TaoTao Cryptocurrency Exchange Review

TaoTao is one of the 19 FSA approved cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan that is 40% owned by Yahoo Japan which is affiliated to the America-based Yahoo Group. The cryptocurrency exchange, which renamed from Bitarg after being acquired by Yahoo Japan, lets customers trade BTC, ETH, BCH, XRP, and LTC.

Some of its major features include free cryptocurrency trading, leverage or margin trading, mobile-based trading, free withdrawals and deposits, and multi-sig accounts, as well as other features to improve customer account security.

The cryptocurrency exchange is currently offering a 30-day free trading to registered users and also recently awarded up to 11,000 yen in reimbursements on pre-registration which opened on March 25. Users can also sign up with a Yahoo Japan ID to make the process much quicker but verification or approval requires a photo ID.

Trading assets on the exchange and fees

The platform works on PC via a web client (On Windows 7 and above via major web browsers) but there are iOS and Android (Android 5.0 or higher / iOS 10.0 or higher) mobile versions with trading capabilities as well.

The trading interface has ordering functionality as well as charting features. Like the web app, a customer using the mobile app can access details such as prices of cryptocurrencies held and current profit or loss, as well as other details of other cryptocurrencies. Therefore, it helps track price movements as well.  

To use the platform, a customer registers their email, then after login, enters customer information and uploads an image of their identification and verification and they are sent "identification code" via email, which they can enter to start trading, which takes at least about a day of application or more/less depending on the document examination procedures. There are no fees applied in maintaining an account. 

To start trading, customers can deposit from 1,000 yen or more per day without limit but daily withdrawals are capped at once or one time per day and each time one can withdrawal 1,000 yen or more. It is not possible to change withdrawal amount and a user is required to make a withdrawal request again if they cancel the first withdrawal request. The maximum amount for deposit is also capped at 1 billion yen or 100 million yen for withdrawal. The processing time (indication) for deposit is immediate meaning deposits are immediate while withdrawals are completed after 3 business days excluding maintenance hours.

The cryptocurrency exchange supports a number of order types including streaming orders, FIFO orders, limit orders, stop orders, batch payment orders, and quick payment orders via its smartphone app. All of these are also possible on a PC. Some features or order types are unable to be processed via the mobile app, which currently supports streaming orders, quick payment orders, and pre-ordering (limit orders and stop orders). Again, there is no expiration of the orders as previously described until the customer cancels the order.

For leveraging interests, a customer can trade on leverage by 4 times maximum of their margin. That means if you have 1000 yen in your account, you could trade cryptocurrencies or fiat with 1000 yen multiplies by 4. This feature allows customers to trade more cryptocurrencies and earn more profit for less capital they have on the accounts. Features such as withdrawal, deposit, account management, remittance, customer notification, etc are also available. 

Leverage trading, loss cut fee, and normal trading is currently free as is account maintenance, opening, fiat and virtual currency deposit and withdrawal or sending fees. However, when leverage trades rolls over to the next day, the opening fee management is 0.04% per day. The exchange appear to be making revenue from spreads between selling price and buying price of each brand.

Gains of over ¥200,000 a year recorded on accounts are subject to taxation and customers are advised to have a final declaration as “Miscellaneous income” of comprehensive taxation.

Leverage trading

Two types of virtual currency trading available on TaoTao include cash trading and leverage. They refer to cash trading as the normal trading of virtual currencies without leverage where the customer purchases cryptocurrency worth up to the amount or value of money they have in their wallets. Leverage trading on the exchange, as usual affords users ability to buy more cryptocurrency that the value of fiat at their disposal where the value is used as collateral.

The leverages vary from one crypto to the other but ideally a margin of at least 25% or quarter of what you want to leverage, is required for each currency pair with respect to total value of the transaction or the amount converted into yen at that time. The user is expected to deposit the margin in yen or Bitcoin or Ether in order to trade on leverage.

They are also expected to use their investment experience and risk tolerance when trading on leverage. All unsettled orders including physical transactions are canceled if the margin maintenance rate for the account falls below 80% of the loss cut line. Additionally, the unsettled position may be forced to be settled to cut the the losses as per the cut loss order placed.

Trading on leverage is available on the TaoTao exchange, not just for Yen, but also for BTC/JPY (yen), ETH/JPY, XRP/JPY, LTC/JPY and BCH/JPY. Each pair has different handling units per round, bid units, and other things as shown below. The margin maintenance rate is calculated by {(net asset amount-order margin) / (position margin)} × 100. The loss cut order may be prioritized in order to reduce losses from margin trading depending on the specified price of stop order. 

From their account dashboards, users can check for "order margin" which is the margin for unsettled orders such as the limit price or "position margin," which is the margin for the placed position. Margin or leveraged trading at TaoTao does not feature any maturity date with it and will automatically roll the held position at day closing (6:59 am every trading day) unless the customer repurchases or resales the held position. Rollovers, however, attract an open position management fee, which is 0.04% per day as described in the above section.

Security

As an FSA-regulated and licensed cryptocurrency exchange, in addition to requiring that the customer verify his or her identity at sign up such as through the use of methods like their Yahoo Japan IDs and copies of their national IDs, TaoTao also utilizes two-factor authentication (2FA) for accounts to secure user accounts. This prevents accounts from any spoofing attacks. It also offers multi-sig technology which requires approval from multiple individuals during withdrawal.

It also employs a 24/7 system monitoring service (a web application firewall) to protect customers against vulnerabilities on the web. Besides this, the platform also facilitates cold wallets and multisig, which a customer can use to manage their assets in an isolated environment from any external network.