On 1st October 2021, Independent Reserve became the first fully licensed exchange to operate as a regulated provider of Digital Payment Token Services in Singapore.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) approved the license under the Payment Services Act.
Independent Reserve currently operates SGD trading pairs with 10 cryptocurrencies. Besides our favorite ADA, one can also trade BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH, DOT, ETC, LINK, LTC and USDC.
However, please note that no cross-crypto trading pair is available (e.g. ADA/BTC, ADA/ETH etc.)
In addition, this platform is currently desktop-based only. There is no mobile app version, which makes it difficult to trade on the move.
KOPI stands to earn 50% of all brokerage fees paid by referred customers for the first 90 days.
As expected for regulated exchanges, KYC (Know Your Customers) is inevitable during the sign up process.
You will need to provide:
Before you start trading, you need to deposit SGD into your Independent Reserve account.
If you have previously verified your personal bank accounts in Xfers, chances are your SGD bank accounts will already be displayed in the top right corner under “accounts”.
If not, you will need to manually add your bank accounts here.
Once your bank accounts are added, you can perform a SGD FAST transfer from your bank account to Independent Reserve.
Note that there is a deposit limit of SGD20,000.00 during a 24h period. In addition, there is a SGD deposit fee of 0.55%.
Once your transfer is complete, you should see your SGD funds displayed on this page.
There are two ways to buy ADA on this platform:
Under the tab “buy/sell”, you can perform simple buy and sell actions using either “Buy in SGD” or “Buy in ADA”.
This is recommended for beginners looking for the easiest way to buy or sell ADA at the indicated live price.
Under the tab “trade”, you can perform both market and limit/stop trades.
This is recommended for experienced traders, as limit/stop orders allow more control over price points.
Note that there is a 0.5% Brokerage Fees and Taxes on your trades. This fee percentage varies from 0.5% to 0.02% according to the Trade Volume Discount:
Before you can withdraw your ADA to Daedalus/Yoroi for staking, you need to verify your Cardano address in Independent Reserve under tab “accounts” (below Bank Accounts).
To verify your Cardano address, you need to send a specific amount of ADA to your ADA wallet address in Independent Reserve from your own Cardano wallet address (the one you are verifying).
You can find your own Cardano wallet address from the “Receive” tab of both your Daedalus and Yoroi wallets.
Note that there is an ADA withdrawal fee of 0.5 ADA.
After withdrawing your ADA from Independent Reserve to Daedalus/Yoroi, you may want to delegate your ADA to KOPI.
After you sell your ADA, you may want to withdraw your SGD back into your bank account.
Note that there is withdrawal limit of SGD20,000.00 during a 24h period. In addition, there is a SGD withdrawal fee of 0.55%.
So what is KOPI?
In Southeast Asia, KOPI means coffee.
To be specific, KOPI refers to a type of Nanyang (南洋,South Sea) coffee, that is prepared with condensed milk and sugar.
Traditionally, the coffee beans are wok-roasted with sugar, margarine, and sometimes pineapple skin and corn, to give KOPI its distinct sweet buttery flavor. The beans are then ground and brewed with a sock-like cotton strainer in watering can-sized pots.
And just as Westerners have their cappuccinos and lattes, Singaporeans have a variety of KOPI styles to choose from.
This is how you order your coffee in Singapore:
Kopi: Black Coffee with condensed milk
Kopi Peng: Sweet black coffee with condensed milk and ice
Kopi O Siew Dai: Black coffee with less sugar
Kopi-O: Sweet black coffee
Kopi-Kosong: Unsweetened black coffee
Kopi Kosong Peng: Unsweetened black coffee with ice
Kopi-O Peng: Sweet black coffee with ice
Kopi Gah Dai: Black coffee with extra condensed milk
Kopi Po: A weaker coffee with condensed milk
Kopi Gau: Strong coffee with condensed milk
Kopi-C: Coffee with unsweetened evaporated milk (the C is for Carnation); but they’ll still add sugar
It’s all quite easy isn’t it?
Watch the video below for a real KOPI master in action.