Bitstamp is a cryptocurrency exchange based in Luxembourg. In April 2016, the Luxembourgish government granted a license to Bitstamp to be fully regulated in the EU as a payment institution, allowing it to do business in all 28 EU member states. Bitstamp store the vast majority of the digital assets in secure offline storage and this exchange has transparent volume-based pricing with no hidden fees. The trading platform is very easy to use and it offers two-factor authentication. Bitstamp has created a set of their own rules which they follow in order to prevent any shady financial practices on their platform.

The exchange was last time hacked in January of 2015 and currently stands as safe and reliable. In February 2014, the company suspended withdrawals for several days in the face of a distributed denial-of-service. I have found that people behind the attack sent a ransom demand of 75 bitcoins to Kodrič (Bitstamp is headed by CEO Nejc Kodrič), who refused due to a company policy against negotiating with “terrorists”. Days after restoring service, Bitstamp temporarily suspended withdrawals for some users as a security precaution due to increased phishing attempts. In January 2015, Bitstamp suspended its service after a hack during which less than 19,000 bitcoins were stolen. This attack appears to have targeted the remaining 10-15% of cryptocurrency that is stored on servers in a data center. I also found on forums a few alleged reports by individuals, who claim their accounts were hacked. It is hard to verify their claims or if they aren’t to blame for mistakes like having a weak password. Bitstamp has a very good reputation with best security practices and in my opinion, this cryptocurrency exchange is relatively safe. Security systems are constantly upgraded and tested to ensure that Bitstamp is exceeding industry-best standards. The company has invested a lot of time and money into making their user experience smooth and painless. You can verify identity by submitting a scanned image of your passport, national ID or driver’s license together with the proof of residency. A deposit can be made by depositing digital currency and/or Fiat currency. Some users are complaining that their withdrawal has been processed after two weeks or more. I have also noticed some complaints about slightly higher fees if you are trading lower volumes. Some users have complained about horrible customer support from Bitstamp staffers. Support requests sent to email address may be ignored and there is no live chat available at this moment. In my opinion, the customer support should be better and certainly needs some improvements. Bitstamp certainly needs to increase their support staff in order to solve the support issues very fastly because newcomers might afraid investing with Bitstamp.

Experiences with Bitstamp

I did not find any incidents and complaints that make this exchange scam but Bitstamp certainly needs some improvements to become a more reliable partner. I have found some negative reviews on the forums but this is connected with the situation that Bitstamp has been unprepared for a surge of new users and surge in trading in last several months. Support was fast and everything worked just fine before this huge income of new users. Support got slower, but it is far from not existing. One thing we all need to realize is that the world is going crazy over all things crypto. Most exchanges are struggling with the number of new users / extra load on the servers etc. The following quotes give you a sense of what other traders think about this cryptocurrency exchange:

• Bitstamp is one of the most popular fiat to Bitcoin exchanges. Tracing its beginnings to the first generation of exchanges, Bitstamp provides their customers with an easy to use, secure and reliable service since 2011
• Bitstamp allows you to execute instant orders at the best bid or ask price as well as place limit orders, stop loss, and trailing stop orders. This exchange is certainly not scam
• Bitstamp is perfectly fine. So many bad reviews here are just complaints about how they can’t get an account now that the entire world is trying to trade crypto
• I’ve been with Bitstamp for almost 4 years and I’ve had zero problems
• Terribly slow customer service, weeks and weeks and still waiting for verification. Lost a lot of profit making opportunities
• I have an account on Bitstamp and I can’t withdraw my etherum and ripple
• I have not received any answer from support, 3 weeks and still waiting
• Best Platform, SEPA Money transfer takes only 2-3 days.. CC Payment is very fast.. Only support responses very slow but they answer
• Never had any issues with Bitstamp
• Support was fast and everything worked just fine before this huge income of new users. Support got slower, but it is far from not existing. I made some complaint about my deposit or display, they did reply, rather fast
• Just signed up, everything went smoothly. Uploaded all the necessary docs, Enabled 2FA, Just waiting for approval
• Their support is awful, and recently i think they are trying to keep the transfers as long as possible for themselves before releasing it to the customer account
• I am very satisfied with the service

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