Pretty much all the crypto-exchanges in India are now open book exchanges. All these exchanges also provide a wallet service to store your Cryptoassets, albeit you don’t get the private key. And then there is Instacrypto. Neither open book nor proving wallet service. It is simple, place an order, pay for it, you will receive the crypto at the address you provide.
Contents
What is Instacrypto?
Instacrypto is a Bengaluru based closed-book cryptocurrency exchange, rebranded from Trybitcoin.in. Trybitcoin used to be an exchange to buy Bitcoins, as the name suggests. Instacrypto is founded by Vikram Nikkam. Vikram’s LinkedIn profile tells us he’s been the ‘founder and CEO’ of Unocoin’s parent company Unobit Solutions Private Limited.
Dozens and dozens of exchanges are available in India to Buy and Sell Cryptocurrencies. One of them is Instacrypto, but it is quite unique as I said before. Here’s why.
Crypto to your Personal Wallet
Instacrypto does not offer a wallet to store your purchased cryptocurrency. Enter your private wallet address before placing the order. The amount of ordered currency will be sent to your wallet after the payment has been made and confirmed.
We tested this out by buying 0.05 ETH, more on that later.
Available Currencies/Assets
Offers Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ether (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Litecoin (LTC), DOGE, Vertcoin (VTC) and Bitcoin Gold (BTG) at the time of this writing.
Sign Up and KYC
Signing up took less than 2 minutes. The documents required are PAN, Aadhaar and a Cancelled Bank Cheque/Statement. After signing up the KYC was completed in a few minutes for me.
Fees
Trade fee is 0.5% for all coins
The Network fee to transfer crypto to your wallet differs from Coin-to-coin but it is cheaper than many exchanges. For example Bitcoin fee charged is 0.0005 and the same for Ethereum.
Placing an Order
We tested out the Exchange by placing an order for ETH.
Choose the Coin to Buy/Sell
Place the Order (We placed a Buy Order)
Once you enter the Crypto Value (Amount) or INR Amount, the other one is automatically calculated.
Then enter your wallet address. This could be your private wallet address or the exchange wallet where you want to transfer your funds.
This is where you will receive the Cryptocurrency after order is completed.
Verify Order and Choose Payment Method
When you verify the order, two extra charges are added. Trade/Service Fee and Network Fee.
Trade Fee is 0.5% of the trade value and Network fee is the charge to transfer your cryptocurrency from Instacrypto to your wallet.
Payment can be made by IMPS or UPI. We paid using UPI on Google Tez. You will have to verify your phone number and enter an OTP, this is Instacrypto’s 2FA
Provide Payment Transaction Details
You will be asked to enter the Order number (Not sure why), and the UPI reference number.
Once we entered those and submitted, we got a message “Thank you for submitting your transaction details. We will verify and transfer your crypto at earliest”.
Wait For The Crypto
It took exactly 5 minutes for the transfer. We received an email “Your Order Is Complete”.
Unfortunately you cannot see the transaction Hash in Instacrypto yet. So we found it on Etherscan using the ETH address and indeed we had received the 0.05 ETH.
Like Shopping on an E-commerce website:
Instacrypto provides invoices and order details about the purchase. It is a different experience and quite refreshing. We felt we just bought ETH from an online e-commerce website like we buy mobile phones or other gadgets.
Referral:
There is a referral program for Instacrypto users. For every referred user who joins, the referring user gets a coupon code worth INR 100.
Don’t be surprised if messages like the one below start popping up on social media
I just registered on the new exchange instacrypto.in, blah blah blah. You can also join my clicking below https://www.instacrypto.in/?raf=refxxxxxx
Few Important Highlights:
- Instacrypto is working well apart from the need of a few updates like providing Trx Hash after order completion and brining the spread down.
- Vikram Nikkam has been active in the crypto space with regular meetups around blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
- Instacrypto is relatively safe as your crypto is not stored online on their exchange.
- SMS OTP based 2FA before placing the order is good and reliable.
- There is no specific privacy policy on the website, but there is terms & conditions and detailed KYC & AML policies. With BACC’s proposal of centralised repository, your trade data isn’t going to remain quite a mystery.
Coin Crunch Opinion
By this time I am sure you all know Telegram user Gabru. He asked me a genuine question today “Do you do any due diligence before publishing the review?”
We don’t do a thorough code and security check of-course but we do our due diligence. We personally reach out to the co-founders, we test out the product by doing real trades. When we find issues, we report to founders as well as on the review we publish. But cryptocurrency carries various risks so we expect our readers to be cautious nonetheless.
Regarding Instacrypto, we like the interface and the quick trade that we managed to complete. If you want to start trading, start slow. The only exchange selling Dogecoin right now.
Have you tried using InstaCrypto? Let us know in the comments below
Disclaimer: Reviews on Coin Crunch India are based on the team’s experience. The experience may differ for other individuals. We do all necessary checks to ensure the safety of an exchange and report any problems or vulnerability. Yet, cryptocurrencies are volatile and hence very risky to trade in. Do your own research before investing. Posts may contain referral links.
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