January 19, 2025

Cog Analysis: Which Cryptocurrency Exchange to Choose for Trading?

Cog Analysis: Which Cryptocurrency Exchange to Choose for Trading?

According to Coinmarketcap, by the end of 2019 onThe cryptocurrency market has more than 300 exchanges and trading floors. Some of them do not function or went bankrupt during the 2018 cryptozyme. Trading conditions on exchanges are significantly different. To understand the working conditions on the trading floors, we will compare four popular exchanges: Binance, BitMEX, Currency.com, PrimeXBT. These sites are most often chosen by professional traders and investors for a wide selection of assets and mild trading conditions.

Binance

Binance is one of the largest in terms of trading volume and popularityThe advantage of the exchange is more than 500 trading pairs, which consist ofUnfortunately, many of the crypto assets are illiquid and periodically hitunder the delisting procedure.

A variety of digital assets enablesdevelop blockchain projects that use tokens for internal calculations. At the same time, all altcoins and tokens are dependent on the course of bitcoin. If the main cryptocurrency falls or grows, the whole market follows it, this leaves no room for maneuver for traders and investors. They cannot hedge risks or diversify a portfolio.

Despite its popularity and cooperation with government and law enforcement agencies, Binance is stilldoes not have a license. In 2018, the CEO of the exchange, Changpeng Zhao, was invited to Malta as an expert in the development of legislation that will beLater, it became known that the head office of Binance was preparing to move to Malta, but there was no news about the company's licensing. 

Verification

Without passing the KYC procedure, the amount for withdrawal is limited to 2 BTC, after passing the verification procedure - 100 BTC.In order to increase the limit, you need to write to the support service.Due to the large number of customers, the KYC procedure can take several days.

Input Output

You can replenish your balance on Binance with cryptocurrency.Visa and MasterCard fiat currencies are possible  through the integrated payment acceptance service Simplex.The commission is 3.5% of the transfer amount, but not less than $10 and is not compensated by the exchange.Withdrawals are only possible in cryptocurrencies.

Trading Commissions

The size of trading commissions depends on the volume of tradingperfect in a month, as well as the type of order being placed. For those whose monthly turnover is less than 50 BTC, the commission is 0.1%, regardless of the type of order being placed: limit (maker) or market (taker).

If the trader’s turnover is more than 50 BTC per month, the commission for the maker is reduced to 0.09%. The minimum commission of 0.02% for the maker and 0.03% of the taker is available to traders whose turnover has exceeded 15,000 BTC per month.

In addition, you can get an additional 25% discount on fees if you use the exchange's BNB token to pay for it. 

Spread

Binance spread is floating and dynamicbidding. On average, for the BTC / USDT pair, 0.03% of the transaction amount, which at the exchange rate of $ 7500 for 1 BTC is about $ 2.25 for 1 BTC. That is, if you buy and immediately sell Bitcoin on Binance, the spread will be $ 2.25 or 225 points. In moments of increased volatility, the spread can reach $ 10 per 1 BTC or more.

Leverage

For the exchange exchange of cryptocurrencies, leverage is not provided. To trade settlement futures, the trader independently chooses the leverage from 2x to 125x.

Referral program

By inviting people to Binance to trade, you canreceive up to 20% of their trading commissions. You can choose the commission for the invited customers and the size of the discount on his trading commission. From 20% of the trading commission, from 5% to 15%, the trader can keep for himself, and provide the rest to the invited customers as a discount.

In addition to the referral program, recently appearedthe ability to place deposits, that is, interest is accrued to the trader for storing cryptocurrencies on the exchange Binance customers have 2 options for depositing:

  1. Unlimited deposit: in BNB – 1% per annum, in BTC – 0.8% per annum, in BUSD – 2.8% per annum.
  2. Fixed deposit for a period of 14 days: 6% in BNB, ETH, USDT, and MATIC, 10% in BUSD, and 3% in BTC.

Additional Information

Binance cryptocurrency exchange is constantly evolving and periodically provides its customers with new projects and functions. In addition to exchange trading, Binance customers are available:

  • Academy is an educational service in the field of blockchain and cryptocurrencies;
  • Binance Charity – Binance's charitable foundation;
  • Binance Labs is an incubator of cryptocurrency and blockchain projects;
  • Binance Launchpad is a platform for issuing tokens;
  • Binance Research – analytical services for institutional investors;
  • Trust Wallet is the official cryptocurrency wallet of Binance;
  • Mobile applications based on iOS and Android.

Summary

The Binance cryptocurrency exchange is a reliable and popular trading platform that has many additional services and projects.Despite several incidents of hacking the exchange, it is still considered one of the safest on the market.One could stop at Binance, but many traders are scared offIn May 2019, the exchange introduced a new rule that prevents the placement of limit orders, the execution price of which deviates from theby more than 30%. 

Bitmex

BitMEX is one of the largest cryptocurrency trading platforms on the market, founded in 2014, with a trading volume of over $3 billion.There are 9 trading pairs on the platform: derivatives on XBTUSD and ETHUSD, contracts for long and short positions on bitcoin, as well as derivatives on Cardano, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Litecoin, Tron and Ripple against BTC. The presence of only top cryptocurrency assets givestraders have fewer opportunities for hedging or diversification than on Binance. 

BitMEX is not regulated and has nopublic reporting. In July 2019, an investigation by the CFTC (US Commodity Futures Trading Commission) began against the exchange. The regulator believes that the exchange allowed US citizens to trade without special permission. Amid the investigation, from July to August 2019, clients withdrew more than $500 million from the exchange. Trading volumes and the number of clients on the platform have recovered, but the investigation is still ongoing. 

Verification

There is no KYC procedure on the platform. Anyone can quickly register, top up their balance and immediately start trading. 

Due to the lack of an identity verification procedure, famous economist Nouriel Roubini accused the platform of non-compliance with KYC and AML rules, thanks to which proceeds may be laundered through BitMEX. 

Input Output

Replenishment of balance and withdrawal to BitMEX is possible only in bitcoins. No other cryptocurrencies or deposit or withdrawal options are available on the exchange. There are no commissions for deposits or withdrawals. 

Trading Commissions

For perpetual contracts on BTCUSD and ETHUSDmakers receive rebates in the amount of 0.025%, and takers pay a commission in the amount of 0.075%. For the other derivatives, makers receive a rebate of 0.05%, and takers pay a commission of 0.25%.

Trading commissions on BitMEX are quite democratic and correspond to the average market ones, but the commission of the taker for altcoins is 2.5 times higher than on Binance.

Spread

The spread on the platform is floating and depends onmarket volatility. In calm times, the difference between the purchase and sale prices is on average 35 cents per 1 BTC, during times of strong volatility it reaches 20 dollars per 1 BTC. 

Leverage

The amount of leverage depends on the trading pair:

  • BTCUSD – 100x;
  • ETHUSD – 50x;
  • LTCBTC – 33.3x;
  • Other pairs against BTC – 20x.

Referral program

For the given customers, whose total tradingturnover amounted to 1,000 BTC per month, you get 10% of their trading commissions. If the trade turnover exceeds 1,000 BTC, the amount of remuneration increases to 15%. The maximum reward of 20% is possible to receive if the clients you referred to have completed trading operations worth more than 10,000 BTC.

Additional Information

There are no unique ones on BitMEXfeatures, applications or services for customers. When opening trading positions in large volumes or at moments of high volatility, the terminal gives errors and slows down, and price slippage is already commonplace for platform participants. At times of peak load on the platform’s trading system, customers sometimes cannot close their trading positions.

When prices for leading cryptocurrencies collapse, positionsclients open for purchases upon reaching a certain drawdown level are automatically liquidated by the platform  to avoid loss of trading capital. In September 2019, during an impulse drop in the price of leading cryptocurrencies, $710 million of client positions were liquidated.

Summary

The conditional advantage of BitMEX can be calledinstant registration and anonymity, as well as quite loyal trading commissions. Separately, it is worth noting that while on Binance, according to various studies, trading volumes are pure, on BitMEX they are high solely due to leverage. Otherwise, the platform is absolutely in no way superior to either Binance or the other participants in this review and is very often criticized and is the center of scandals. 

Currency.com

Currencycom – The world's first regulated cryptocurrency exchange of tokenized assets, providing the opportunity to invest cryptocurrencies in traditional assets: stock indices, stocks, commodities, precious metals and even bonds. On the exchange you can trade cryptocurrencies BTC, BCH, ETH and LTC against USD, EUR, Belarusian and Russian rubles. 

Currencycom combines cryptocurrency and traditional financial markets. Traders have access to exchange and margin trading, trading with leverage.  More than 1,300 assets are represented, from cryptocurrencies to government bonds.

The exchange was launched in January 2019 in High Parktechnologies of the Republic of Belarus and licensed in accordance with the decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus “On the development of the digital economy”, which came into force in March 2018.

Currency.com – a public company that submits reports to regulatory authorities and is independently audited by a company from the "Big Four auditors" Ernst&Young.

Verification

The passage of the KYC procedure on the platform is mandatory. Verification takes several steps and takes about two minutes. Verification of documents takes place within an hour.

Input Output

Balance replenishment and withdrawal on the platform are possiblein BTC, BCH, ETH and LTC cryptocurrencies, as well as in dollars, euros, Belarusian and Russian rubles using a bank transfer or Visa and MasterCard bank cards.

Currency.com has opened an account for accepting payments with Sberbank with preferential commissions for depositing and withdrawing funds from cards – 1%.

Trading Commissions

Trading commissions on Currency.com:

  • Cryptocurrency pairs with leverage: taker 0.075%, maker 0%;
  • Leveraged stocks, indexes, ETFs and commodities – 0.0125%;
  • Commodities – 0.05%;
  • Non-leveraged stocks, indices, ETFs and commodities – 0.05%;
  • Tokenized bonds – 0.03%.

Spread

For the main cryptocurrency pairs BTC / USD and ETH / USD, the exchange has an advantage over trading platforms on the market. The spread for the BTC / USD pair is 5 cents, and for the ETH / USD pair only 1 cent.

Leverage

The size of leverage on Currency.com is chosen by the trader, the maximum size depends on the selected asset:

  • Cryptocurrency pairs BTC/USD and ETH/USD – from 2x to 100x;
  • Cryptocurrency pairs BTC/EUR, BTC/BYN, BTC/RUB, ETH/BYN and ETH/RUB – from 2x to 20x;
  • Cryptocurrency pairs LTC/USD, LTC/EUR, LTC/BTC, BCH/USD and ETH/BTC – from 2x to 10x;
  • Shares – from 5x to 20x;
  • Commodities, currencies and stock indices – from 5x to 100x;
  • ETF – from 5x to 20x.

Referral program

Members of the referral program receive 50% of the trading commissions of invited customers, and the invited ones receive an additional 10% discount on trading commissions.

Additional Information

Russian-speaking support service, account replenishmentthrough Sberbank makes Currency.com convenient for clients from Russia and the CIS countries. The platform processes 50 million transactions per second, this allows you to avoid price slippages and “brakes.” under high load and errors when opening trading positions. Mobile applications for iOS and Android have identical functionality as the main terminal.

The personal data of clients is protected by cryptographic encryption and is stored in the UK on LD4 Equinix servers, whose services are used by the NASDAQ exchange.

Summary

Currency.com cryptocurrency exchange is suitable for professional and novice traders and investors. Commissions on the exchange below market, there is the possibility of replenishment and withdrawal using bank cards.

PrimeXBT

PrimeXBT – trading platform,providing margin trading with leverage up to 1000x in leading cryptocurrencies, Forex currency pairs, stock indices and commodities. In total, there are 39 trading pairs on the platform, consisting of different assets. But the lack of direct exchange, similar to exchanges, deprives traders of the opportunity to hedge price risks.

At this time, the PrimeXBT trading platform does not have licenses, and the founders and managers of the company do not disclose their identities. 

Verification

There is no verification procedure on PrimeXBTidentity, registration takes place in several standard steps and takes a couple of minutes. The platform supports anonymous trading. To track and block suspicious transactions the platform uses the Crystal service from Bitfury. 

Input Output

Replenishment of balance and withdrawal in bitcoins.In the platform’s personal account, you can exchange other cryptocurrencies and even euros and dollars for bitcoin using the partner exchange service Changelly. The exchange is carried out with a commission. The USD to BTC exchange rate on Changelly is $900 higher than the current Bitcoin rate; at the time of publication, the BTC/USD rate was $7,500, on Changelly $8,400. Plus a commission of 0.0025 BTC, i.e. $18.5. When exchanging 1 ETH  the exchange rate will be 0.03 BTC or $225 higher + $18.5 commission. 

Trading Commissions

The amount of trading commissions on PrimeXBT:

  • Cryptocurrency pairs – 0.05% for makers and takers;
  • Indices and commodities – 0.01%;
  • Forex currency pairs – 0.001%.

Spread

The spread on the platform is floating, according to the mainto trading pairs such as BTC / USD it is 30-50 cents and 5-10 cents for the ETH / USD pair. Narrow spreads are achieved thanks to aggregated liquidity from several suppliers. However, PrimeXBT lags behind Currency.com in this respect.

Leverage

The amount of leverage depends on the type of assets and is automatically regulated by the platform itself. Traders cannot choose the margin size on their own.

  • Currency pairs are automatically adjusted up to 1000x;
  • Precious metals are automatically adjusted up to 500x;
  • Cryptocurrency pairs and stock indices are automatically regulated up to 100x.

Referral program

PrimeXBT has a 4-level referral program.The client you invited – This is the 1st level for which you get 20% of his trading commissions. From a referral of 2 levels 15%, 3 levels  10%, 4 levels – 5%.

Additional Information

The platform offers traders mobile applications based on iOS and Android.

Summary

The platform uses aggressive advertising to promote itself and states that it is fighting money laundering. In fact – This is an analogue of a Forex dealer in the cryptocurrency market.

Comparative table of exchanges Binance, BitMEX, Currency.com and PrimeXBT 

 Cog Analysis: Which Cryptocurrency Exchange to Choose for Trading?