UPDATE:
We have since published a new article that reflects industry changes and what to look out for in 2022:
https://boxmining.com/top-best-cryptocurrency-exchanges-in-2022/
The increasing popularity of cryptocurrencies and questions about traditional monetary systems means that people are hurrying to cryptocurrency exchanges. But without carefully considering how they work. Here’s a list of the top cryptocurrency exchanges in 2022 grouped in tiers. From Tier 1: what people generally consider to be most respected to Tier 4: not recommended.
Table of Contents
Binance is the leading virtual currency exchange in the world by adjusted volume. Unlike Coinbase and Kraken, Binance supports a wide range of altcoins (i.e. cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin). This attracts more people to transferring their Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin from other exchanges to Binance to explore the altcoin world.
It is suited for entry-level crypto traders due to its limited array of tradable cryptocurrencies. Although it includes many more currencies compared to Coinbase such as Cardano and Elastos. Here is a full list of cryptocurrencies tradable on Kraken.
Because of Binance’s popularity, lots of new coins aim to become listed on Binance and gain a lot of reputation when they do. Sometimes, the announcement of a Binance listing itself can send the prices up.
The popularity of Binance has made its CEO Zhao Changpeng (CZ) a personality in the cryptocurrency community. His words/actions have now have significant influence.
Binance was hacked in 2019 for US$40 million worth of cryptocurrency. Binance has promised to compensate anyone who has suffered losses out of their own funds.
PrimeXBT
PrimeXBT is also one of the newer players in the cryptocurrency exchange space, having been launched in 2018. Credit is given to this Exchange for being one of the most transparent we have come across. Their website is a one stop resource for anything you wanted to know about the Exchange and they also have in-depth tutorials how to use it’s various features.
The Exchange is lacking a bit in supported cryptocurrencies, currently they only support 5 cryptocurrencies: BTC, ETH, LTC, XRP and EOS. In addition, only withdrawals and deposits in BTC are supported However what they lack in cryptocurrency support they make up in availability to trade in other asset types such as commodities, stock indices and Forex.
The ability to customise your trading screen and annotate charts is probably something technical analysts and serious traders have long awaited for and will keep them coming back to the Exchange.
Check out our PrimeXBT review and guide.
Kraken
Kraken has a substantial presence in Europe, and listed cryptos have fiat pairs.
FTX Exchange
This Exchange was only launched in 2019- so yet another relative newcomer. They are a leveraged cryptocurrency trading platform offering derivatives trading. They are built by Alameda Research, themselves being profession traders responsible for over 30% of the market trading volume on major exchanges. FTX Exchange also offers unique products such as trading on indices, so traders can have exposures to several tokens in one contract. Another interesting feature is trading on the outcome of the 2020 Presidential elections.
FTX Exchange is what it says it is- built by traders, for traders. They already have very competitive trading fees and even provide discounts for specific users, and a simple to understand interface. However there are some geographical restrictions for people and entities from some countries, most notably the US.
Check out our full review here.
Bittrex
These exchanges are reliable and offer reputable services. Bittrex I used extensively in the past because they listed lots of coins. However I eventually moved away from Bittrex because Binance overtook them in terms of coin selection.
Bittrex will be removing the following markets after 31 May 2019: BTC-COVAL, BTC-SALT AND BTC-XCP. And the following markets after 6 July 2019: BTC-LUN, BTC-NEOS, BTC-THC and BTC-TKS
Poloniex
I also used Poloniex extensively in the past. However in my experience, their Know Your Customer (KYC) process took a long time. In my case it took 3 months to complete. This was unacceptable especially when it was during the bull market.
Customer support on Poloniex isn’t terrible, so they still seem to be a good exchange.
However if you are a U.S. citizen, you may need to be aware of Poloniex geofencing assets for U.S. customers. On 29 May 2019, the markets for ARDR, BCN, DCR, GAME, GAS, LSK, NXT, OMNI and REP will be disabled for US customers.
Once the market has been geofenced, customers can still withdraw those tokens from their wallet so long as Poloniex supports it globally. However, customers will not longer be able to see their deposit address or generate a new deposit address.
Tier 2 Exchanges (Seasonal Trading / specific coins)
Coinbase
Coinbase is the leading cryptocurrency exchange in the United States and United Kingdom. They also have the licences and bank accounts to operate in those countries. Coinbase has reliable customer support, and features fiat deposits and withdrawals. This means that deposits and withdrawals in traditional currencies such as USD, EUR etc. are supported.
Coinbase is secure with no hack incidences so. The Exchange is the best option for those new to the cryptocurrency world.
However, the exchange offers limited cryptocurrencies to choose from. In addition, the availability to buy, sell, send and receive a particular cryptocurrency depends on your location.
For US customers, there are no restrictions on transacting the following cryptocurrencies:
- Bitcoin (BTC);
- Ethereum (ETH);
- Litecoin (LTC);
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH);
- Ethereum Classic (ETC); and
- Ripple (XRP).
Here’s a chart of the cryptocurrencies supported by Coinbase depending on your location.
Most common forms of payment are accepted by Coinbase, for example credit and debit cards.
Whilst it is generally secure, Coinbase has been under fire recently for suffering outages when there were huge fluctuations in the prices of Bitcoin in March, April AND May 2020. These outages left many users powerless to do any trades when they needed to the most. Potential users should bear this issue in mind when considering whether or not to use Coinbase. Though we have heard some users do not solely trade on Coinbase, which could help mitigate the impact of these outages on their portfolios.
Check out our Coinbase review for an in-depth look at this exchange.
KuCoin
KuCoin has unique assets and an extensive list of tradable coins, it has been plagued by poor Know-Your-Customer (KYC) procedures.
At first, it allowed traders to deposit and withdraw large amounts of Bitcoin i.e. 50 Bitcoin per day without providing personal details.
The lack of KYC procedures gives many people the impression that KuCoin is desperate for users on its exchange. Thus lowering its reputation amongst crypto exchange platforms.
They have since changed their KYC policies and now you can only withdraw up to 2 Bitcoin per day without a “Verified” account i.e. an account which has completed the KYC procedures.
Huobi, OKEx
Huobi and OKEx were the main titans of China. They had lots of Chinese users before the Chinese government cracked down on cryptocurrency trading in the country.
This was known as the “Golden Vacuum” since it obliterated a lot of Huobi and OKEx’s dominance. This destabilized the two exchanges giving way to others like KuCoin and Binance to take charge.
I still consider them as Tier 2 exchanges because they still hold onto some of their past customers and because they have the technology for the future.
There are rumours that the Chinese government allows these exchanges to operate but keeps tabs on their transactions.
BitMEX
BitMEX is mostly a margin trading exchange allowing enormous leverage (i.e. up to 50 times). Leverage trading is when you do not own the physical bitcoin but you own trading contracts.
Unfortunately, BitMEX does not operate in the United States and be careful not to login to your BitMEX account there, your account will get banned.
Although I have heard of some Americans that use VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) to mask the country of origin so as to bypass this restriction.
This is NOT recommended.
BitMEX has poor customer support. It took me 3 months of emails to unban my account when I accidentally logged into BitMEX in the United States.
Tier 3 Exchanges (Possible risks / issues)
Bitfinex
Although Bitfinex is a reputable exchange, its recent struggle with the New York Attorney General for US$850 million loss of customer funds lowers its credibility. We will have to see how Bitfinex will overcome this struggle.
Apart from the case, it has a strong BTC/USD trading pair.
To stay up to date with what is happening at Bitfinex, click here.
OceanEx
OceanEX is launched by BitOcean Global, a fully registered and licensed trading paltform in Japan. It’s created by a core team of members with past experience from Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas, and Deloitte. OceanEX boasts a host of AI security features to improve user and trading safety. OceanEX is the trading hub of the VeChainThor Ecosystem, with all VeChain assets listed and VeChain trading pairs. Whilst it has many attractive features, we found liquidity lacking on many assets and difficulties both buying and selling various coins.
To learn more about VeChain and its ecosystem, check our Vechain guide.
BitMax
I tried this exchange since I received a lot of requests from viewers.
However I am skeptical of exchanges that do “Transaction Mining”. Transaction Mining is where you gain credits or exchange tokens in return for trading.
This directly incentivises wash trading on the platform, which is where a trader simultaneously sells and buys the same assets.
This in turn creates misleading reports on the trading volumes on the exchange.
BitMax has announced on 18 May 2019 that for long-term stability of token economics, it will permanently lock up 3,000 million BTMX tokens from the pending mining portion on 20 May 2019.
The Exchange will in future announce the new release mechanism.
Tier 4 Exchanges (avoid these exchanges)
HitBTC
These three exchanges have very questionable practices.
For example, HitBTC does not have a real KYC policy. They do not seem to have much issue with you depositing large amounts of funds. However if you trade or want to withdraw a lot they will just ban or suspend your account until you communicate with them. This has happened to me personally and when I researched this I found that many others had the same experience.
Lately there has been a new wave of users complaining about having to provide excessive detail about the source of their funds.
There are also some users who have done their own investigations and concluded that the Exchange is insolvent.
YoBit
The exchange has a troublesome withdrawal process.
Conclusion
Tier 1: Coinbase, Kraken, Binance, FTX Exchange, Bittrex, Poloniex,
Tier 2: KuCoin, Huobi, OKEx, BitMEX
Tier 3: Bitfinex, BitMax, OceanEx
Tier 4 (avoid): HitBTC, YoBit
In conclusion, conducting a background check on a cryptocurrency platform before signing up is the best way to avoid losing your digital wealth. Following the above list is one huge step towards this goal.