An honest review of Luno, a promising crypto exchange where users can buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and more.
Founded | 2013 |
Headquarters | UK |
Website | https://www.luno.com |
Daily volume trading | $96,140,204 (2020) |
Number of cryptocurrencies | 6 |
Crypto licences | France, Malaysia, Singapore |
Cryptocurrency Fees | 0.15% - 4.5% (charged on spread) |
Minimum deposit | USD $10.00 |
Digital Wallet | Yes, on a mobile app |
Promotion | None |
Currency | Cryptocurrencies and Fiat |
Deposit Method | Card, Bank |
Luno is a UK-based cryptocurrency exchange operating across Europe, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, and South Africa. The company currently has three offices around the world in London, Cape Town, and Singapore. Founded in 2013 under the name BitX and rebranding to Luno in 2016, the company has grown to serve over 7 million customers with a team of 400+.
Under the guidance of CEO Marcus Swanpoel, Luno has raised 13.8 million to date from investors such as Balderton Capital, Digital Currency Group, and Venturra Capital.
At the time of writing, Luno had a 24 hour trading volume of $68,706,734. It currently supports only six coins – Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Ripple (XRP), and USD Coin (USDC).
Luno’s strengths lie in its usability. It’s an easy to navigate, relatively straightforward crypto exchange that makes it easy for newcomers to jump right in and invest. The exchange also offers a mobile app with similarly clean design. Luno app reviews are generally positive.
Opening an account and making an investment in crypto is relatively easy. Be sure to have bank statements and proof of residential address nearby – in some countries, the amount you can deposit and withdraw is tied to how many identity documents you’ve uploaded.
Luno’s interface is clean and uncluttered. Buying on Luno is seamless, but the user experience for selling could use some work. Unlike other exchanges, there’s no button allowing you to sell the entire contents of your wallet – the number needs to be entered manually. With the price of crypto where it is, that’s a lot of decimal places to remember.
You can also withdraw your coins, and send them to other wallets. There is a week-long cool down period after enabling the send feature. This is presumably for security reasons, but it ends up being massively inconvenient for the user.
If you have an issue with your account, good luck getting to a human. Customer support on Luno is difficult to access and requires digging. To contact Luno’s customer care team, users have the option of emailing them at [email protected], or submitting a ticket in the help centre, which also has extensive documentation that covers most problems.
Security on Luno complies with the industry standard. They have email based login verification, and it’s possible to set up 2FA with a mobile phone that uses Google Authenticator or Authy.
Fees on Luno depend on the user’s country, and can differ wildly. One major downside is the presence of inactivity fees buried deep in the Terms and Conditions (which I’m sure everyone reads). Users storing local currency in a wallet for a period exceeding three months face a USD 2.00 fee per month. Yikes!
Overall, our Luno review is positive, though there are plenty of things that could be improved.
Is Luno legit? Luno is legit, and a great exchange for novice users, but the difficulty of accessing customer care and finding relevant information might make it off-putting to crypto veterans.
If you want to finance a life of crime with ill-begotten crypto gains, you’ll have to look elsewhere. Much like your bank account, Luno takes a stringent approach to security and regulation, closely adhering to anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) processes. For customers, this mainly means that extensive documentation is required when opening a Luno Account. This can change based on country of residence and deposit/withdrawal limits, but it’s safe to assume you’ll need at least a passport/drivers license/ national ID.
Occasionally, hackers will attempt to extort exchanges by launching a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack, knocking the exchange offline and requiring that they pay up to regain access. While there is no explicit documentation, customer service representatives have asserted that Luno’s DDoS mitigation is “among the best”.
Luno has not been hacked, or at least has not acknowledged any security breaches publicly. Buyer beware – Luno’s supported cryptocurrencies are not subject to any government-backed deposit insurance, or any other government protections.
Luno uses multi-sig wallets to store the majority of customer funds in “deep freeze” storage. What this essentially means is that taking any Bitcoins from deep freeze requires a coordinated effort to get past multiple security checks and layers of encryption. Hot wallets are also multi-signature, with Luno holding one of the keys and security company BitGo holding the other. Practically, this means that attackers need to bypass two systems to get to those sweet, sweet coins.
Luno supports the use of two-factor authentication (Luno level 2 verification), which generates a one-time code accessible from a registered smartphone, followed by identity verification. Company-wide, Luno uses SSL-secured channels and uses PGP (pretty good privacy) encryption. Overall, the security at Luno looks functional – your coins will probably be safe with them.
Luno has made opening an account relatively easy. To open your own and start trading on the Luno website, follow these instructions.
1. Sign up with the invite link: https://www.luno.com/invite/5MG588
2. Click the “Sign Up” button in the upper right hand corner, and enter your email and password. You may be asked to verify your email.
3. You’re in! You’ll want to verify your account next. To do so, navigate to the “Profile” button on the upper left hand corner, and choose “Settings” from the menu that follows.
4. Next, choose “Verification” from the menu.
5. You’ll be asked to provide an ID document, a selfie, proof of residential address, and proof of residency. Once you’ve submitted all the information, the exchange will review it and let you know if it has been accepted.
Ok, you have a Luno account and you want to trade. How can you get started?
1. If you would like to buy crypto from the exchange, navigate to the Home page, and select the type and amount of crypto you want to buy. Luno users can also set up repeat crypto purchases
2. Once you’ve selected the amount of crypto you want to buy, proceed to payment.
3. If you already have crypto, you can send it to your Luno wallet. Luno already has a standard Bitcoin wallet. If you want to send a different type of crypto, you have the option to set up a new wallet.
4. Once you have a wallet, you can send crypto to it from other wallets using the wallet address.
5. Deposit and buy €250 in any crypto and get €25.00 free BTC
Currencies supported are:
Users in Europe, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, and South Africa can trade on Luno.
Yes, Luno offers a custodial mobile wallet, which is available on iOS, Google Play, and the web, so you can access your coins on the go. Luno controls the private keys and seed phrase, which means you are not in control of your coins. Any Luno wallet review should take into account that it is best suited for beginners.
Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Ripple (XRP), and USD Coin (USDC) are all available on Luno. Some coins might not be available in every country, so check your jurisdiction.
Luno is safe, or as safe as a crypto exchange can be. They use encryption, multi-sig wallets, PGP, two-factor authentication, and SSL.
The minimum deposit is USD $10.00 – not too bad!
Opening a Luno account is pretty easy – just head to the signup page, enter an email address, pick a password, and you’re in. Make sure you have identity documents and proof of address to hand – your verification level and the amount you can trade depends on how much documentation you’ve provided.
To contact Luno’s customer care team, users have the option of emailing them at [email protected], or submitting a ticket in the help centre, which also has extensive documentation that covers most problems.
You can also contact Luno on Twitter @LunoHelp. If you want to use the Live Chat function, you’ll need to dig through a mountain of documentation. Once you get there, though, the customer service reps are very good.
There is no such thing as a Luno promotion code hack that works all the time, but you might want to follow up with their promotions in your country. Depending on your geographic area the promo codes might give you some additional incentives to join and trade.
Visit Luno
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