Voyager Review: Free Commission Trading, But Is It The Best?

This Voyager review will show you the highlights of the crypto mobile app. But first, let’s find out Voyager’s origin. Voyager is a cryptocurrency trading and investing app for Android and iOS-powered devices. The platform is operated by Voyager Digital (Canada) Limited. Voyager Digital Holdings is it’s the company’s subsidiary in the United States. In 2019, it became a public company after securing a place on the Canadian Stock Exchange.

A team of veterans in different fields operates the platform. For example, the company’s CEO, Stephen Ehrlich, founded Lightspeed Financial, a retail brokerage dealer, which later purchased E*Trade Financial.

Philip Eytan, Voyager’s chairman and co-founder, was an executive at Morgan Stanley and Cerberus Capital. Eytan founded Livestream and Source, a cyber-security company. Oscar Salazar is another key Voyager team member. Salazar is Uber’s founding architect and CEO, and he specializes in building consumer-driven mobile apps with a global reach.  He’s also the CTO and co-founder of a digital healthcare firm called Pager.

In addition to an experienced team, the platform is backed by respected companies like Coinbase, Ledger, Fireblocks, Google, Galaxy Digital, Silvergate, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Plaid, Metropolitan Commercial Bank, and Circle.

What Can You Do with Voyager?

Earning Interest On Crypto Deposits

If you’re looking to earn passive income, the Voyager crypto app offers some of the best options for doing so. The platform allows you to earn interest on your deposits. How much interest you earn depends on the type and amount of the asset you deposit.

For example, USD Coin (USDC) holders receive an annual percentage yield (APY) of 9.0 percent, provided they have a minimum of 100 USDC coins in their account. On the other hand, Bitcoin (BTC) holders enjoy an APY of 6.25 percent with a minimum monthly balance of 0.01 BTC, and ETH investors receive 5.25 percent as long as they maintain a monthly balance of at least 0.5 ETH.

Other cryptocurrencies with an APY of above five percent include Litecoin (LTC), Chainlink (LINK), Cardano (ADA), Polkadot, and the platform’s native token, Voyager Token.

Despite the app’s requirement for users to maintain monthly minimums, Voyager calculates interest based on daily crypto holdings. The interest you earn on deposits arrives in your wallet on the fifth business day of each month.

While new Voyager users can automatically access this feature, the platform allows you to opt-out of the offering.

The platform doesn’t require a lockup period for the amount you deposit. This means depositors have the freedom to withdraw the principal at any time. Users can also initiate a full or partial withdrawal. The Voyager cryptocurrency app generates interest through activities like lending, selling, investing, pledging, and assigning deposits.

Cryptocurrency Selling and Buying

The Voyager app enables users to buy and sell an array of leading virtual currencies. Unfortunately, the platform only supports selling and buying against the US dollar. Voyager isn’t an exchange on its own. Instead, it uses a broker model and intelligent order routing.

Smart order routing enables the platform to connect to multiple market makers and cryptocurrency trading platforms to provide high-level liquidity, pricing, and transaction execution speeds.

The order routing model allows Voyager to traverse the crypto ecosystem to find the best price by removing inefficiencies. The best part? It’s all 100 percent commission-free.

The platform supports up to 5,000 USD-based bank transfers to kick-start trading. Although it doesn’t support crypto-to-crypto trading, it allows users to deposit cryptocurrencies like Basic Attention Token (BAT), BTC, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), LTC, Tether (USDT), USDC, Voyager Token, and True USD (TUSD)

Voyager Fees, Commissions, and Minimums

Cryptocurrency deposits have no limits, and the only delay is the network’s processing time.

Voyager puts a limit on fiat withdrawals exceeding $25,000 within a single day. Also, it caps the number of withdrawals to 20 per day. After you place a withdrawal request, funds take between two and five working days to arrive in your bank account.

Voyager provides a commission-free trading experience. Since it operates through a broker model, the platform harvests its profit by maximizing the spread difference.

Despite fee-less trading, the platform requires users to deposit at least $10 when opening an account and trading. It also limits new users’ USD deposits to a maximum of $10K in 24 hours, and trades can’t exceed $20K. Trades involving over $20K are subject to a clearing period of five working days.

If you want to move crypto assets outside of the network, you can only move up to $25,000 worth of virtual currencies within 24 hours. Additionally, due to the platform’s adherence to know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) procedures, crypto-based withdrawals may take up to 24 hours to clear.

Institutional Access

In addition to individuals, Voyager also serves institutional users. The platform leverages the same sophisticated technology that powers its retail mobile app to provide institutional clients with extensive market access and liquidity through the Voyager Institutional offering. This product is for clients in various industries like finance and technology.

Voyager’s dynamic smart order routing powers the Voyager Execution Platform, enabling institutional investors to access better prices and faster trade execution times. The platform’s liquidity network comprises cryptocurrency exchanges and over the counter (OTC) desks.

Referral and Sign Up Promotions

Of course, this Voyager review won’t be complete without discussing the Voyager referral program. Voyager rewards existing users for bringing in new users. Through the Voyager Refer-a-Friend initiative, both the referrer and referral get $25 when the referral makes a trade involving at least $100. Referral incentives are paid in BTC.

The platform also attracts new users through occasional Voyager promotions. For example, the 1 percent Interest APY Booster Promotion allows users to boost their interest on ETH, BTC, and USDC by one percent.

To qualify, investors of these coins must hold a minimum of 2.5K Voyager Tokens (VGX) and uphold the required monthly minimums of each coin. According to the platform’s terms & conditions, rewards from such promotions are credited to users’ accounts within 30 days.

Click this Voyager referral article to give you all the assistance you need with Voyager referral.

Countries and Available Currencies on Voyager

The Voyager cryptocurrency mobile app is available to users across the United States except for New York. The platform aims be available across the globe and is in the process of acquiring a BitLicense that will allow it to serve New York residents

Voyager supports more than 50 leading cryptocurrencies. These include BTC, ETH, BCH, ADA, Cosmos (ATOM), BAT, LTC, Ontology (ONT), LINK, VGX, ZCash (ZEC), USDT, USDC, and Stellar Lumens (XLM). The platform also supports crypto assets associated with decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols such as Compound (COMP), Uniswap (UNI), Decentraland (MANA), Band Protocol (BAND) and Yearn.Finance (YFI).

Voyager Token (VGX)

VGX allows users to trade and earn interest within the expansive Voyager ecosystem. Most importantly, the token improves users’ experience on the platform. To increase the value of the token, Voyager reduces token supply through burning.

VGX lives on the Ethereum blockchain as an ERC-20 token with a total supply of 222.29 million tokens. Because of this, VGX leverages the security of the second-largest decentralized network after Bitcoin. Furthermore, the combination of a public and an elliptic key improves the token’s security.

Benefits of holding VGX

Earning interest – Voyager is one of the few crypto brokers that allows users to earn interest without locking up their assets. While Voyager gives all users a base interest rate, VGX holders have the option to boost their rate depending on how much of the native token they hold.

Transaction fee saving – VGX token holders pay less for trades. Additionally, VGX investors experience instant trade execution.

Cashback incentives – In addition to discounted trading, holding VGX opens the door to special rewards like having a section of your trading funds returned to you as incentives.

Community governance – Voyager uses its native token to activate community governance. This includes giving users the chance to sit at the decision-making table.

Are Funds On Voyager FDIC-insured?

Yes, but only to a certain extent. Voyager adheres to regulations set by financial watchdogs in the United States. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insures a maximum of 250,000 USD held in your account on the platform. Voyager works with FDIC-insured banking partners, but cryptocurrencies held on the platform aren’t FDIC-insured.

In addition to FDIC insurance, Voyager secures users’ personal and financial data using cutting-edge technology. The platform works with Plaid to secure communication between a user’s bank account and Voyager. Plaid employs bank-level security protocols and is used by over 2,000 financial firms.

How Does Voyager Compare with Coinbase?

We will also compare Voyager to its competitor in this Voyager review. Voyager and Coinbase both provide diverse cryptocurrency services. Some of these services are similar, but the platforms’ delivery systems and are different. For example, both platforms offer cryptocurrency buying and selling using fiat currencies, but Coinbase supports more fiat currencies than Voyager.

When it comes to transaction fees, Voyager wins because of its zero-fee trading policy compared to Coinbase, which can charge up to five percent in commissions on a single trade. Also, Coinbase loses on its number of active cryptos since Voyager has more coins.

Since Voyager offers a $25 referral bonus based on a $100 trading value, it beats Coinbase which only gives $10 for the same trading amount.

However, it’s not all bad for Coinbase. The platform is a leading exchange in the United States and has a global reach. Additionally, it offers more services than Voyager. For instance, users can stake select cryptocurrencies and earn staking incentives.

Coinbase is time-tested and provides higher guarantees on security than Voyager. Coinbase is only a viable option if you don’t mind the US government having your personal data because the exchange is known to comply and work with US regulators. This doesn’t mean, however, that Voyager is non-compliant.

Coinbase also allows for crypto-to-crypto trading, reducing the need to transfer virtual assets on other cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance with a more extensive list of altcoins. Although this is an advantage over Voyager, its small list of available cryptocurrencies and Voyager’s crypto-fiat-crypto offering makes both apps ideal on-ramp and off-ramp platforms.

Coinbase also gives a $10 sign-up bonus when you use a Coinbase referral sign-up link. Read more about the Coinbase referral program here. 

Conclusion

This Voyager review demonstrates the highlights of the crypto mobile app. The platform enables zero-commission trading, earning interest on deposits, referral rewards, and cryptocurrency buying and selling using fiat.

Ultimately, your choice of cryptocurrency platform boils down to what you’re looking for. Our review shows that Voyager is great for earning referral incentives in a way that’s simple and straightforward.

Voyager is also an excellent bridge for those new to the cryptocurrency space and those liquidating their virtual assets for hard cash. Unfortunately, the platform doesn’t currently offer support for users interested in crypto-to-crypto trading.