LUNO REVIEW 2017 – THE 1 THING YOU HAVE TO KNOW ABOUT.

LUNO

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. They started as Bitx in 2013 in Singapore and have since then expanded to over 42 countries. On Jan 11, 2017, they changed their brand name to Luno (meaning ‘Moon’), this must have been a well-thought rebranding because they grew exponentially in 2017. Luno provides Bitcoin services that are similar to that’s of Coinbase, However, they were able to make their Bitcoin wallet and exchange services available in countries where Coinbase exchange services are not supported. Signup- https://www.luno.com/invite/8HREH

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.

Luno Review 2017 – Cryptocurrencies Supported on Luno.

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

Luno Review 2017 – 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. Signup- https://www.luno.com/invite/8HREH

Luno Required Verification Method

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

To buy and sell Bitcoin, you will need to supply a valid bank account to allow Luno transfer.

Verification includes; email verification, phone number verification, identity verification (using a government issues ID) and resident verification. Signup- https://www.luno.com/invite/8HREH

Luno Buying and Selling Limits

Now that you have set up your Luno account, you will only be able to buy and sell a small amount of bitcoin on Luno until you raise this limit (However, there is no Limit to the amount of Bitcoin you can send or receive into your wallet).

There are four account levels on Luno and this will determine the amount of bitcoin you can buy or sell on the platform. For example, in Nigeria the limits are as follows:

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. Signup- https://www.luno.com/invite/8HREH

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 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 on the Luno platform. 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. Signup- https://www.luno.com/invite/8HREH

Currency	Method	Fee
BTC	Send to Bitcoin address	Dynamic
BTC	Send to email address	Free
BTC	Receive Bitcoin address	BTC. 0.0002
BTC	Receive by email address or mobile number	free

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:

Currency	Method	Fee
BCH	Bitcoin Cash	BCH 0.00
EUR	SEPA Transfer	EUR 0.30
IDR	Bank Transfer	IDR 6,500.00
MYR	Interbank GIRO / IBFT	MYR 0.10
NGN	Bank Transfer	NGN 200.00
ZAR	EFT	ZAR 8.50

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. Signup- https://www.luno.com/invite/8HREH

Currency	Method	Fee
BCH	Bitcoin Cash	Free
NGN	Debit or Credit card via PayU	1.50% (max NGN 2,000)
EUR	SEPA Transfer	Free
MYR	Interbank GIRO / IBFT	Free
ZAR	EFT	Free
ZAR	Cash Deposit Penalty	ZAR 20.00 + 5.00%
IDR	Doku Wallet via Doku	0.00%
IDR	Alfamart via Doku	0.00%
IDR	Bank Transfer	Free
IDR	ATM Transfer via Doku	0.00%

How Long Does withdrawal take?

Withdrawing your bitcoin to your bank account in your local currency is processed automatically Luno. However, the withdrawal time depends on your bank and your country.

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. From my experience, this is not always the case, but you will surely receive your money within 24 hours. Signup- https://www.luno.com/invite/8HREH

Currency [Timezone]	Withdrawal cut-off time	Withdrawal release time
IDR [GMT+7]	14:30 20:00	15:30 21:00
MYR [GMT+8]	14:00 21:00	15:00 22:00
NGN [GMT+1]	08:00 11:00 15:00	09:00 12:00 16:00
ZAR [GMT+2]	08:00 15:00	09:00 16:00
EUR [GMT+1]	08:00 15:00	09:00 16:00

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).

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 your need your issue thoroughly attended to.

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 inviting friends with the link
5. You can trade Bitcoin by clicking on 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

Knowing your Buying and selling Limits

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 buying 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.

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 has 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 an advice, If you are in possession of a lot of Bitcoin, it is best you store it using a hardware wallet (I will write on Hardware wallets soon). 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 with Luno but don’t leave a large amount of bitcoin in Luno wallet, move it to your hardware wallet.

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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 their customer care is not so great.

My personal opinion is this – use Luno to buy your Bitcoins, the service is awesome, fast, easy and about the cheapest. However, once you buy your Bitcoins, get them to a more secure wallet hardware wallet that you have complete control on.

Signup- https://www.luno.com/invite/8HREH