforms on the market.

Conclusion

Crypto.com is a beginner-friendly crypto trading platform that makes it super easy to acquire, exchange, and spend crypto. Besides, anyone can make use of its other crypto services like the Crypto.com Exchange, Crypto.com DeFi Swap and Wallet, Crypto Earn, Pay, which makes it an excellent one-stop-shop for all-things-crypto.