I am using four exchange platforms and want to share my experiences with you. In this blog I am going to talk aboutBitfinex, Binance, Cex.io and Bittrex. If you are not registered to one of these platform and after reading this blog, if you decide to create an account on these exchanges please use the links under affiliate program sections.
Bitfinex
Pros
GUI: In my opinion Bitfinex GUI is the most user friendly one between all. Oftenly used actions / information like wallets and balances, total balance, order history, open orders, order book, etc are located on a single page successfully. Unlike other platforms editing an open order is allowed in Bitfinex. Even more you can see and edit your orders on the price chart with drag and drop support. While using bitfinex GUI, you have feeling everything is under your control.
Order Types: Bitfinex has the largest and the most useful order types including Trailing Stop and Scaled Orders which are so handy. There are 3 different options that can be combined with your orders. Hidden (your order is not visible in order book but you need to pay small extra fee), One Cancel Others (OCO: if an order executed, other orders cancel automatically) and Post only (if your order does not exist in the order book you will pay maker fee which is 50% cheaper than taker fee).
Fiat Trading: With Bitfinex you can trade USD/Coin pair. The main advantage with USD trading is: if there is a speculation over cryptocurrencies, like fake Korean Ban news, you can sell your coins to USD and stay in USD until everything goes fine again.
Margin Trading: Margin trading allows you to trade with balances (3.3x times than you have) that other users funded (see funding mechanism below). If you have $300 in your margin wallet, it means you can buy coins equivelant to $1000. Not surprisingly margin trading is a risky method that multiplies your win/loss by 3.3x. It can be profitable if you are sure what you are doing. I am not going to explain the details of margin trading there are many resources about this method. Just think twice before using it.
Funding Mechanism: this feature is another great option in Bitfinex. If you are not a trader and not interested in short time earnings, you can earn money by funding your assets to other users. There are 3 wallets (Exchange, Margin, Funding) in bitfinex for each coin. You can fund your assets to other users with a small return rate for 2-30 days period. Note that you can’t take your provided balance back until the duration you have set ends.
Mobile Application: I am using Bitfinex mobile application for Android. Unlike others, Bitfinex mobile application warns immediately if an order executed. So that you don’t need to waste your time in front of your PC.
Deposit and Withdrawal feesDeposits: “You pay no fees for cryptocurrency deposits. For USD deposits, the fee is 0.100% with a minimum fee of $20.”
Withdrawals:0.0005 BTC, 0.0005 BCH, 0.01 ETH, NEO: Free, 0.1 OMG. An overview of withdrawal fees can be found here.
API: Bitfinex has an API support for software developers. This means you can automatize your trade orders by the help of Bitfinex REST or Socket API. I will write API features and how can it be used in an another post.
Reporting: Bitfinex has a simple but almost sufficient reporting feature.
Cons:
Coins: There are too few coins in bitfinex trading options. Now you can only trade BTC, ETH, LTC, BCC, XRP, OMG, BCH, ETC, ZEC, XMR, DASH, IOTA, EOS, SAN, OMG, NEO, SNT, ETP, EDO, BTG, RRT, QTUM, AVT, DATA, QASH, YYW, GNT, BAT, MNA, FUN, ZRX, TNB and SPK. If you want to trade with other coins please read others.
Fees: Bitfinex has two types of fees (Taker fee, maker fee). For orders lower than $500,000.00 bitfinex charges about %0.1 maker fee and %0.2 taker fee. Here is bitfinex description“Maker fees are paid when you add liquidity to our order book by placing a limit order below the ticker price for buy, and above the ticker price for sell.Taker fees are paid when you remove liquidity from our order book by placing any order that is executed against an order on the order book”
Affiliate Program: Bitfinex user registrations was delayed until 15 Jan 2018. bitfinex is now accepting new users. But their affilate program has been cancelled.
User Verification: Since the high user load, Bitfinex user verification process can take a few months or more. Moreover new registered users will have to deposit min $10,000 to fill verification form. I think they don’t want users who have small budgets in their system.
Region Restriction: People living in US are restricted to use Bitfinex services.
Summary
If you are planning to trade the coins written above, bitfinex is a good option to use. With margin trading you can earn much. But be careful when using margin orders. You can loose more than you have risked. Please check the margin trading topic here. Trailing stop order is very useful but you can not place a trailing stop order to be valid at a specific price range. Instead, your order has to follow current market price. The chart has no real-time support but it is still useful.
Binance:
Pros
Low Fees: Binance exchange takes the least fees among the exchanges mentioned in this blog. Binance takes 0.1% fee for all executed order. If you use BNB the fees become 0.05%. You can find detailed information here.
Coins: Binance has a large scale of coin support. There are many coins you can trade.
Affiliate Program: Binance has an affiliate program that offers 20% of the referred users’ trade fees to the referral code owner. If you are not registered yet, you can use my code: 17159669. Or direct link to binance: https://www.binance.com/?ref=17159669 .
Verification: Binance also has a verification procedure. But if you have small balance the unverified lvl1 account is allowed to withdraw 2BTC per day. I think this is enough for most users. If you need more, you need to verify your account.
Mobile Application: I am using Binance mobile application for Android. The lack of notifications on completion of order execution looks like a problem.
API: Binace has API support. But I am going to discuss in later blogs.
Wide Regions: There is no region restriction for binance users.
Reporting: Binance has a useful reporting feature that allows exporting the filtered results.
Cons
Withdraw and Deposits: Deposits are free. withdrawal fees for common coins are: 0.001 BTC, 0.01 ETH, Neo free, 0.01LTC... More information can be found here.
Fraction Lost: Binance system takes fees after each order executed. If you have a buy order for a coin like ENG amount of 10.00, your order fills 9.99 ENG to your wallet (if not BNB payment enabled). And you can not sell this 0.99 ENG anymore. The only way to spend this fraction is to buy or sell ENG again. If you like trading with various coins, you will probably see many fractions in your wallets. Sometimes this can be annoying.
GUI: Actually the Binance GUI has many problems. Bitfinex GUI can be a good reference for developers. The only advantage over bitfinex is: price chart has a real time option.
Summary
Low fees, especialy if you are using BNB, is very attractive for traders. On the other hand, GUI design could have contained much more useful data. If Binance developer team can work on GUI design, it would be great.
Bittrex
Pros
Coins: Bittrex has the largest amount of tradeable coins among all. There are many coins you can trade.
Wide Regions: There is no region restriction for bittrex users.
Withdraw and Deposits: Deposits are free. And no extra fee for withdrawals.
User verification: Bittrex has the easiest and the fastest user verification process. My acoount has been verified in ten minutes.
API: Bitrex has an API support.
Cons
Fees: Bittrex takes 0.25% fee for each order.
Mobile Application: Bittrex has no mobile application yet.
Reporting: Bitrex has a reporting support. But it is a little difficult to use it. In main screen there is a section for order history that shows few recent orders. If you want to see more, you need to download a .csv file.
Fiat Trading: Despite there is a market called ‘USD market’, USDT is used in orders. However these are not same things. USDT can be used as USD for today. But its better to have doubts for the future.
Affiliate Program: Bittrex has no affiliate program yet.
Summary
I am not sure where to place Bittrex GUI pros or cons. You can see overall process about current trading pair. But you need to scroll the page to see them all. The chart control doesn’t show correct price sometimes. The page title says 0.00654 but you see 0.00648 on chart. Bittrex has no margin trading option yet. In support section it is written that margin trading feature would be accessible soon.
Cex.io
Pros
Margin Trading: Cex.io supports margin trading.
Fiat Trading: Cex.io allows users to use USD and EUR in their trade pairs.
Wide Regions: There is no region restriction for Cex.io users.
Mobile Application: I am using Cex.io mobile application for Android. The application does not support notifications yet.
GUI: Cex.io GUI has some missings. But in general it is above avarage.
API: Cex.io has an API.
Affiliate Program: Cex.io has an affiliate program. The user who invites his/her friends takes the 30% of fees per order. All affiliate programs work similar. This is a win/win relation or at least win / no loss relation. So if you want to register to an exchange, use your friends’ code or if you know someone who has not registered yet, ask him/her to use your code. You can use mine, if you don’t have a better option. https://cex.io/r/0/up111510584/0/
Reporting: Cex.io has a reporting feature similar to Binance.
Cons
Coins: There are too few coins you can trade in Cex.io. BTC, ETH, BCH, BTG, DASH, XRP, ZEC, GHS are only coin options for trading.
Fees: Cex.io charges two types of fees (taker and maker fees) like bitfinex. Taker fee is 0.25% and maker fee is 0.16% for order. These rates are for balances lower than 5 BTC. For full table click here.
Withdrawal and Deposits: There is no fee for crypto deposits. For Fiat Currencies Cex.io charges about %3.5 commision. But there are some regional restrictions for payments. You can see a table here. Withdrawal fees for common coins are: 0.001 BTC, 0.01 ETH, 0.001BCH
Verification: Cex.io verification process takes few hours. But I doubt they demand exessive information. You are expected to send your credit card’s photo (front and back) to verify your account. This means you have a full trust to cex.io.
Summary
Cex.io is the only platform that allows me to buy coins with my credit card (even on mobile application). Because I am not verified in other platforms yet.
Please check commends to see the comparision table/
Conclusion
I have tried to compare four exchanges under Pros and Cons sections As per my point of view.
These platforms are serving to many users. Users may have different needs according to their portfolio. For me, as a trader who has 5k USD invested, it looks like Bitfinex and Binance exchanges are comfortable to use. Despite there are some GUI problems in Binance, low fees motivate me to use Binance for trading. On the other hand, margin trading and funding concepts makes Bitfinex unique.I think the main missing part in all exchanges above is a portfoilo dashboard. It would be wonderful if I could see how much I earned from my coins in a specified date range on a chart. How much I have paid for fees, the best/worst investings of the week, etc. Or maybe what if I did Hodl... There are many applications developed for this purpose. Exchanges should do it too.
New user registration restrictions is looks like a big problem. I think fees should be enough for making new hardware / software investments. And the more user you have the more fee you take. So I am not sure what makes new user registration inefficient.