Vauld Review – A Crypto Bank + Trading Platform

Notice – Vauld has suspended operations indefinitely. You can’t deposit, withdraw or sell crypto anymore on Vauld. We advise you to halt any transactions related to crypto and store your coins/tokens on a separate wallet, not on the exchange.

Please make sure you don’t signup or transact on this platform. The article below will be updated with alternative platforms shortly.

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I’ve been using Vauld for the past few months, which is an entirely different Indian crypto management and trading platform.

Crypto exchanges in India are all pretty much the same. They all seem to copy the style of Binance.

We didn’t have anything quite like Coinbase yet. However, Vauld has filled that gap.

Vauld has a couple of smart features I really like. In this review, let’s take a look at Vauld, its features, benefits, compare it with other Indian crypto exchanges and more.

This should give you enough information to decide if you’d want to use Vauld to buy, trade, and lend your favorite cryptocurrencies. I’ve also shared my personal experience in multiple sections.

There are certain important points I want you to know before you start using Vauld. It’s a whole new concept of managing crypto for Indians. If you’re familiar with BlockFi, consider Vauld an alternative for Indians.

Let’s dive right in with an introduction.

What is Vauld?

Vauld is both a crypto bank and a trading platform based out of Singapore. Keep in mind I’m not using the word exchange to define what Vauld is. That’s because it’s not a crypto exchange itself, but uses Binance as their exchange partner. Vauld works on top of it.

They currently operate in several countries, including India.

Sanju Sony Kurian and Darshan Bathija founded it in 2018. Starting in 2021, they’ve been very active in the crypto trading space, making Vauld a legit completion against the likes of WazirX and CoinDCX.

My first step to even considering using a crypto platform is analyzing the founders and their backgrounds. Vauld has a pretty good management team behind it. No questions about that.

With Vauld, you can buy/sell, swap, lend and take a loan against your crypto deposits.

When you keep coins like BTC and ETH in your Vauld account, you earn weekly interest on your funds.

Consider Vauld as a crypto savings account, just like your traditional bank account. 

So if you were looking for a way to earn interest on your crypto funds while you HODL it, you can start using Vauld. You can earn up to 12% interest on USDT coins and 4-6% interest on ETH, BTC, MATIC, Uniswap and more tokens.

It also offers fixed deposits for crypto, which is why I said it’s a crypto bank. We will talk more about it later in this review.

If you take a look at Vauld you’d notice it is very different from the typical exchange. It almost seems like Coinbase. It’s minimal, looks beautiful, works fast, and has certain exclusive features like AIP, lending, fixed deposits, and a Pro-Trading platform.

Vauld’s exclusive features make it a unique platform to invest in cryptocurrencies in India. Even though they are relatively new, they show promise.

Let’s take a look at some of the features offered by Vauld.

Vauld has the Best UI/UX

I’m a big fan of aesthetics, so Vauld was an instant hit for me.

Here’s how Vauld’s dashboard looks:

It’s clean, minimal and has all the options, whether it’s to buy/sell, create a fixed deposit, check your crypto balance, deposit fiat in your account – everything is accessible in one click.

Vauld lets you buy crypto in one click through its instant buy/sell feature. Perfect for beginners and for someone whose only goal is to invest in top cryptocurrencies.

It’s simple, easy and just the way it should be. You don’t have to look at charts, go through multiple listed currencies to find the right one, or have to look at tons of different numbers that most users don’t understand anyway.

All you have to do is select a coin, enter the quantity, and hit buy.

This is a huge upside since it’s Vauld made buying crypto easier than investing in Mutual Funds or Stock Markets. There is no friction or complexity whatsoever.

Fixed Deposits

Just like a fixed deposit in your bank account, Vauld fixed deposit offers an interest rate when you deposit your crypto coins. This interest is paid out weekly in cryptocurrencies itself, not fiat.

Creating a fixed deposit won’t mean you’re blocking your funds. You can break the deposit anytime you want and withdraw, sell or transfer the funds.

Vauld compounds the interest rate on every payout. Each time your fixed deposit competes for a term and the interest is paid out, it compounds. If you choose to have a weekly payout, it would compound every week.

There are no extra fees for closing the fixed deposits. You can opt-out anytime for free.

If you’re not a trader, it would be a nice idea to create a fixed deposit with Vauld since you will get the APY interest on top of the application your coins are getting. 

But keep in mind this means you’re going to leave your crypto funds in possession on Vauld. You don’t own them. It’s that simple. If Vauld gets hacked, they go down. Your fund’s security is unknown.

This information is crucial for you to decide on whether you’d want to create an FD with Vauld or not.

By creating a fixed deposit, you’re essentially lending your coins/tokens to vauld. There are other platforms that allow you to do the same; they just don’t label them as FD. CoinDCX and ZebPay are two major exchanges in India that allow you to lend crypto.

However, there’s one very important distinction between Vauld and CoinDCX/ZebPay lending, the lock-in periods of your funds. 

Both CoinDCX and ZebPay lock your funds for a certain period.

Vauld doesn’t lock your funds when you create a fixed deposit. You simply can’t sell them or borrow against the fixed deposit while it’s active. Whenever you wish to, you can opt-out of the FD and withdraw, sell or borrow against your coins.

Which makes Vauld a better choice to earn interest on your crypto funds.

AIP

AIP stands for Automatic Investment Plan. With an AIP, you can recurringly purchase cryptocurrencies without any manual input.

Vauld is one of the very first crypto exchanges in India to offer a feature like this.

In fact, no other exchanges or crypto platforms offer recurring purchases yet.

It works the same way a Mutual Fund SIP works. But it’s modern tech, so you have multiple customization options.

You can automate the AIP to invest only when a certain coin dips below 2%, 5%, 7%, and 10%.

Or you can set an AIP to purchase a basket of crypto every month, week, or daily.

I would suggest investing weekly into the top 5 cryptocurrencies if you’re a beginner. This would help you create a hedge against fiat and reduce the overall risk of losing your capital. Since Bitcoin and Ethereum aren’t as volatile cryptocurrencies.

You’d also reduce the average cost and build a decent corpus in 6 months on autopilot.

For an AIP to execute successfully, you need to make sure you have enough funds in your Vauld wallet. It doesn’t connect to your bank or credit card to process auto-debit.

You can set up a standing instruction to transfer the required AIP amount automatically from your bank.

I’ve covered how to start an AIP with Vauld in a tutorial here.

Pro Trading

If you want to trade crypto as a professional trader, you can switch from the Instant Buy/Sell Platform to Vauld’s Pro Trading Platform.

It looks familiar if you’ve used Binance or FTX.

But what’s the difference between the instant buy/sell and Vauld Pro Trading platform?

In the average person terms, you can set a sell or buy price in the Vauld instant buy/sell platform. You can set limit orders, monitor orders being fulfilled, stop them in the middle, measure volume, speculate price movement, see historic chat patterns and more.

There are also extra options such as setting price alerts and placing OTC (over-the-counter) trades.

If you are a fan of customization, Vauld offers multiple layouts and customization options to help you create your own unique crypto-trading window.

Traders set a target for buying and selling, which is the basic strategy to make a profit in the short term. The instant buy/sell features will help you purchase crypto at the best price available.

You can’t place a limit order, set sell or buy calls, or view charts to find professional trading patterns like the “Head and Shoulder” pattern.

Instant Swap

Instant Swap simply works as an exchange without INR where you can trade one coin for the other.

You trade BTC for ETH without using INR, so you don’t pay a trading fee, but you have to pay a small transactional fee depending on the blockchain.

For example, I can instantly swap BTC for ETH. Maybe SOL or DOT, or ADA for DOGE. Get the idea?

You can swap one coin with only other coins compatible with the Vauld Swap platform. You cannot swap for INR. You will always have to sell your coins and tokens to withdraw INR.

Swapping is useful in situations of low liquidity in the market for certain coins. You can instantly swap one coin for another coin that has high liquidity for a small fee.

Crypto Loans

Up until Vauld, the only crypto trading platform for most Indians to borrow against crypto was BlockFi.

All you need to do to take out a loan against your crypto via Vauld is:

1. Deposit or purchase crypto via Vauld
2. Select the coin you’d like to use as collateral and borrow against
3. The loan is processed within a few minutes

Vauld team contacts you before processing the loan, you get to know all the rates going forward, terms and liquidation threshold.

Plus, you’re borrowing at a fixed interest rate and no processing fees. You can pay back the loan anytime, as long as you’re paying the interest rate timely.

Now the interest rates offered by Vauld are very low. Vauld charges 7.5% APY for loans against ETH and BlockFi for instant charges above 12.5% APY for the same LTV (Loan-to-Value ratio).

Vauld offers a higher LTV ratio of 66.67% compared to 50% MAX by BlockFi.

The minimum amount to take out a loan from Vauld is also low at $1,000 compared to $10,000 at BlockFi.

You’re able to borrow against tokens like MATIC at 4% APY, a very low-interest rate.

Vauld processing speed is much higher as well. It’s close to instant.

You can pay back the loan in any number of installments, part by part. There’s no due date like bank loans. But you will have to keep paying interest as long as you don’t pay back the full disbursed amount.

There were no hidden charges that I could find out in my tests.

Let’s Talk About Vauld’s Fees

Vauld trading fees are lower than any other exchange in India.

You don’t have to pay any fees to deposit fiat (INR, USD and other currencies) into your Vauld account. It’s completely free.

There is no maker free. You pay 0% maker fee and just 0.05% taker fee.

There are also no other hidden charges involved. INR withdrawals are also completely free.

No processing fee on loan.

No account opening charges.

Compared to other exchanges in India, Vauld charges very little and is lower than-the-industry fees.

This makes us wonder, how they are planning to sustain themselves in such a competitive market. We will learn more about it in the coming days as more users start using Vauld and they have to improve their platform for volume.

Depositing Money in Vauld

Regarding depositing INR, the current situation with all the crypto exchanges in India is broken. Take WazirX, CoinDCX, CoinSwitch Kuber or any other crypto exchange for that matter.

All of them charge extra fees. Some don’t support INR deposits most of the time, some only support a few select low-tier banks, you have to use third-party wallets, and so on.

With Vauld, you don’t have to go through any of it. It’s the single most efficient crypto change I’ve used so far for depositing fiat and buying crypto without paying any fees on top.

You get virtual bank account details as soon as your Vauld account is approved. To deposit Fiat currency, all you need to do is transfer the funds through NEFT, RTGS, IMPS or UPI to this account.

It’s that simple. No third party, internet banking access, or fees involved.

The best part is, this means you can create a standing instruction from your bank to transfer funds recurringly to your Vauld account. This will ensure you have sufficient funds in your Vauld wallet to execute an AIP.

You get an email confirmation as soon as the money is deposited in your Vauld wallet:

There’s also an option to mark individual accounts as safe under “Safelist”. Only an account that is marked as Safe can be used to withdraw funds from your Vauld account.

Vauld wins big with this feature. If you are someone who was struggling with depositing INR to buy crypto on other exchanges, try Vauld. You will appreciate the whole smooth, seamless process.

Is Vauld Safe?

In short, yes. Vauld is completely safe to buy, sell or stake crypto tokens.

How much?

You can’t ever know.

Don’t take the “Secured by BitGo” very seriously. If you look at the history of exchanges that went down and were secured by BitGo, you will notice they don’t pay up as easily as you’d think.

You won’t need BitGo as long as you do one thing:

• Do not store any Fiat Currency, be it INR or USD, in your exchange wallet.
• Do not store your coins and tokens in your exchange wallet.

A good point to remember is that Vauld’s exchange partner is Binance. So there shouldn’t be any liquidity problems anytime soon. You can trade safely via Vauld.

Vauld is very transparent regarding disclosing fees, liquidity structure, how the overall platform works, and its management.

And that’s always a good sign.

Though it’s definitely more secure than some of the others that aren’t insured and secured by notable platforms like BitGo. Still, you never know, so make sure you practice the single most important thing when purchasing crypto – owning the coins by owing the keys.

Certain coins, such as Cardano, Solana, and Polkadot, aren’t withdrawable, Vauld has listed these as a trade-only token.

Do not purchase coins you can’t withdraw. You simply don’t own these coins because you have no access to their private keys.

You can safely continue purchasing coins like BTC, ETH, Polygon and other coins which you can withdraw.

If you notice in the images above, I HODL some SOL in my Vauld wallet. This is only for demonstration purposes; I do not hold SOL anywhere apart from Exodus, where I stake it. I buy SOL and other coins like ADA from WazirX, then use this method to transfer them to a private wallet.

If you’d like to be part of the product development road map, suggest new features, raise queries and more, you can join Vauld’s community forum. You will be able to ask other users questions you might want to be answered as soon as possible.

Vauld is not Just an Exchange

If you look at the Vauld, way of operation, product offerings (they offer Enterprise API, which is a whole different domain) and the management – you will realize they aren’t just a crypto exchange.

The moment you see Vauld using terms like Lending and Borrowing crypto, it should become clear Vauld is a crypto bank. The crypto funds you deposit are used to lend loans to other Vauld users. These loans are secured loans (borrowers need to put up collateral, which in this case is their crypto assets).

The whole idea is pretty new in India. Consider Vauld a futuristic platform, since if you believe Defi and Crypto assets are going to define the next generation, Vauld takes you one step closer to it.

Borrowing against Crypto is always a better idea compared to fiat since Cryptocurrencies appreciate in value and the whole system is so new, the prices are super low.

If you’re someone who believes in saving and earning interest on crypto instead of keeping it ideal in a hard wallet, Vauld might be the best option right now. It’s the perfect alternative to BlockFi, in my opinion.

Update 2022

Vauld now supports withdrawals for tokens like SOL, SHIB, and CAKE. They have also enabled Binance Smart Chain integration for tokens like DOGE and DOT.

Using BSC over the ERC20 blockchain network will help you reduce transaction fees.

Now that you can deposit and withdraw, plus earn interest on tokens like SOL, I believe Vauld is the best crypto exchange in India.

Conclusion

Do I recommend Vauld?

Yes. In fact, I would recommend using it over WazirX in case you’re buying BTC, ETH, LTC, or other coins that you can withdraw from Vauld to your own wallet. 

Opening an account with Vauld is super smooth. Your KYC is approved with a few minutes and you’re ready to trade, borrow and lend crypto.

Start using Vauld for Free & Get 50% Kickback

For Coins and Tokens like ADA, DOT, SWAPs, DOGE, and others, you should be using WazirX.

I highly suggest trying its AIP feature. I believe this one feature can help many crypto beginners understand they can’t time the market. Instead, they should keep investing small amounts and grow their portfolio over time.

Are you using Vauld? Or do you have any questions?

Let me know in the comments.