Coin Storage
As is standard with most exchanges these days, Coinsmart operates a coin cold storage protocol. This means that the majority of their coins are kept in offline storage which makes it is impossible for hackers to access the coins.
In order to facilitate daily business on the exchange, they will keep a minimum amount of coins in their 'hot wallets'. They will probably also use multi-signature technology to move coins from their cold storage to their hot wallets and back.
Irrespective of the coin management protocol at Coinsmart, it is not advisable to keep large holdings of coins on any exchange. The optimal solution is to be in control of your own private keys.
Communication Encryption
As is standard with most financial websites these days, Coinsmart has full SSL encryption on their site. This means that all of the communication that you submit on their site as well as your password information cannot be intercepted by online snoops.
Moreover, this can be quite a helpful tool for the user when they are logging into sites that are susceptible to hacking and phishing attacks. Full SSL encryption means that you will be presented with a padlock in the browser.
If you happen to log onto a site that has the same domain as Coinsmart but there is no SSL padlock it means that a hacker is trying to dupe you into providing information to a phishing site. So be aware of this indicator.
User Side Security
Of course, most of the security that one can hope for starts with your own account management. You will want to get yourself a strong password for which Coinsmart has a handy generator. If you are going to use this, it is wise to generate the password in an offline state.
However, even if your password is somehow leaked or phished from you, two factor authentications will stop unauthorized access. This makes use of the Google authenticator app which you can download from the iOS store as well as Google Play.
2FA is an additional security feature that is offered and it is not enabled by default. We advise you to enable this the moment that you have created an account and trade with piece of mind.
Coinsmart Assets
There appears to be a reasonable range of cryptocurrency assets available on Coinsmart which is mostly in line with other Canada based exchanges.
Below is a full list of the coins that are available at the time of the review:
- Bitcoin (BTC)
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Litecoin (LTC)
- Ripple (XRP)
- Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCH)
- Monero (XMR)
- Dash (DASH)
What is interesting is that they are the first Canadian based exchange to offer XMR/CAD pairs. While Kraken does offer Monero on their exchanges, users will first have to buy Bitcoin with their Fiat CAD in order to get their hands on it.
Coinsmart has stated that they will soon be adding other coins including EOS, Stellar, NEO, IOTA and OMG. It is interesting that they are not considering Ethereum Classic (ETC) given the technical similarities to Ethereum. Perhaps this is something they may include at a later date.