Our in-depth online crypto exchanges reviews include rankings, detailed analysis, spreads data, platform breakdowns, trading fees, account features, and more.
Do you want to jump on the train of cryptocurrency investments but don't know how to extricate yourself among the best cryptocurrency platforms available online? Here is the list of the best platforms to rely on.
On this page, you will get to know and compare the best cryptocurrency exchanges you are looking for.
The cryptocurrency market has literally exploded in recent years and has generated staggering profits even for amateur investors who have been able to take advantage of the opportunities at the right time.
Today the situation is rapidly saturating, more and more platforms have been developed to invest in crypto and it is very important to be careful to entrust your capital exclusively to safe and efficient ones.
However, security is a necessary but not sufficient condition, there are many characteristics that distinguish the best crypto exchanges from those that are not very reliable.
Read on and get ready to know the secrets to invest like the pros.
If you feel ready and want to get started right away, below is the information you need to get started.
Crypto exchanges, also known as exchanges, are cryptocurrency trading platforms.
In a way, a crypto exchange can be compared to a stock exchange. These provide the platform that brings sellers and buyers together and thus makes a significant contribution to pricing.
However, unlike traditional stock exchanges, a cryptocurrency exchange is not a physical place, but rather a digital place.
However, the type of trade has not been around for that long. In the early days, investors had to trade their cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin, on marketplaces.
There, an investor offered his Bitcoin (BTC) for a fixed price and waited until a prospective buyer accepted the offer.
Today, the marketplaces are in decline and more and more investors are trading their cryptocurrencies on crypto exchanges.
This is also understandable because, in addition to a higher level of security, these platforms also offer automated processes and faster transaction processing.
Crypto exchanges are generally very structured and transparent. To give you a better understanding of how crypto platforms work, we have described the most important properties in more detail for you.
As a user, you must always register. An email address and name is usually sufficient for this.
Safe and reputable crypto exchanges require a copy of your ID, thereby helping to combat money laundering violations.
Basically, the exchanges are supposed to ensure that the money laundering laws are complied with and that the persons involved are verified.
Only exchanges that perform KYC (know-your-customer) and AML (anti-money-laundering) checks are considered trustworthy.
In addition, a crypto exchange offers the possibility to deposit money on the platform. There are two approaches here:
But no matter what type of deposit you choose, you can only trade on any stock exchange if the corresponding capital is available.
A reputable crypto exchange will look for the right counter-offer based on the order you placed and carry out the transaction automatically.
Only when a transaction is made does the corresponding fee apply. The typical fees of a cryptocurrency trading platform include the so-called "Miner's Fee".
The "Miner's Fee" consists of the costs incurred to produce a specific cryptocurrency. All cryptocurrency trading platforms calculate them in advance and “invoice” them to you.
There are different types of crypto exchanges. The different types of crypto platforms have an impact on trading.
In the following, we have described the different types of crypto exchanges in more detail.
With crypto brokers, trading does not take place directly between buyer and seller. Crypto brokers are therefore private trading places that are interposed as mediating entities.
Here you do not buy “real” cryptocurrencies but financial derivatives. This has the advantage that you do not have to worry about storing cryptocurrencies.
The platform sets the price itself but is based on the current market price. The broker charges a small fee for trading.
A decentralized exchange (DEX) is a trading venue that focuses on decentralization. This means the exchange is integrated in the blockchain and all transactions are confirmed and verified by the network.
There are also decentralized peer-to-peer transactions between users.
Decentralized crypto exchanges are not yet as mature as hoped. However, there are very good examples, like MetaMask, which show in which direction this type of crypto trader is going. The small disadvantage, from the user's point of view, of decentralized crypto exchanges is that the private key must always be kept. If you lose it and want to restore your account, there is no way to get your cryptocurrencies.
A peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange is a website designed to connect buyers and sellers of cryptocurrencies.
The P2P exchange is not an exchange that automatically initiates settlement. Rather, the platform supports matchmaking.
The buyer and seller must then independently agree on a price for the transaction.
In our crypto exchange comparison, we have made a strict distinction between crypto brokers and crypto exchanges. In the following, we want to show why we differentiate between these two types of exchanges.
Basically, a crypto broker is a private trading venue where investors buy cryptocurrencies from a broker. This requires separate fees, but in return allows easy trading of BTC and Co.
In addition, with many brokers, you do not buy real cryptocurrencies, but financial derivatives. A crypto exchange, on the other hand, is a marketplace for trading real cryptocurrencies.
There are usually fewer payment methods here, but cheaper fees. The marketplaces are often not regulated and are therefore an attractive target for attackers.
Ideally, you should keep the cryptocurrencies in your own wallet.
Regardless of whether it is a crypto exchange or a crypto broker, if you compare both types of exchanges, there are specific advantages and disadvantages.
However, along with these advantages, there are also some disadvantages that investors should consider:
Proper crypto exchanges are more for advanced investors. However, these are also characterized by some advantages and disadvantages, which we will explain below.
But even with cryptocurrency trading platforms, there are some disadvantages that investors should always consider:
To help you find the right crypto exchange, we have listed our most important test criteria for you below. With these test criteria, we support you in finding your reputable crypto platform.
Many crypto exchanges now have official state licenses. This makes them extremely trustworthy and safe for you as a user.
Still, there are many good crypto exchanges that are not yet fully regulated.
Does that make them unsafe for you? – No, because many exchanges are relatively new and cryptos are not regulated overall.
Binance, for example, is by far the largest crypto exchange and is not regulated, but it is one of the best and most reliable crypto trading platforms due to its sheer size.
Security is extremely important, especially when it comes to your money or cryptos. Crypto exchanges take numerous precautions to protect themselves from attacks and hacks.
We specifically recommend the following steps when you buy and sell cryptocurrencies on an exchange:
When it comes to tradable cryptocurrencies, the main thing is of course the largest possible selection. As a user, you have the most well-known coins such as Bitcoin or Ethereum available on all good crypto exchanges.
However, it gets interesting when it comes to lesser-known cryptos or coins that have just come onto the market.
In any case, before registering with a crypto exchange, you should check in advance whether they actually offer the coin you want.
Basically, with most crypto exchanges you have the choice between depositing with real money or by using your cryptos. If you decide to deposit with fiat money, you can choose between the following options, depending on the provider:
This list of deposit methods is not exhaustive. Rather, some providers offer additional options. You can find more information about this in our field reports or directly from the respective cryptocurrency trading platform.
With regard to the fees, there are sometimes enormous differences between the providers. If fees are above 1%, these are comparatively high and more likely to be found on regulated marketplaces.
Market makers, i.e. those who provide liquidity to the market, pay fewer fees than investors. There may also be fees for deposits or withdrawals that you should be aware of.
Nowadays everyone owns a smartphone and therefore it is, of course, obvious that one would also like to use crypto exchanges conveniently on the mobile phone. The providers have of course recognized the signs of the times and offer mobile apps or mobile versions of their websites.
All you have to do is install the provider's app on your mobile phone, log in on your mobile phone and you can trade easily.
Incidentally, you can also use all the functions of a stock exchange directly on your smartphone.
In our opinion, it is very important to get help quickly and competently when you have problems or questions. Most cryptocurrency trading platforms are now available through various channels such as:
The popularity and seriousness of a trading platform is also reflected in its number of users. If a provider already has millions of active customers, then it can be assumed that they are also satisfied with the offer. Big companies invest a lot of money in marketing and in their platform to get the trust of the customers and also have to prove their good reputation.
If a crypto platform has very few users and the reviews are rather negative, you should think twice. All crypto exchanges in our comparison have been on the market for several years and have a large number of users.
So that we can give you a better overview of which crypto exchanges are recommended, we have compared our top 3 cryptocurrency trading platforms below.
Binance is by far the largest crypto exchange in terms of trading volume.
The Chinese provider was founded in 2017 and has a huge selection of coins, low trading fees, and numerous other offers for its customers such as its own ICO platform and various DeFi offers.
Coinbase should not only be known to some people since the company went public.
The provider was founded in 2012, has more than 1,200 employees, and is one of the safest and most reliable exchanges with very good support.
eToro is one of the world's largest crypto brokers and is fully regulated and licensed.
The trading platform has been around since 2007 and the company plans to go public soon. eToro is currently active in 140 countries and claims to have around 25 million users.
We provide our crypto exchange reviews as a result of a team review. This is due to the fact that the task here is harder than reviewing other areas in the market. Crypto exchanges usually are not subject to regulation like Forex Brokers. Hence, we need to be more cautious about our rating.
In this scale, we treat all crypto exchanges the same. Holding a twinkling name doesn’t mean that the given crypto exchange will receive special treatment. As we always say, we don't become anyone's affiliate, we are not tied to any third party, therefore we have no conflict of interest. To sum it up, our crypto exchange reviews cover the following points:
Trust and reputation for us are the most important two factors for any exchange. We will look at the history of the crypto exchange in review. Additionally, we will always go on incognito mode and ask for feedback on different forums from their customers.
Liquidity and Fees, including those of withdrawals, are a provision we will look at when conducting our research on any exchange. Hence, we have made a good read on that and checked with the exchange itself, to make sure all the information we could obtain is up-to-date and accurate.
While the last two basic points are into our deep interest and consideration, the technical parts are still covered in our review of these exchanges. It is important for us to give our readers and traders a feel about how these exchange websites look like, and most importantly, how each exchange's customer care service works and how they handle user problems and complaints.
We are sure that thanks to the information on this page, you will be able to carefully choose the cryptocurrency exchange that best suits your needs.
Clearly, you will have to ask yourself what your investment goals are and how much you are willing to risk.
It can also be crucial to understand how much capital you want to invest and how often to operate.
Finding the answer to all these subjective questions is the first step to fully understanding which is the best cryptocurrency exchange for your investments.
The advice that we at AtoZMarkets feel we can give you is to carefully evaluate the Binance, Coinbase and eToro platforms.
In the opinion of our experts, these exchanges contain almost all the fundamental characteristics for investing in crypto-assets,
In fact, they allow you to enjoy all the security of a broker authorized to operate and provide you with the main tools to invest in the best possible way.
You will have the opportunity to buy cryptocurrencies directly and store them in the internal wallet, and operate at zero commissions and advantageous spreads.
If you want to buy cryptocurrencies on a crypto exchange like Binance, you own the coins. This means that you buy real cryptocurrencies on crypto exchanges, while you only trade with contracts at crypto brokers such as eToro.
With more than 300 cryptocurrencies, Binance is the platform that offers the most cryptocurrencies. However, there are also crypto exchanges such as Kraken and Coinbase, which also offer over 150 different cryptocurrencies.
You have the possibility to deposit with almost all crypto exchanges with a credit card. The most popular exchanges that accept credit card payments are eToro, Binance, and Coinbase
At the moment we would still advise you to go to a central crypto exchange. Central crypto exchanges are easier to use and in most cases also offer more cryptocurrencies. Decentralized crypto exchanges, on the other hand, are not suitable for beginners and if you lose the security key, there is no way to gain access to the crypto exchange.
Buying and selling cryptocurrencies on crypto exchanges is very simple. After successful registration, you have to top up the account and can then buy your cryptos.