Top Crypto Exchanges 2024: Reviews, Fees, and Security Compared

Kraken is one of the oldest U.S. crypto exchanges, founded in 2011 during crypto’s Paleolithic era. This platform offers a solid range of coins with very competitive trading fees. It’s also one of the few exchanges in the U.S. to offer margin trading and a suite of other advanced trading tools like advanced order types and futures trading. The top cryptocurrency exchanges allow you to buy, sell, and trade popular cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and other digital coins and tokens. However, only experienced, exchange fees crypto hands-on traders with knowledge of blockchain trading should use the top crypto exchanges. Kraken stands out for its deep liquidity and diverse asset selection, enabling precise and high-volume trades.

Why You Should Trust Us: Our Expert Panel For The Best Cryptocurrency Exchanges

Makers fees continue to fall with higher volume until 0.020% that is charged if the trading volume exceeds 150,000 Bitcoin and 11,000 BNB. When it comes to fees, Gemini calculates a fee between 0.10% and 1.00% both makers and takers, although the actual fee varies depending on the trading volume. The investing information provided on this page is for educational purposes only. NerdWallet, Inc. does not offer advisory or brokerage services, nor does it recommend or advise investors to buy or sell particular stocks, securities or other investments. Cryptocurrency investors who use the https://www.xcritical.com/ instant buy feature will incur a charge for the service.

How to Choose a Cryptocurrency Exchange

Even if the cold storage wallet is damaged, lost, or stolen, the funds can be accessed using a variety of backup options, such as a recovery phrase. The fees on Crypto.com Exchange are some of the best in the industry at just 0.075% on spot trades. Additionally, the exchange supports derivatives trading for 0.0170% (maker) and 0.0340% per transaction. A con with Coinbase is that the fees start at 0.60% (taker) and 0.40% (maker) and are reduced with trading volume.

• The top-rated margin exchange has established itself as one of the stable and secure environments for buying and selling crypto.
• The thinking is that leaving your assets on the platform puts you at risk if the exchange gets hacked or for some reason decides to freeze your account.
• We may receive payment from our affiliates for featured placement of their products or services.
• In addition to the username and password, 2FA requires one more piece of evidence, such as a PIN Code, a fingerprint scan, or a code texted to their smartphone.
• Crypto.com is Finder’s top pick for the best overall crypto exchange due to its low costs, robust security and user-friendly interface.
• While you can buy or sell crypto via a software wallet, having an account with a reputable exchange can open many doors to building your portfolio.

How is investing in crypto different from investing in stocks?

Exchange fees are usually based on a percentage of your trading volume and go down the more you trade. Though some stock brokers also offer crypto exchanges, crypto trading is not subject to the same investor protections you get when working with traditional investments. Securities Investor Protection Corp. insurance doesn’t apply to cryptocurrency, so if your exchange fails, you could lose your investment.

Best for Low Fees and Best for Experienced Traders

Unlike ByBit and Binance which offer zero fees on the spot pairs only, Gate.io has removed all its trading free from multiple markets. For example, customers can trade with zero fees on the spot, perpetual futures, leveraged tokens, and even its P2P trading platform. In total, there are more than 1,000 cryptocurrency pairs that can be bought and sold without fees. This is a pro for leverage traders that trade USD-M and BTC-M trading pairs which means Gate.io is a viable alternative to Binance Futures and ByBit due to its lower fees. There is also a derivatives market with 198 trading pairs and a staggering 40 billion in trading volume at the time of writing, nearly double its closest competitor. Combined with low fees of 0.1% per trade and deep liquidity, Binance has historically been one of the cheapest crypto exchanges to use.

How The Tangem Ring Crypto Wallet Improves Self-Custody

The escrow mechanism used in the peer-to-peer trading process may be challenging for new users while the comparatively slow trade execution could deter first-time users and active traders. Additionally, the exchange is more targeted at making smaller trades as trading volumes are lower than on centralized global exchanges. While Crypto.com offers an impressive array of products and features, customer support is lacking. Additionally, unless you trade at higher volumes, you will end up paying trading fees of up to 0.075%. After comprehensively reviewing 28 cryptocurrency exchanges in more than 20 weighted categories, our top picks for the best cryptocurrency exchanges include Kraken, Coinbase, and Crypto.com.

The Best Crypto Exchanges & Apps of September 2024

Gemini is a licensed crypto exchange and a New York-based trust company regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services. If you’re new to cryptocurrency or just need to convert fiat currency into crypto, you’ll likely use a centralized exchange. She has covered personal finance and investing for over 15 years, and was a senior writer and spokesperson at NerdWallet before becoming an assigning editor. Arielle has appeared on the “Today” show, NBC News and ABC’s “World News Tonight,” and has been quoted in national publications including The New York Times, MarketWatch and Bloomberg News. NerdWallet, Inc. is an independent publisher and comparison service, not an investment advisor. Its articles, interactive tools and other content are provided to you for free, as self-help tools and for informational purposes only.

This security-focused browser has delivered a much better experience than I thought possible. The comments, opinions, and analyses expressed on Investopedia are for informational purposes only. As of the date this article was written, the author does not own cryptocurrency.

From Passing Interests to International Investment: Cryptocurrencies Matter

It’s not the lowest fee compared to the other exchanges, but it’s the same disregarding the value of the transaction. Market makers don’t pay any fees if their 30-day trading volume is above $10 million. However, if the volume falls, they have to pay a 0.02% fee, which can go up to 0.16% if the volume falls below $50,000. On the other hand, takers fees start at 0.26% if the trading volume is below $50,000 and can drop to 0.10% if the volume goes above $10 million. Kraken is one of the top 10 crypto exchanges with a total trading volume of over $120 million in the last 24 hours.

Some of the most popular staking coins on eToro include Cardano (ADA), Tron (TRX), and Ethereum. With eToro charging just a 10% fee on staking rewards, it’s one of the best crypto staking platforms on the market. Coinbase offers payment methods for different fiat currencies, such as USD, GBP, and EUR. Unfortunately, Coinbase has deposit fees, which vary depending on region and payment method. Users can deposit via bank transfer or purchase cryptocurrencies using a bank card. Bybit lets users buy and sell 317 cryptocurrencies using Bitcoin or USDT as the base currency.

The well-known OKX crypto exchange is well-known for its breadth of innovative products and services, cost-effectiveness, and robust blockchain features. Although the exchange is not regulated in all its operating jurisdictions, OKX is ideal for international traders. Poloniex is headquartered in Delaware and offers traders advanced trading tools and margin trading services. This, of course, excludes fees inherent to a cryptocurrency’s blockchain.

Spot trading fees on KuCoin are very reasonable at 0.1% per transaction, with volume-based discounts available on top of a 20% reduction when paid using KuCoin’s native KCS token. Futures trading is priced at 0.02% (maker) and 0.06% (taker) per transaction. They allow the exchange to survive, pay salaries to tech support and provide customer services. In addition, fees allow crypto exchanges to invest in infrastructure, which makes them more secure, faster and allows including more cryptocurrency and fiat trading pairs. Kraken’s professional-grade trading platform, Kraken Pro, is our pick for the best low-fee exchange because it charges some of the lowest fees in the crypto asset exchange landscape. It’s also our top choice for experienced traders, as it offers advanced order types and supports margin and futures trading.

CaptainAltcoin.com does not offer any sort of financial or investment advice. Please make sure to do your own research, make educated financial decisions and consult your Financial Advisor. Users either can commit to a longer staking period by using funds from your Available Balance or wait till the existing staking period ends and stake again. When you stake more of the same asset, your new stake will only begin earning rewards when the transaction status changes to “Staked” after the Activation Period has ended. Staking requests past the Staking Period’s end date will cease to earn rewards.

This lets customers directly buy and sell Bitcoin and lots of other crypto assets without transmitting custody of their funds to third parties. A crypto exchange with most coins, Changelly processes fiat transactions through its international partners, including MoonPay, Switchere, and Simplex. This helps to ensure that Changelly can serve users from almost any country, and there are also no set amount restrictions on your trading volumes on the platform.

However, Coinbase is not the cheapest exchange for smaller investors, and better fees can be obtained on Binance. The platform uses an order book-based interface, making it simple for anyone with previous experience. Binance is worth checking out for anyone looking for an all-in-one trading platform, and US residents are not concerned with margin trading.

While previously considered a beginner exchange, including advanced trading features on Coinbase significantly boosts its usability. Some regulators around the world have taken a hands-off approach to cryptocurrency regulation, which means that many cryptocurrency exchanges are unregulated. Consider your own finances and understanding of the market before deciding where or how much cryptocurrency to trade. And, above all, keep safety, liquidity and fees in mind when choosing an exchange. For makers decline to 0.090% if the volume exceeds 100 Bitcoin and 50 BNB.