Luno Review 2019–1 Thing You Need to Know About.

By Jude Umeano

I have been using Luno consistently since 2016 and there is a lot to be said about the company (good and bad). In this review, I will try to give you the full rundown so you can evaluate for yourself if Luno is Trustworthy.

Luno (formally known as Bitx) is a Bitcoin exchange/wallet Provider. It started as Bitx in 2013 in Singapore and have since then expanded to over 42 countries. On Jan 11, 2017, it changed its brand name to Luno (meaning ‘Moon’), this must have been a well-thought rebranding because the company grew exponentially in 2017. Luno provides Bitcoin services that are similar to that’s of Coinbase, However, it was able to make its Bitcoin wallet and exchange services available in countries where Coinbase exchange services are not supported.

Luno allows users to buy and sell Bitcoin through bank Transfer, SEPA transfer, Interbank GIRO/IBFT and EFT. Before you can buy Bitcoin on Luno, you need to deposit money into your Luno wallet. You don’t need to buy an entire Bitcoin. You can buy a smaller amount, from as little as $1. Luno also provides a platform for a user to trade bitcoin and Ethereum against your local currency.

Features

  • Large Trading Volume
  • Tight Spread
  • 24/7 Customer Support Via LiveChat
  • Instant Buy and Sell
  • Easy to Use Trade Room
  • Price Alert
  • Instant deposit
  • Mobile App
  • Multiple Currency
  • Direct Withdrawal to Bank account
  • Safe Secure system

Luno Review 2019 — Cryptocurrencies Supported on Luno.

  • Bitcoin (BTC)
  • Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
  • Ethereum (ETH)

Supported Countries

Countries where Luno offers its services in 43 countries which include: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guernsey, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Jersey, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom.

Luno Required Verification Method

When you open a Luno account, you need to verify your account to make use of the wallet. To do so, enter your full name, verify your email address and accept Luno’s user agreement.

To buy bitcoin, sell it for fiat and withdraw to your bank account, you will need to supply a valid bank account also providing your BVN if you are in Nigeria.

Verification includes; email verification, phone number verification, identity verification (using a government issues ID) and resident verification.

Verification Levels

There are four verification levels on Luno. This levels determined the amount fiat money you can deposit or withdraw from Luno.

The image below shows the requirement to get verified for each level. The limits will be shown in the deposit and withdrawal limits section.

Luno Buying and Selling Limits

There are two methods to buy and sell bitcoin or Ethereum on Luno

  • Instant Buy/Sell
  • Buy and Sell through the exchange.

There are no limits to the amount of Bitcoin or Ethereum you can buy or sell on Luno through the exchange. But there are limited imposed when buying through the instant buy/sell. The limits are per transaction and depend on your country. For Nigeria; minimum buy-sell is 300 naira while maximum buy-sell is 1.6 million naira. Note that this is per transaction on the instant buy/sell not on the exchange. For limited on other countries click here.

But hold on, that’s not all, there are also limited on the amount you can deposit and withdraw.

Deposit and Withdrawal Limits

As stated above, the level to which an account is verified will determine the amount of fiat money that can be withdraw or deposited directly from the platform. The limits are as below:

The withdrawal limits above are a function of your country of residence. For example, countries like Indonesia and South African have no limit on Level 3.

Also note that there is not limited the amount of bitcoin BTC or Ether ETH you can send, receive or hold in your Luno wallet. The limits are only imposed on the deposit the withdrawal feature.

Luno Accepted Payment Methods

The main payment method accepted in Luno is Bank Transfer as stated in the introduction. However, payment method depends on the country you are operating from. In Nigeria, for example, you can fund your Luno account in naira using your naira debit/credit card. Luno employs the service of PayU and Paystack to process payment through debit/credit card in Nigeria.

Luno Transactions and Fees

Transaction fee depends and on the payment method you use which also depends on your country. Once your account is funded in your local currency, you can convert it to bitcoin by buying bitcoin either through the Instant buy or through the exchange. Your bitcoin wallet is funded instantly. The following fees apply to transactions on Luno.

Bitcoin Send and Receive Fees on Luno

A nominal transaction fee is levied by Luno to send and receive Bitcoin, this fee includes the Bitcoin transaction fee.

Withdrawal Fees on Luno

When you withdraw money from your Luno account to your bank account, a small administrative fee is charged for processing this payment independent of the withdrawal amount. The fee is as listed in the table below:

Deposit Fees on Luno

Luno does not charge you for deposit. Any extra charge you might incur on deposit is that charged by the third-party payment processor. These fees are as in the table below.

Trading Fee

The MAKER pays no fee when trading, the TAKER pay 0.25% to 1.0% depending on the currency pair trade and monthly trade volume as below.

How Long Does withdrawal take?

Withdrawing your bitcoin to your bank account in your local currency is processed 3 times a day in Nigeria. By 8 pm, 11 am and 3 pm. When a withdraw is requested before 8 am, it will be processed by 8 am, if the withdraw request is made after 8 am, it will be processed by 11 am, if requested after 11 am, it will be processed by 3 pm. If made after 3 pm, it will be processed by 8 am the following day. After the withdrawal is processed, the time it arrives your bank account depends on your bank.

Just before writing this article, I made a withdrawal request to my GT bank account at 7:54 am and I got a credit alert at 8:33 am. This is a commendable improvement because in 2018 it usually takes 4 to 24 hours.

The table below shows the withdrawal release schedule for countries. Note, however, that to receive your money at the release time, you must make the withdrawal request before the withdrawal cut-off time. This only applies to business days (Mon to Fri).

Luno Support.

Luno has a very extensive HELP CENTER. Most of the questions you need an answer to will probably be there. In case you don’t find an answer to your question and you submit a support ticket, expect an answer within 3 to 4 days (from my personal experience), unlike Remitano that provides instant response.

Another issue is that the support team does not take time to dig deep into any issue on their first response. They would likely refer you to an answer in the ‘help centre’ (as they did in my case) which might not completely answer your question. A lot of people have complained that Luno is not really support oriented. They don’t give customers special attention. You will need to contact them severally if you need your issue thoroughly attended to.

Update March 2019

Luno customer support is now top notch. The emails are replied promptly and there is also an active LiveChat to attend to your questions in real time.

Guide — Using the Luno Wallet

To open a Luno wallet account go to Luno.com and “click sign up”. Enter the required details and make sure you verify your email address. You might be prompted to enable 2FA for additional protection of your account but don’t worry yourself about that, you can do that later.

2FA (Two Factor Authentication) means that each time you want to log into your account, you will be required to input addition pin code which will be sent to your mobile device.

When you have successfully logged in, your Luno account will look as below.

Luno login home page

  1. Displays your wallets (BTC Wallet, BCH Wallet, Your Local Currency Wallet)
  2. Shows your transaction history (buy, sell, deposit and withdrawals)
  3. Display your beneficiaries: You can add beneficiaries (only available to South African Users)
  4. Shows your promotional code. You can earn when you invite friends with the link
  5. You can trade Bitcoin by clicking on the exchange
  6. Allows you to send Bitcoin
  7. Shows you your Bitcoin/ Bitcoin Cash wallet address to receive Bitcoin
  8. Allows you to buy and sell Bitcoin instantly
  9. Deposit money into Luno in your local currency
  10. Withdraw money from Luno into your Local Bank account.
  11. Shows you your balance

How to know you Deposit and Withdrawal Limit

To know your current buying/selling limit, go to “Settings”. You will see your Level displayed. You can also upgrade your level by clicking on ‘upgrade’ next to ‘level’. Your limit depends on your level as I explained earlier.

Finding out your Bitcoin Address On Luno

If a User wants to send your Bitcoin and you are both Luno Users, you can use your email address to receive bitcoins. However, you will have to use your Public Bitcoin address to receive Bitcoin from someone who is not on Luno.

To Find your Bitcoin address go to Receive and click on ‘add address’. You can add as many addresses as you want. Bitcoin received by any of the addresses will reflect in your wallet.

Selling and Buying Bitcoin on Luno

There are two methods of buying and selling Bitcoin on Luno

  1. Instant buy/sell: in this case, once you have made deposit do Luno in your local currency, you click on ‘buy’. enter the amount of bitcoin you want to buy either in BTC or your local currency (depending on the amount you deposited). Your bitcoin wallet will be funded instantly. Follow the same process to sell your bitcoin but in this case, you have to click on ‘Sell’
  2. Trade on Exchange: to sell Bitcoin on through this method, Click ‘exchange’. Here you can choose the amount you want to sell you Bitcoin when Bitcoin price rises or falls to that price, your Bitcoin will be sold. this also applied to buy Bitcoin. if you are good at this, you can make more by selling when it’s high but tends to drop and buying when it’s low but tends to rise. That’s trading

Also read: Crypto Trading tutorial — How to win Every Trade

How Secure is your Bitcoin on Luno

The only additional Security in Luno is the 2FA. They do not have a Vault like Coinbase where two persons need to confirm a Bitcoin transaction before it’s sent. What this implies is that

  1. If some have your email password and phone, the person can log into your account and steal your Bitcoin (but with a vault, a second person needs to confirm that transaction before it is sent)
  2. You do not have sole control of your Bitcoin on Luno, Luno has access to your bitcoin since they provide you with the wallet. So they can take your Bitcoin, freeze your Bitcoin or hackers can hack into their platform and steal bitcoins. However, there is no known case of an occurrence of Luno’s platform being compromised. So we can still have trust in the integrity of Luno to keep our Bitcoin safe.

As a piece of advice, If you are in possession of a lot of Bitcoin, it is best you store it using a hardware wallet. A hardware wallet gives your sole and full control of your Bitcoin, no other person will have access to it except you. So you can buy Bitcoin on Luno but don’t leave a large amount of bitcoin in Luno wallet, move it to your hardware wallet.

Also read: The Best 4 hardware Wallet

It is Safe to Put give Luno your BVN?

This is one of the questions I received a lot from people who have read this review so I decided to include it in the review.

Luno requires your BVN to protect you from Identity theft and fraud to Nigerian customers. It cannot access your bank account through your BVN. As also stated on its site, it will not share your BVN or any of your personal information with a third party.

Conclusion — Is Luno a good broker/exchange?

As you can see from this pretty long review, Luno has its pros and cons. Its main pro is that it is all in one — it’s an easy to use platform that provides users with a Bitcoin wallet and makes it easy for users to buy, sell, send, receive and Trade Bitcoin. The main con is that you don’t have complete control of your Bitcoin and Ethereum as is with other exchanges. Also, your withdrawal is limited to 3 window period and you cannot withdraw on weekends or public holidays.

My personal opinion is this — use Luno to buy your Bitcoins, the service is awesome, fast, easy and about the cheapest(although Remitano is sometimes cheaper). However, once you buy your Bitcoins, get them to a more secure wallet hardware wallet that you have complete control on. You can also maximize your bitcoin by learning how to trade.

Open a Free LUNO Account

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Originally published at https://nigeriabitcoincommunity.com/luno-review-bitcoin-btc-eth-exchange/ on August 24, 2017. Update March 11, 2019.

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Nigeria Bitcoin Community

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Nigeriabitcoincommunity.com is a top Nigerian blogthat gives bitcoin and cryptocurrency education, review crypto based site and businesses, expose scam, news

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