ICE3X Exchange Review

Local/Regional Exchange - cannot be rated at this time.

ICE3X, which is also known as iceCUBED, is a centralized cryptocurrency exchange from South Africa that was established in December 2013. Its founder is Gareth Gobler, who has 14 years of experience in IT infrastructure and Architecture development. The vision of ICE3X seems to be to provide the best cryptocurrency trading platform in South Africa, therefore it has more of a regional rather than a global focus. Moreover, the company behind the exchange is a registered South African firm called Internet Currency Evolution Cubed Ltd, therefore the exchange has legitimacy.

Due to its regional focus, ICE3X uses only the South African Rand (ZAR) and the Nigerian Naira (NGN) as fiat tethers and focuses more on well-recognized currencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum. Its trading volume is quite limited with roughly $57,000 or 4.8 BTC traded daily. In addition, ICE3X offers 13 trading pairs, 8 different cryptocurrencies and serves the crypto space via no less than 19 active markets. Not surprisingly, the most active trading pair in the exchange is BTC/ZAR due to the exchange’s strong focus in South Africa.

The exchange operates using a ‘flat fee’ for trading of 0.50%, which is high for the industry, however, if a user’s trading volume exceeds 1 BTC, the trading fees will be 0.35% and if it exceeds 100 BTC, the fees are 0.25%. Therefore, it seems that this exchange is specifically tailored for the users interested in trading ZAR or NGN.

ICE3X has also partnered with a Nigerian payment processor called VoguePay and launched cryptocurrency trading in Nigeria for the first time ever. This is a promising move since Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa and has a large number of young consumers interested in technology.

Concerning its security, the exchange uses two-factor authentication, has staff that checks suspicious transactions manually, has a strict AML policy and keeps all user funds offline in cold storage. Overall ICE3X is a secure exchange that carries out regular security updates. 

A special feature of ICE3X is the ‘Bitcoin School’, which provides important basic information for users concerning how to store bitcoins, the advantages of bitcoin and how bitcoin mining works. Lastly, ICE3X has a public and a private API that allows users to build their own applications and gives them access to a range of methods to build complex applications and trading bots.