Centralized exchanges get a bad rap. They do. And not just from the ‘not your keys, not your coins’ crowd. That said, you should NEVER keep long-term holdings on an exchange. You should always move them to cold storage or the non-custodial private wallet of your choice.
And in case we forgot, Celsius is teaching us that lesson all over again, although they are a centralized lender and not an exchange. But does that make exchanges all bad? Of course not. So in this article, we’ll tell you about the Top 4 Crypto Exchanges nowadays.
First, they are often the best on-ramp and off-ramp to crypto from fiat money. Second, they offer lots of great services in one place for short-term trades. Sooner or later, we need one or both of these reasons to use a CEX. So let’s get set up with the best ones for the times that we need them. Want to know who is the best? Well, stay tuned.
1) MEXC Exchange
For our American viewers, you guys are going to love MEXC if you don’t know about it yet. Imagine all those services from big global Binance that you are locked out of just because you are American. And now they are open to you because MEXC offers them too. Everything from:
- Trading
- Futures and Options
- ETFs including leverage
- Margin accounts
- DeFi and Staking
- And more
All with the convenience of the place where you on-ramp your fiat into the crypto-economy.
Also, MEXC has lots of things we like. Some things we like specifically are:
- They are licensed in the US: Our American friends can use them. Other difficult jurisdictions like Australia too.
- NO KYC is required for up to 10 BTC: Yes, 10 BTC. Now every service isn’t available if you don’t KYC. But the most important ones of trading, futures, and staking ARE. So not only do Americans, and everyone else, get the major services Binance provides, but you can do so without doing KYC for quite a while. Maybe forever since 10 BTC is almost $220,000.
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They have over 1300 trading pairs.
Only Gate.io has more and is restricted in many countries that MEXC is not.
- MEXC has a quality token, MX: We know some of you out there like exchange tokens. After all, it is betting on market growth which seems inevitable at this point. Therefore, you can use MX to lower your trading fees, for staking and on the MEXC launchpad too. Its tokenomics are pretty solid too if you wanted to just buy it to HODL.
2) Binance
Next, we have the current king, Binance. They are the biggest crypto exchange in the world by volume. They do 4x more volume daily than the next biggest exchange. It’s amazing how fast they have grown and how much bigger they are than their competition. That volume number by the way is $28 BILLION daily.
And that volume means good prices for us, low slippage, and lots of potential services we can use. Also, Binance was one of the first and the biggest to integrate lots of related investment services in one place.
Moreover, Binance offers:
- Spot Trading
- Futures and Options
- DeFi and Staking
- Launchpad
- Lending
- P2P Trades
- Margin Accounts
- Its own Debit Card, etc.
In addition, when you search around the website, if it seems like it has almost everything a trader or investor could want, that’s because it does. And the BNB token, the native token of Binance, is the #5 value project in the crypto ecosystem. It’s only behind Bitcoin, Ethereum, and 2 stablecoins. However, its limitations are:
- Heavy restricted in the US and some other jurisdictions.
- Its inability to handle bank wires from many countries for direct fiat to crypto transfers is the major shortcoming.
And they try to handle the direct fiat to the crypto problem by enabling P2P trades and providing the escrow service.
3) Crypto.com
Now we have the rising star, Crypto.com. Crypto.com is an exchange yet it’s best known for its debit cards. It’s probably the most popular crypto debit card in the market today.
They have a full exchange but Americans can’t use it. They can only use the app. That said, the app has many more features than Binance’s American option, Binance.US. Also, something else Crypto.com and Binance has in common is both use Cosmos for their exchange coins. Binance is for BNB and Crypto.com uses CRO. Both were created on separate blockchains as part of the Cosmos network.
Moreover, Crypto.com does enable bank transfers in many markets including the US. They don’t charge a fee on their end for either an ACH or a wire transfer but your bank probably will on their end. Then the only other issue is the waiting time necessary to buy for the funds to clear. But Crypto.com’s dominant card position might be changing.
They just announced a huge update and change starting on June 1st. If you have or are interested in their debit card, you need to see this. The 2 big things are:
- The card rewards are cut by a minimum of 50% across all card categories AND
- No more staking rewards for staking CRO as part of qualifying for a higher tier card with a cap on card reward rates at very low numbers
Needless to say, users are outraged, as you can see in the many comments on this thread. Many are immediately unstacking their CRO or even cutting up their cards.
— Legit Crypto Lounge (@Legit_Crypto_) May 1, 2022
More About Crypto.com
The rebates and use of your crypto in debit card form still apply and still maintain value for many users but you should know about these changes that are here. What we like about Crypto.com is that in all sports, but especially baseball and basketball, successful teams have utility players. A utility player is usually someone who does many things well but is not outstanding at any one thing. And that’s what Crypto.com is.
And Crypto.com is a utility player in the world of crypto exchanges. They do many things well such as access, trading pairs, and other services. They have far less access than Binance or MEXC, fewer trading pairs than MEXC, and smaller markets for spot, futures, and derivatives than either Binance or MEXC.
But they do all these things pretty well. They are ok on fees and pretty good in most other areas too. Moreover, their new NFT marketplace is something that differentiates them. And their Pay for Business and Crypto Pay programs are good too. And then there is the debit card, which is the gold standard for the industry even with reduced benefits.
Lastly, they might have the fastest-growing exchange coin of all. CRO is the #21 project by market cap valued at $3 billion. So there are lots of things to like here. If you like a little bit of everything and don’t need the biggest markets and most sophisticated trading tools then Crypto.com has lots of things to like.
4) Kucoin
KuCoin is Asia’s most popular exchange. First off, it has some of the lowest fees in the market without having to trade huge volumes to get it. Their claim right on the front of their website is that 25% of all crypto holders worldwide have a KuCoin account. And given how popular they are in Asia, we believe it.
Also, KuCoin offers many of the services Binance and MEXC do like:
- Spot and Margin Trading
- P2P Trading
- Futures
- Leveraged tokens
- Lending and Borrowing
- Mining
- Launchpads
- And NFTs
Moreover, they uniquely cater to their Asian market. Instead of using their KCS Coin or USDT for many trading pairs on the exchange, they also offer lots of pairs with NEO and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). NEO has been around since 2014 but if you remember, it was first marketed as the Chinese Ethereum. And while it’s very successful in China, most of the activity is there, and outside of Asia NEO is mostly unheard of.
That said, the many Chinese traders that use Kucoin love that they can easily exchange NEO. They have many different coin options directly without having to stop over in USDT or other stablecoin first. That’s understanding your audience. You don’t have to KYC for up to 1 BTC withdrawal per 24 hours.
More About KuCoin
In addition, many who like to use their phone number to secure their account cannot do it in KuCoin. They support 91 countries for this but that leaves lots of people out including the US. KuCoin operates in most countries, but not in the US.
We like the Asia focus for one. There seems to be more fast-growing daily crypto adoption in Asia than anywhere else. Also, KuCoin is in over 200 countries and speaks over 20 languages in their Customer Service department. That’s seriously global. They have a good selection of alts too although less than MEXC.
And yet whether it’s the lack of US market position or heavy Asia focus, even at its strong position, KuCoin has lots of room to grow. Also, its KCS token is pretty good too. In fact, you could do A LOT worse than just buying these 4 exchange tokens.
Conclusion
So that’s our look at 4 of the top exchanges in the world today. They all have good features to offer or they wouldn’t be top choices of traders and investors again and again. However, if you are Asian and want as many trading pair options as possible with Chinese coins, then KuCoin is an excellent choice.
Also, if you want the deepest order book or the most heavily funded futures market, then Binance is probably the place for you. Moreover, if you want to link your crypto account to a debit card, then Crypto.com is still the best place despite these new changes that are coming.
And lastly, if you want the best of most of these features and access to the most trading pairs, especially if you are American but even if you aren’t, then the natural choice is MEXC.
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Disclaimer
The information discussed by Altcoin Buzz is not financial advice. This is for educational, entertainment, and informational purposes only. Any information or strategies are thoughts and opinions relevant to the accepted levels of risk tolerance of the writer/reviewers and their risk tolerance may be different than yours. We are not responsible for any losses that you may incur as a result of any investments directly or indirectly related to the information provided. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are high-risk investments so please do your due diligence. This article has been sponsored by MEXC. Copyright Altcoin Buzz Pte Ltd.
