GokuMarket Review

GokuMarket is a cryptocurrency exchange registered in Hong Kong. It has been up and running since November 2019. Its primary markets are France, Czech Republic, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Thailand, Japan, Vietnam and Ecuador, so quite a mix there country wise. The platform is also licensed in Europe.

On 13 February 2021 when we first published this review, GokuMarket had a 24-hour trading volume of USD 30.8 million, according to the information from Coinmarketcap. On the date of last updating this review (22 September 2021), GokuMarkets 24-hour trading volume was USD 177.5 million. This 24-hour trading volume is quite decent, and the increase over the last 7 months (almost 500%) is definitely noteworthy.

There is a wide range of functions available to the users of the GokuMarket platform. You can enable trading bots here, you can do advanced crypto trading, you can engage in staking, they have a shopping segment and credit defi-systems etc. It is clear that they are trying to include as many services as possible on its platform to the benefit of their users.

GokuMarket Mobile Support

Most crypto traders feel that desktop give the best conditions for their trading. The computer has a bigger screen, and on bigger screens, more of the crucial information that most traders base their trading decisions on can be viewed at the same time. The trading chart will also be easier to display. However, not all crypto investors require desktops for their trading. Some prefer to do their crypto trading via their mobile phone. Fortunately for them, GokuMarket is available as mobile applications for both Android and iPhone users (the below picture is from the AppStore).

GokuMarket Trading View

Every trading platform has a trading view. The trading view is the part of the exchange’s website where you can see the price chart of a certain cryptocurrency and what its current price is. There are normally also buy and sell boxes, where you can place orders with respect to the relevant crypto, and, at most platforms, you will also be able to see the order history (i.e., previous transactions involving the relevant crypto). Everything in the same view on your desktop. There are of course also variations to what we have now described. This is the trading view at GokuMarket (when not signed in):

It is up to you – and only you – to decide if the above trading view is suitable to you. Finally, there are usually many different ways in which you can change the settings to tailor the trading view after your very own preferences.

US-investors

Why do so many exchanges not allow US citizens to open accounts with them? The answer has only three letters. S, E and C (the Securities Exchange Commission). The reason the SEC is so scary is because the US does not allow foreign companies to solicit US investors, unless those foreign companies are also registered in the US (with the SEC). If foreign companies solicit US investors anyway, the SEC can sue them. There are many examples of when the SEC has sued crypto exchanges, one of which being when they sued EtherDelta for operating an unregistered exchange. Another example was when they sued Bitfinex and claimed that the stablecoin Tether (USDT) was misleading investors. It is very likely that more cases will follow.

It is unclear to us whether Goku Market permits US investors or not. We have read their Terms and Conditions and have not found an explicit prohibition of US investors. We urge any US investors to form their own opinion on the permissibility of their trading at Goku Market though.

GokuMarket Fees

GokuMarket Trading fees

Every time you place an order, the exchange charges you a trading fee. The trading fee is normally a percentage of the value of the trade order. Normally, exchanges distinguishes between takers and makers. Takers are the one who “take” an existing order from the order book. Makers are the ones who add orders to the order book, thereby making liquidity at the platform.

At GokuMarket, the standard trading fees are 0.15% for takers and the same (i.e., no discount) for makers. 0.15% is in line with, or even slightly below, the global industry averages for centralized exchanges. Industry averages have historically been around 0.20-0.25% but we now see new industry averages emerging around 0.10%-0.15%. According to the latest empirical study on the subject, the industry average taker fees were 0.217% and the industry average maker fees were 0.164% (for spot trading). Consequently, GokuMarkets fees are well below both of these industry averages.

You can also receive discounts on these trading fees if you are "active" on the platform. We have had difficulties in understanding how activeness is measured, but we assume that it has to do with your trading volume. The exact trading fee discounts are set out in the below table, although the table is missing many details we normally see in these types of table (for instance, how to achieve the various ranks):

GokuMarket Withdrawal fees

GokuMarket charges a withdrawal fee amounting to 0.001 BTC when you withdraw BTC. This fee is far above the industry average, as the industry average according to the only empirical study performed on the subject that we know of, this one, is 0.00064 BTC per BTC-withdrawal.

Deposit Methods

GokuMarket lets you deposit assets to the exchange in many different ways, through wire transfer, debit card, and also by just depositing existing cryptocurrency assets. Fiat currency payments/deposits are possible in the following fiat currencies: EUR, USD, INR, GBP, RUB, UAH, TRY, KZT and BRL.

Seeing as fiat currency deposits are possible at this trading platform, GokuMarket qualifies as an “entry-level exchange”, meaning an exchange where new crypto investors can start their journey into the exciting crypto world.