CoinSpot

Is CoinSpot safe?

CoinSpot has a cleaner track record than most exchanges: no known customer losses, no enforcement action and only one known wallet theft in more than a decade. The weak point is transparency. It publishes no proof of reservesProof of reservesA report in which a crypto exchange shows that it holds enough coins to cover all customer balances, ideally checked by an outside firm.More in the glossary and no accounts, so you are trusting a private company's word that every coin in your account is there.

We score CoinSpot 52/100, well below Kraken, which also serves Australians and publishes attested proof of reserves, and above WazirX. Our confidence is low because CoinSpot discloses so little.

Who runs CoinSpot?

CoinSpot's terms name Casey Block Services Pty Ltd (ABN 19 619 574 186) as the owner and operator of the platform. The business started in Melbourne in 2013 and is one of Australia's largest local exchanges, with about 2.5 million customers by 2023 according to Cointelegraph. It is privately held and does not publish its financial results.

Licensing: AUSTRAC now, ASIC from 2027

Since 2018 Australian exchanges have had to register with AUSTRAC, the anti-money-launderingAnti-money launderingThe rules and checks that stop criminals from moving illegal money through banks, payment firms and crypto exchanges.More in the glossary agency, and CoinSpot is on that register: AUSTRAC's Virtual Asset Service Provider Register, as it has been called since 2026, lists Casey Block Services Pty Ltd trading as CoinSpot, with no conditions. Registration means identity checks and suspicious-transaction reports. It does not set rules on capital, custody or how customer coins are held.

That changes soon. Parliament passed the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Act in April 2026. It treats exchanges that hold customer tokens as digital asset platforms that need an Australian financial services (AFS) licence from ASIC, with minimum standards for holding assets. The Act starts 12 months after Royal Assent, around April 2027, with a transition period while ASIC reviews applications.

For CoinSpot customers, this is the most important thing to watch. If CoinSpot gets an AFS licence, its custody, reserves and disclosures will finally face outside checks. Until then, the protection is mostly its own policy.

What happened in the 2023 wallet theft

On 9 November 2023 on-chain investigator ZachXBT flagged a transfer of about 1,262 ETH, worth roughly $2.4 million, from a known CoinSpot hot walletHot walletA crypto wallet connected to the internet, such as an app or an exchange's online wallet. It is convenient, but more exposed to hacking.More in the glossary to an unknown address. CertiK told Cointelegraph it looked like a "probable private key compromise". The receiver swapped the ether and moved it to Bitcoin through THORChain within minutes.

CoinSpot did not answer press questions at the time, and we found no public post-mortem. We also found no customer reports of missing balances, which suggests the exchange absorbed the loss. That keeps security history at 70, but silence after a theft is not good practice.

Can you check CoinSpot's reserves?

No. Many exchanges started publishing proof of reservesProof of reservesA report in which a crypto exchange shows that it holds enough coins to cover all customer balances, ideally checked by an outside firm.More in the glossary after FTX collapsed in 2022. CoinSpot has not. It says it keeps a "vast majority" of assets in offline storage and holds ISO 27001 certification for information security, audited by Sustainable Certification. Those are real controls, but ISO 27001 checks security processes, not whether the exchange holds enough coins to cover customers.

Check	CoinSpot
Proof of reserves	Not published
Liabilities shown	No
Audited accounts	Not published
Offline storage	"Vast majority", per CoinSpot
Insurance for customer assets	None published
Government guarantee	None; the Financial Claims Scheme covers banks only

Legal record

We found no fine or enforcement action against CoinSpot. The only regulatory friction on record is from 2021, when ASIC traced funds from an alleged investment fraud through a CoinSpot account and questioned the exchange's anti-money-launderingAnti-money launderingThe rules and checks that stop criminals from moving illegal money through banks, payment firms and crypto exchanges.More in the glossary controls after it first said it held no records for the suspects. CoinSpot said its controls followed industry best practice and that it cooperated fully. Nothing further came of it publicly.

How to use CoinSpot more carefully

1. Turn on two-factor authenticationTwo-factor authenticationSigning in with a second proof of identity on top of your password, such as a code from an app, a security key or a passkey.More in the glossary and CoinSpot's custom withdrawal restrictions.
2. Do not keep long-term holdings on any exchange that does not publish reserves; move them to a wallet you control.
3. Be wary of anyone who asks you to buy crypto on CoinSpot and send it on. Investment and romance scams often route victims through local exchanges.
4. Watch for CoinSpot's AFS licence application from April 2027; a refusal or delay would be a reason to move funds.

How we scored it

Legal record (80) is CoinSpot's strongest factor. Reserves (20) is the weakest, because nothing is published for outsiders to check. Licensing (40) reflects AUSTRAC registration only, with stricter ASIC licensing still to come.