5 second review. Binance is the top exchange at the moment due to super low fees and is trusted by the community. We recommend them for trading Crypto.
Carry on reading for our 5-minute review
Binance is probably the top cryptocurrency trading exchange available at the moment. Started in China, Binance has since moved their headquarters to Malta and is registered in multiple locations with staff in multiple offices around the globe. This is to ensure that it is not affected by any single body, creating a resilient business model to engender trust in the end user.
Binance Margin trading
Binance offers 2 platforms for trading. Basic or Advanced. Both have the option to borrow funds up to 5x your collateral and use those funds to trade. The actual margin level isn’t fixed and is based on open positions.
Margin Level = Total Asset Value / Total Borrowed + Total Accrued Interest. If this Margin level drops below 1.1 your assets will be automatically liquidated.
Binance Fees
The fees for trading at Binance are the lowest you will find anywhere. A flat rate of 0.1% is charged on each trade. This is discounted further by 25% i.e. a charge of 0.075% if using BNB, Binance’s own coin, to pay the balance. All that is required to use BNB is to have a BNB balance on your account. This fee can be discounted even further, on a sliding scale, all the way down to 0.015% for those trading larger volumes. This fee schedule is probably the biggest reason for Binance’s success as a crypto trading exchange.
Binance Funding
Until recently Binance doesn’t actually allow funding via fiat currencies, only allowing deposits and withdrawals from a variety of cryptocurrencies. You can however buy bitcoin with a credit card at a premium (essentially the credit card processing fee) from some localities. This means that to actually get to the Binance trading platform from fiat holdings without paying the credit card fees you would need to go through a second exchange. For most exchanges, Binance included, setting up an account is quite quick and automated meaning this should only add a few minutes on the time it takes to get going. Setting up an account with Binance themselves can also be done within minutes since the id verification checks are automated.
Binance Withdrawals
On the other side of the coin, Binance also only offers withdrawals via cryptocurrency as there is no option to withdraw fiat. Once again this means you would need to go through a second exchange to if you need Fiat currency. There are limits on withdrawals, of 2BTC a day for un verified accounts and 100 BTC for accounts that have gone through some basic KYC checks.
Being one of the largest exchanges in the world, Binance has been the target of hackers. It has had a security breach, as a result of a complex and well-orchestrated attack. The transaction was limited to the BTC hot wallet. No users were affected as the company used its “secure asset fund for users”, an emergency insurance fund to cover the incident in full.
Binance review summary
Overall, not having to deal with the regulations regarding Fiat currency, has allowed Binance keep costs low. The savvy trader will also keep a Binance BNB coin balance to further reduce the fees, if trading high volumes. Those who don’t mind purely crypto deposits/withdrawals will find a lot to like at Binance and we recommend them as a Crypto trading exchange.