Mercatox – Electronic P2P Exchange Review

Mercatox has a 1.7 star (out of 5) rating on Trustpilot. Nearly every review is 1-star, with users citing withdrawal issues, trades taking days to process, constant maintenance issues, money going missing, and some trades never completing even after months or even years of waiting.

There were a few five star reviews, but some of these were mistakes by the users who called the site a scam in their actual comments. With so many other quality crypto exchanges available, trading with Mercatox is taking an unnecessary risk.

Mercatox is a cryptocurrency exchange that offers peer-to-peer trading on hundreds of different digital assets. From their website, very little information is available. The information that is provided is poorly written and doesn’t inspire confidence.

Fees are not my major concern with this exchange. While 0.25% per trade is higher than some exchanges, it’s still lower than some other popular crypto exchanges like Coinbase (if trading small amounts).

The main issue is the spreads. On Binance, for example, the spread for buying/selling BTC/USDT (Bitcoin/Tether) is usually one to a few dollars. Compare that to Mercatox, where it is often $1,000 or more! This means there are very few people trading on the platform. This can be extremely costly if you want to get into or out of trades quickly.

The highest bid in the middle of the US session, for example, was $22,400, while the lowest offer was $26,440. That’s more than $4000 apart. You can of course place your own bids and offers in between these and hopefully someone will trade with you at a better rate.

Here is an example of the order history on Mercatox for BTC/USDT, one of the most commonly traded crypto pairs.

First, you will notice extremely little volume and few transactions. One transaction goes through about every 20-30 minutes. The sizes (in BTC) are also relatively small, under $1000 in value.

Look at the orders at 10:21 and 10:48 (top two). A sale goes through at 25,510 and a buy goes through at 22,579. That means there was a monster spread of almost $3000.

Imagine if you paid $25.5K only to see other orders going through at $22.5. A $3K difference on approximately $25K is more than 10%. That is even worse than AAATrade which has a roughly $800 spread when trading Bitcoin.

There is a flip side to this. Someone is getting good prices while someone else is losing way more than they need to (compared to if they traded on another exchange). This may be alluring. You could sit and wait for someone to give you a great price.

But also recall the various user reviews warning that you may not be able to get your funds out. The crypto you purchased may take days or even months to show up in your account, and in some cases, it may never show up. Therefore, the chance of making profit off of these massive spreads is still minimal. You may end up with no money/crypto at all.

You can’t deposit, withdraw, or trade in fiat currencies. You can trade crypto to crypto, and you can only deposit and withdraw crypto. This means you need to transfer crypto into your Mercatox e-wallet, and you can only transfer crypto our of your e-wallet to another one.

For verified users, there is a maximum withdrawal of 5 BTC (or equivalent) per 24 hour period. For unverified users, the maximum daily withdrawal limit is 0.5 BTC (or equivalent). The following sheet shows the withdrawal fees, as well as the minimum deposit and withdrawal amounts.

Some of the coins on this list have no trading activity for a long time, showing at this list (provided by Mercatox on their website) likely hasn’t been updated in years.

Mercatox doesn’t have a trading app, which puts it way behind its competitors. You need to log in to the Mercatox website directly to trade.

While monitoring the platform for a couple hours, the prices never changed, the bids and offers didn’t change. Only occasionally was there a spam comment in the chat box. This is no “Level II” showing where all the current bids and offers are (and their volume), only the highest bid and offer are shown.

The platform only updates when there is trading activity, and as discussed in the Trading Conditions section, very few transactions ever go through. Note the high and low price for this day was a high of 26,442 and a low of 22,235. Volume for the whole day is only 22,647 USDT.

Just for comparison, let’s compare that to Binance. For the same day it shows a high of 26,970 and a low of 24,620 with 14.5 billion USDT traded.

Binance tracks the actual price thousand of traders are willing to pay at any time. Mercatox doesn’t, because hardly anyone is trading on the platform.

You can gain such bonuses — which are undisclosed and will be “updated on a regular basis” according to the company webpage on the matter — by referring other people to the website.  While many exchanges do offer “referral” bonuses, most exchanges focus on trading. If you trade more, you are rewarded with cheaper rates, for example.

Mercatox doesn’t offer bonuses for trading — just getting others to sign up. Also, receiving interest isn’t really a bonus. Almost every exchange offers interest on crypto deposits if you opt in to receiving it.

Mercatox does not offer phone or live chat support. You can only talk to them via email or by opening a support ticket. Open a support ticket here: https://support.mercatox.com/

Contact Mercatox via email here: support@mercatox.com. The Mercatox website does not offer guidance, information, or educational resources on how to trade crypto or how to use the trading platform.

What kind of wallet does Mercatox offer?

It offers its own wallet which accepts all crypto currencies. It is a hot wallet, meaning your coins are stored with Mercatox. While Mercotax claims its wallet is secure, they provide no details on the security protocols they use.

Does Mercatox offer maker/taker pricing?

No. All orders are charged a 0.25% fee regardless of whether you are the maker or taker on the trade. “Maker” is when you place an order and someone else transacts with it. A “taker” is the person trading against an existing order.

What countries is Mercatox available in?

Mercatox claims they are available in all countries. You just need to be 18 years or older and have a valid email address.

What order types does Mercatox offer?

Mercatox offers limit, market, and stop orders. These are basic order types and will satisfy the needs of most traders.

What fiat currencies can I deposit and withdraw into my Mercatox account?

None. Mercatox only allows crypto deposits, withdrawals, and trading. If you want to use fiat currencies in any way you will need to use a different exchange.

What is the minimum deposit and withdrawal limit for a Mercatox account?

The minimum deposit is 0.0001 BTC and the minimum withdrawal is 0.001 BTC. For ETH the min. deposit is 0.008 ETH and the min. withdrawal is 0.016 ETH. The minimums vary based on the coin, and whether it is a deposit or withdrawal. Withdrawal minimums are typically two to three times as much as the deposit minimum.

Final Thoughts on Mercatox Review

Traders are better off going with a larger crypto exchange like Coinbase, Binance, or one of the many others that are available. See our Crypto Brokers Review page.

Mercatox doesn’t offer a trading app, its fees are higher than its competitors, it has a very low trust rating and is unregulated, and the prices on the platform don’t update because no one is trading, which also means massive spreads.

Each trader must make their own decision on who they want to trade with. There is nothing that makes Mercatox better than its competitors, and as we’ve seen, there is a long list of reasons why it is worse.