Independent Reserve is one of a handful of Australian bitcoin exchanges that offers enough trading volume to use.  They have fallen a good ways behind AUD market leader btcmarkets, but their fees can be a good deal less. Provided the Independent Reserve order book can support your order at any given moment – which depends greatly on the time of day and your general order size – they are the cheaper option.  However, we do not agree with their design choices:

If you can stomach the homepage and general look and feel, Independent Reserve offers Australian markets against the top few cryptocurrencies, with local deposit options.   

Opening an account

Opening an Account with Independent reserve requires sending over a selfie holding your ID, a close up of said ID, and a proof of address, which might be a bank statement or utility bill.  Please make sure the document is no more than 6 months old or it will be rejected.

Generally speaking, verification is very quickly done, and you should be set to begin trading in just one business day provided all proofs are adequately sent.

Deposits and Withdrawals at Independent Reserve

Withdrawals to AUD bank accounts are free. Withdrawals are often manually approved which could take up to 1 business day. After that, expect an additional 1 business day until the withdrawal hits your account.

Product

The Trade tab opens up your trade slip, which offers market and limit orders.  The order book is set up next to the slip, and you can toggle through the different cryptocurrencies from the upper left hand corner, just under the main navigation bar.

If you are looking for some additional information, like a simple trade history chart, as well as the most recent trades, you’ll have to navigate to the “market” tab from the main navigation.  

The spreads are, generally speaking, pretty ok during local trading hours. If you are looking to buy a large amount of bitcoin, you might have a bit of difficulty. Independent Reserve has opened an OTC desk for just such situations, though they specify that this is meant for institutional clients.  

We would imagine however that they would be open to processing your mid-sized orders as well, considering the newness of the program.  Your Australian OTC business is better than no Australian OTC business! It is worth registering for the program, if you anticipate buying relatively sizeable amounts of crypto using AUD.  

Fees

Trading fees are based on monthly trading volumes, and retroactively adjusted when you hit a new tier. Fees start at 0.5% at a trading volume of 0, and every 15 of bitcoin traded adjusts the commission down .02$, so that at 15 the fee is .48%, 30 .46%, and so on until a low of .1% at 900 bitcoin monthly traded – a noble aspiration, but probably not possible considering the daily trading volumes.

The same fee theory applies to litecoin, ethereum, and bitcoin cash, with tiers adjusted to account for the price differences between the coins.  

We appreciate the chance to lower fees, but probably could do with less tiers – 21 are a bit too many.  

Mobile

You can trade on your mobile device, but it really is not recommended. If you absolutely must make a trade you are able, but not much thought has been put into making it comfortable.

Bottom Line

Independent Reserve is one a just a few exchanges that cater specifically to the Australian market.  It makes for a good way to get your Australian or New Zealand dollars into and out of bitcoin, but after that you are probably better off transferring the coin elsewhere if you plan to actively trade.