Crypto Trading Platforms

OKX Review 2024 – Trading Experience and All Features

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crypto exchange review

OKX: Professional Crypto Exchange

OKX is a good rival of Binance, that provides tools and services specifically for advanced traders. Availability of large number of tradable assets and low fees makes this platform ideal for crypto investors. Features like bot trading allow professional traders to earn good profits using specific trade strategies.

OKX is suitable for professional traders who can use advanced order types. Both manual trading and automated trading options are available. You can also use this platform for margin and derivatives trading.

Pros and Cons

ProsCons
More than 300 tradable cryptoDifficult for beginners
Low fees for spot tradingLimited payment options
Bot trading and copy trading 
Crypto staking feature 
Very secure platform 
  

Trading Fees

OKX takes low transaction fees. You can get further discount by becoming VIP user and by holding specific OKB coins. Here’s the fee structure for regular users.

TierTotal OKB HoldingAssets (USD) or 30-day Trading Volume (USD)Maker FeeTaker Fee24h Crypto Withdrawal Limit (USD)
Lvl 1< 100< 100,000    / < 5,000,0000.080%0.100%10,000,000
Lvl 2≥ 100< 100,000    / < 5,000,0000.075%0.090%10,000,000
Lvl 3≥ 200< 100,000    / < 5,000,0000.070%0.080%10,000,000
Lvl 4≥ 500< 100,000    / < 5,000,0000.065%0.070%10,000,000
Lvl 5≥ 1,000< 100,000    / < 5,000,0000.060%0.060%10,000,000

Here’s the fee structure for VIP users.

TierAssets (USD) or 30-day Trading Volume (USD)Maker FeeTaker Fee24h Crypto Withdrawal Limit (USD)
VIP 1≥ 100,000 / ≥ 5,000,0000.045%0.050%12,000,000
VIP 2≥ 500,000 / ≥ 10,000,0000.040%0.045%16,000,000
VIP 3≥ 2,000,000 / ≥ 20,000,0000.030%0.040%20,000,000
VIP 4≥ 5,000,000 / ≥ 100,000,0000.020%0.035%24,000,000
VIP 5≥ 10,000,000 / ≥ 200,000,0000.000%0.030%30,000,000
VIP 6— / ≥ 500,000,000-0.002%0.025%36,000,000
VIP 7— / ≥ 1,000,000,000-0.005%0.020%40,000,000
VIP 8— / ≥ 5,000,000,000-0.005%0.015%40,000,000

Trading Experience

The trading interface is well-structured and user-friendly though beginners still need to familiarize themselves with order book system and various order types. Three types of charts are available including original OKX’s chart, TradingView and Depth chart. There are multiple customizable technical indicators for studying the price movements. Users have the option to choose from multiple order types including limit, market, and advanced types like TP/SL, trailing stop, trigger, advanced limit, iceberg and TWAP. These are suitable for algorithmic and institutional traders who execute large orders using optimized strategy.

Furthermore, OKX provides trading data of various markets and arbitrage data too. These can be very useful for analysing the market sentiment and for managing the risk. The unique thing is that OKX offers wide range of trading bots such as DCA, grid, and arbitrage bots. The platform is mostly tailored to  advanced traders while beginners can use the copy trading feature if they don’t have experience in automated trading.

OKX Trade Interface

Other Features

OKX’s Simple Earn feature is a great way to earn rewards. It uses blockchain staking and other strategies to generate rewards for users based on specific APR rate. The APR offered by this platform are significantly higher than that offered by other staking platforms. On-chain staking is another option for staking crypto.

Dual-investment products are another great tool to earn money. These products offer very high APR rate. In the process, you buy specific asset at low price and sell at high and earn extra interest. OKX offers comprehensive tools to earn passive income with crypto.

Customer Service & Satisfaction

OKX provides multiple channels for customer support including live chat and email. The platform provides extensive FAQ section and educational resources if users have any queries. 50 reviews have been posted on G2 about OKX which makes its overall rating at 4.7 out of 5. Many customers admire the user-friendliness, fast trade execution, low trading fees and overall reliability of platform. Some of the customers have also raised concerns about slow-speed P2P trading. Interestingly, almost all reviews are very positive, unlike reviews of other crypto exchanges.

Company Overview

OKX was founded by Star Xu in 2017 and is based in Seychelles. Star Xu whose full name is Xu Mingxing, founded the OK group which also includes OKX company. The group has expanded to provide multiple financial services. The OK group has played an important role in bringing technological advancements in blockchain ecosystem which helped to build advanced crypto trading services. Another significant achievement is building security infrastructure which implements multi-layered security protocols, and advanced encryption, all of which earned the OKX, SOC 2 Type II Certification. The advanced trading features like margin, derivatives and bot trading has helped the platform gain popularity. Now, there are around 50 million users worldwide.

Binance Review 2024 – Trading Experience and All Features

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crypto exchange

Binance: The Largest Crypto Exchange

Binance is a reliable crypto exchange with diverse user base. At the time of writing this, it has 210 million users across the globe. A major reason for such growth is the comprehensive product offering. Binance provides wide range of tools and services tailored to needs of crypto traders and institutional investors. There is wide range of tradable cryptocurrencies.

You can do spot, derivatives and margin trading using this platform. Moreover, trade bots are also available if you want to automate trade strategies. Interestingly, copy trading is also available for both spot and futures assets.

Pros and Cons

ProsCons
Up to 500 tradable coinsDifficult for beginners
Wide range of derivatives productsKYC process can be time-consuming
Bot trading and copy trading 
Crypto staking and dual-investment products 
Extensive educational resources which cover all aspects of crypto and blockchain 
Very secure platform 

Trade Fees

Spot and margin fees are higher for normal users. Both maker or taker pay 0.1% if their monthly trade volume is less than 1 million USD or they hold 0 BNB tokens. You can become a VIP user to reduce the fee. For that purpose you have to meet specific eligibility criteria which includes monthly trade volume of more than 1 million USD and minimum BNB holding of 25.

LevelMonthly Trade VolumeAnd/orBNB BalanceTaker/Maker
Regular User< 1,000,000 USDor≥ 0 BNB0.1000% / 0.1000%
VIP 1≥ 1,000,000 USDand≥ 25 BNB0.0900% / 0.1000%
VIP 2≥ 5,000,000 USDand≥ 100 BNB0.0800% / 0.1000%
VIP 3≥ 20,000,000 USDand≥ 250 BNB0.0420% / 0.0600%
VIP 4≥ 100,000,000 USDand≥ 500 BNB0.0420% / 0.0540%
VIP 5≥ 150,000,000 USDand≥ 1,000 BNB0.0360% / 0.0480%
VIP 6≥ 400,000,000 USDand≥ 1,750 BNB0.0300% / 0.0420%
VIP 7≥ 800,000,000 USDand≥ 3,000 BNB0.0240% / 0.0360%
VIP 8≥ 2,000,000,000 USDand≥ 4,500 BNB0.0180% / 0.0300%
VIP 9≥ 4,000,000,000 USDand≥ 5,500 BNB0.0120% / 0.0240%

Trading Experience

The trading interface offers wide range of tools that can be utilized to execute a specific trade strategy. There are advanced charting tools and indicators which you can use to analyse the crypto price movements. Money flow data, and cryptocurrency-related information are also available all in a single interface. Moreover, you can also set trade bot or execute manual trade under single interface. This comprehensive approach makes trading very convenient though it can be overwhelming for beginners.

Binance offers various order types including limit, market, stop-limit, trailing stop and OCO. Binance Square, a community-driven platform integrated into trading platform offers news related to current crypto market. Overall, Binance provides a professional trading experience. Beginners can use the educational resources to familiarize themselves with specific trading strategies.

Binance trade interface

Other Features

Apart from crypto trading, Binance also provides other financial services including staking products. These products are available under the “Simple Earn” feature. Unlike DeFi staking, the rewards generated by Simple Earn come from blockchain validation, crypto loans, and other operational purposes used by Business units inside Binance. You can deposit your crypto in these products to start earning rewards depending on the APR rate which is specific to each cryptocurrency. Usually, dual-investment products offer more APR than Simple Earn.

Other unique features include cloud mining service which allows miners to securely earn rewards, crypto loans with no transaction fees and Binance launchpool which allows users to do investment in new crypto projects.

Customer Service & Satisfaction

Binance provides a customer support page including FAQ section. Users can also chat with customer support representatives if they have any issues. Hundreds of users have posted reviews about this crypto exchange on G2 which concludes Binance overall rating of 3.9 out of 5. Many users express the satisfaction with Binance’s secure platform, user-friendly interface, and overall trading features, while some others also complain about account-related problems and extensive security procedures.

Company Overview

A Chinese software developer, Chanpeng Zhao (or CZ) founded the Binance company in 2017. With prior experience in trading software development and entrepreneurship, he developed a professional crypto exchange. The platform gained popularity and became the world’s largest crypto exchange in terms of trading volume. Company has expanded to a blockchain ecosystem which encompasses, Binance exchange, Labs, Binance Smart Chain, Trust wallet, Binance Academy, Research, Binance charity, Binance DEX, and many more areas. The company was initially based in China, but it is now headquartered in George Town, Malta.

Top 5 decentralized crypto exchanges for trading

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decentralized exchange

Overview of Decentralized Exchange

Decentralized exchanges operate on unique trade system called Automated Market Maker (AMM) rather than relying on centralized order book system. Moreover, users store their funds on self-custodial wallets which may or may not be integrated with DEXs. This means users have control over their private keys for storing funds. These qualities make DEXs more decentralized which means they are not fully managed by a company. Trades on these platforms are executed by smart contracts which are deployed by developers.

Decentralized nature of these platforms provides advantages such as self-custody of funds, reduced fees, global accessibility without regulatory constraints, wide range of crypto and innovative financial services like yield farming. However, there are also some associated risks.

How Decentralized Exchanges Work

DEXs introduced the Automated Market Maker system to simplify the trading process. Users do not need to register an account and complete a KYC process on the DEX. Instead, they connect their wallet to the platform to start trading. The trades are executed directly between users through the AMM system.

AMM system relies on liquidity pools funded by liquidity providers. These providers deposit their tokens in the pool, which typically consist of token pair. When traders purchase crypto A, they sell crypto B keeping the product of pool’s token quantities constant. The price is determined by constant product formula x⋅y=k, and is adjusted after each trade. Larger trades relative to pool size may cause slippage or significant price change. Smart contracts handle trade execution, update the pool balances, and reward liquidity providers with a portion of the trading fees.

To choose a DEX, consider factors like pool size, number of available pools, specific tokens available for trading, trade history, and trade fees. For beginners, DEX analytics tools can provide essential data about DEXs.

  1. Uniswap

Uniswap launched in 2018 on Ethereum blockchain, has remained the world leading DeFi platform for decentralized trading and other financial services. It is world’s largest DEX with highest trade volume recently reaching $2 trillion. Uniswap also introduced innovative AMM system to simplify trade. You can trade wide range of ERC-20 tokens and participate as liquidity provider, benefitting from its user-friendly interface. The trade fees can be high during network congestion of Ethereum blockchain. Also, you should be aware of possibility of impermanent losses if you want to start liquidity farming on this platform.

In 2020, Uniswap developers introduced UNI token through community airdrop as native token of Uniswap platform. This token played crucial role in community-driven governance of Uniswap. UNI holders can propose improvements, and community vote on these proposals. Moreover, upgrades from V1 to V3 and introduction of layer 2 solutions have brought improvements such as increased capital efficiency, concentrated liquidity, and customizable fee tiers.

  • Pancake Swap

It is a popular decentralized exchange that was developed in 2020 by anonymous developers. Built on Binance Smart Chain, this platform offers low-cost trading. Just like most of the DEXs, it also uses AMM model to facilitate trades. Beyond trading, it also offers other financial services. You can also stake crypto, participate in liquidity farming and trade perpetuals, and NFTs. This comprehensive service offering has positioned Pancake Swap as leading DeFi platform and also boosted its popularity in recent years.

CAKE is the native token of Pancake Swap having versatile utility. This means, you can use this token for staking, yield farming, and for participating in governance. Moreover, lower fees, high liquidity and user-friendly interface are some of the features that makes this platform unique.

  • dydx

Dydx was founded by Antonio Juliano in 2017 and built on Ethereum blockchain. It focuses on spot trading and advanced financial services like margin trading, and perpetual trading. These features make this platform suitable for professional traders. Furthermore, dydx leverages the StarkEx network, a layer 2 scaling solution to enhance trading experience for users. This reduced gas fees and increased the trade execution speed.

You can trade wide range of coins and tokens on this platform. Moreover, you also have option to use dydx token if you want to participate in governance. Interestingly, dydx uses off-chain order book system to facilitate trades. This enables margin trading and derivatives trading. Compared to AMM, order book also offers less price slippage in case of execution of large orders. So, dydx mitigates slippage to some extent. Overall, it’s suitable for professional traders but can be difficult to use for beginners.

  • Curve Finance

It is another DeFi exchange built on Ethereum. It was founded in 2020 by Michael Egorov specifically to provide efficient trading services for DeFi traders. Curve Finance focuses on providing liquidity for stabelcoins, so users can trade these coins efficiently. Curve’s unique AMM algorithm reduces coin slippage and impermanent loss significantly. This enables stable prices and also incentivizes liquidity providers because the risk of impermanent loss is greatly reduced.

CRV being the native token of Curve, is used as governance token for various platform upgrades. Users can also stake this token on the platform to earn rewards.

  • 1inch

It is a decentralized exchange aggregator developed by Sergej Kunz and Anton Bukov in 2019. Built on Ethereum blockchain, this platform was designed to simplify trading by providing best rates and trade paths. Rather than acting as exchange itself, it executes trade on various DEXs on best possible rate and returns the desired crypto to trader. It is made possible with its Pathfinder algorithm which determines best possible trade path considering factors like fees and liquidity. Wide range of tokens and coins are available and can be traded without experiencing much slippage. Unique thing about this platform is that it also allows limit orders to specify desired price for traders. Through the aggregation feature, users can enjoy deep liquidity for trading.

Top 5 crypto exchanges for trading in 2024

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Crypto exchange

Overview of Crypto Exchange

Traders can use different mediums for crypto trading. Centralized crypto exchange is a popular medium used for that. Many people also utilize other trading platforms like decentralized exchanges and brokers. Over the years, centralized exchanges have gained more popularity and reputation due to the convenience and features they provide. We reviewed many crypto exchanges and listed the top 5 crypto exchanges that can be utilized for crypto trading, and other crypto-related services. Before choosing the right trading platform, you should consider variables like platform’s reliability, trading features, availability of coins and tokens, staking and other services, and customer support.

How Crypto Exchanges Work?

Centralized crypto exchanges are developed and fully managed by a company who is also responsible for securely storing the users’ funds. These exchanges are less decentralized compared to DeFi exchanges or decentralized exchanges because users don’t have control over their private keys for storing crypto. Also, trades on these platforms are executed using centralized order book model.

When a user opens an account in such exchange and stores funds, these are actually stored in custodial wallet integrated with the platform, and private key for those funds is held by the company. Crypto buyer places a buy order and seller places a sell order and the order book mechanism matches them to execute the trade. The transaction data is stored on blockchain.

Crypto exchanges usually secure the users funds through multiple layers of protection including account security measures like 2FA, and password policies, network security protocols like firewall and DDoS mitigation, data encryption, cold storage, and organizational safeguards like employee training and security audits. When choosing a crypto exchange, reviewing the platform’s claims of security infrastructure is important.

  1. Crypto.com

It is a convenient trading platform that offers wide range of cryptocurrencies for trading. For traders who want to do spot, margin or derivatives trading, crypto.com would be a good option. Crypto.com charges a taker and maker fees of around 0.075% from users with trade volume of less than $250,000. Moreover, it also provides unique features like staking service and crypto visa card. Being the most secure crypto exchange, trusted by millions of users, it is considered a reliable platform for crypto trading.

Crypto.com provides wide range of features for beginners and experienced traders. The simple buy and sell feature allow users to buy or sell crypto instantly at market price without engaging with complex order book. The Exchange feature which is for experienced traders, allow users to trade crypto with deep liquidity using different order types. You can also view your portfolio through an intuitive interface. Multiple types of charts, and indictors further facilitate in your trading strategy.

Another useful feature is staking service. You can stake various coins like ETH, DOT, and SOL and earn rewards based on specific APY rates. But it’s important to understand that the APY rate is determined by the blockchain protocol and not imposed by the crypto exchange itself.

The crypto.com operates vast network of services for crypto investors. It also has blockchain called Crypto.com Chain with native token CRO. This token can be used as utility token on the exchange platform. You get discount on trade fees and you can also stake CRO to earn rewards using the on-chain staking feature provided by the platform.

  • Binance

It is the world’s largest crypto exchange having the largest trade volume and also has greatest number of users around the globe. Having a robust security infrastructure, and comprehensive offering of services, it is another reliable crypto exchange that can be utilized for spot, margin and derivatives trading. Binance has over 500 tradable cryptocurrencies. Users can also instantly purchase or sell crypto using various payment methods. Binance charges a fee of around 0.1% for trading which is considered a good fee. Using the Binance platform, you can do spot trading in both ways; manual trading and automated trading.

Binance’s trading interface is user-friendly, offering wide range of tools, including charts, indicators and order types. Trading process can be simplified by using various trading bots suited for specific trade strategies. You can also customize the trade parameters in the bot. Overall, Binance provides great trading experience for professional traders.

You can also stake various coins using Binance’s Earn feature. Unlike other crypto exchanges, Binance also provides other services like Simple Earn which is a combination of staking and other techniques, and dual-investment products. Lastly, Binance’s educational resources are extensive and cover all aspects of crypto trading from which beginners can take benefit.

  • Kraken

It is a popular crypto exchange that supports over 240 coins. Through this platform, users can do spot, futures and margin trading while benefitting from deep liquidity that Kraken provides. Kraken’s industry-leading security and deep liquidity are the features which puts it in the list of top crypto exchanges. Both these factors are crucial when judging an exchange’s reliability. For simple trading of crypto, you can use Kraken platform which takes high trade fees, but for advanced trading you can use Kraken Pro which takes less fees.

Kraken Pro provides a well-organized trade interface and offers multiple tools. You can also use Analytics and Portfolio platforms for more insights. Specifically for block traders, Kraken also offers Over-The-Counter premium trading service.

This platform also offers wide range of staking coins with various APR rates. Interestingly, it provides three stablecoins for staking at APR of 5.75%. Stablecoin staking is a great feature that you can utilize and earn rewards. Moreover, Kraken also provides a self-custody wallet with multi-chain access.

  • Coinbase

This is a beginner-friendly crypto exchange that supports wide range of tradable coins. Coinbase is also known for comprehensive service offering ranging from services for individual traders to services for businesses. Coinbase is also among the most secure crypto exchanges that offers state-of-art security features. Trusted by millions of users globally, Coinbase remains a reliable platform for trading.

Coinbase advanced trading platform is well suited for professional traders who want to perform spot, or derivatives trading. Currently over 400 spot trading pairs are available and over 250 tradable assets. The trade interface is well optimized for beginners so they can easily select various markets and place order using order book.

Other unique features include staking for earning rewards, and self-hosted wallet for managing crypto. Furthermore, Coinbase Prime is a premium brokerage platform for institutional investors for executing large trades.

  • Gemini

This is another beginner-friendly crypto exchange from which both beginners and professional traders can take benefit. This platform also has great customer support and security features. The user-interface is simple and easy to understand. Gemini offers over 70 tradable coins and multiple trading tools. For trading crypto, there are two platforms; Gemini Exchange and Active Trader. Gemini exchange is for beginners who use simple order types like buy or sell for trading crypto. While Active Trader provides advanced order types suited for specific trade strategies that professional traders deploy. Derivatives assets are also available for trading including perpetuals and futures.

Gemini offers very fewer staking products with decent APR rates. But the crypto credit card that Gemini provides offers great cashback rewards. For the Gemini card, you also don’t have to pay any annual fees.