Bitcoin Trading Platforms

There are many bitcoin exchanges available on the web. Trying to figure out where to trade bitcoin? What bitcoin exchange to use? Exchanges traditionally provide customers a service to buy bitcoins or to convert fiat money into bitcoins. Increasingly, they are also offering a greater number of services, including various trading tools. Some of the exchanges are bitcoin specialized; others offer to trade with other cryptocurrencies as well, such as litecoins and ripple. If you want to start buying and selling bitcoins for trading purposes, you should start with creating an account on one of the platforms described below.

Main Cryptocurrency trading platforms

Binance
Currently Binance is the biggest trading platform in terms of trading volume in the world with high liquidity and many trading pairs. If you want to buy new crypto currencies, this is the place to go as they usually get listed here first before they hit other major exchanges. Get 50% lower commission when trading with this link.

Bitstamp
Bitstamp has a strong reputation as a very professionally-run bitcoin exchange with a few advanced trading tools. It offers three buying or selling order forms: an instant buy/sell order that buys and sells your coins at the lowest and highest offered price, a limit order that limits maximum purchase and minimum selling prices, and a stop order. Bitstamp supports USD and EUR. Bitstamp has recently partnered with Dukascopy Bank, one of the leading Swiss online banks, to enable crypto funding on its platform.

Bitfinex
A trading platform for bitcoin and litecoin with many advanced features. Users can trade bitcoins by placing a buy or sell offer in the order book. Margin trading feature allows users to borrow funds from peer liquidity providers to trade bitcoins. This allows you to effectively trade as if you had more money than you do have, therefore increasing your profits when you make a winning call, and increasing your loss when you make a losing call.

Kucoin
This exchange is quickly rising as they list many small coins and hidden gems. If you want a high ROI, buy some coins here and wait before they get listed on Binance and other big exchanges.

Kraken
Kraken combines forex trading and bitcoin exchange into one complete service. It is a feature-rich cryptocurrency trading platform with advanced trading tools that are suitable for more sophisticated investors. Kraken offers one of the widest ranges of advanced options for trading bitcoin, litecoin, doge, ripple, and a few other digital currencies which can all be traded against each other, or against USD or Euros. Recently, there is a lot of trading with Ethereum on Kraken.
If you own a BitGo bitcoin wallet, it is worth mentioning that Kraken supports BitGo Instant, allowing you to deposit or withdraw bitcoins instantly, meaning that there is no more waiting for transaction confirmations.

OKCoin
OKCoin is a Chinese cryptocurrency exchange. It is a promising platform with low fees and high liquidity. It is currently close to being the largest exchange by volume in the bitcoin market over the last period. With only bitcoin and litecoin support and USD as the only fiat, there are not many cryptocurrency pairs available for trading. It offers margin trading, margin futures, and more.

BTCC
Headquartered in Shanghai, China, BTCC was originally founded as BTCChina in 2011. It is the oldest Chinese exchange and the world’s longest operating bitcoin trading platform. BTCC offers a trading platform for users to buy and sell bitcoins/litecoins in the native Chinese CNY currency. It is China’s leading bitcoin exchange, both in terms of trading volumes and the amount of liquidity. BTCC recently introduced Pro-Exchange, its advanced leveraged bitcoin trading platform. Pro Exchange offers 20x leverage, allowing you to maximize your trading profits. They recently opened a new US Dollar denominated platform for spot and margin trading.

Crypto derivatives exchanges

FTX
FTX is a cryptocurrency exchange built by traders, for traders. FTX offers innovative products including industry-first derivatives, options, volatility products and leveraged tokens. They strive to develop a platform robust enough for professional trading firms and intuitive enough for first-time users.

BitMEX
BitMEX is a P2P crypto-products trading platform. It offers margin trading on a few cryptocurrencies and is suitable for professional and well-seasoned traders. It is quite popular for giving 100x leverage on spot and futures markets and it offers high liquidity.

General exchanges that include crypto

Many traditional trading platforms are now joining the digital currency trading and offer bitcoin ETFs, or electronically traded funds. Unfortunately, they do not accept US clients at this time.

AVA Trade
This is a forex broker that offers CFD bitcoin trading. Currently, two bitcoin CFDs are available. The Bitcoin Weekly CFD has a 20 to 1 leverage and expires every Friday, the Bitcoin Mini only has a 2 to 1 leverage but does not expire. A major problem of both contracts is the inability to trade them during the weekend.

eToro
This is one of the latest forex brokers that offers bitcoin trading. You can only take a long position; no shorts are permitted. Etoro takes a 1% fee for bitcoin trades, and it uses BitStamp’s data as a price reference. They accept users from more than 200 countries around the world, but not the US.

Other cryptocurrency trading platforms

We have included only the most significant exchanges by trading volume in the last period.

Bithumb, DSX, OKEx, Liquid, Bitcoin.de, itBit, Crypto.com, BitBay, Coinbase Pro, 1Broker, SFOX, UPcoin, Cryptopia, Exmo, Cex.io, Cryptonit, HitBTC, CHBTC, Bittrex, Huobi, CCEDK, ecoin, SimpleFX, LakeBTC, CoinEx, Poloniex, BTCbear, Bleutrade, Yobit, Coindeal and Whaleclub.

Other general trading platforms that support bitcoin
FX open

Data sources for bitcoin exchanges trading volume are CryptoCoin Charts, Bitcoinity and BitcoinCharts.

Bitcoin Trading Bots

If you want to be involved in bitcoin trading in multiple exchanges at the same time, you can simplify your trading activities with automated trading bots. They will do the job of selling and buying bitcoins instead of you. These bots are software programs that link directly to multiple exchanges and place buy and sell orders on your behalf. Find more about bitcoin trading software.

Please check also an overview of bitcoin trading and our bitcoin money making suggestions.

Related & Notes

• Currently the hottest topic in this industry are Decentralized Exchanges — also known as DEX’s — are a new technology that facilitate cryptocurrency trading on a distributed ledger. These exchanges shift back control of funds and trades to the user and they eliminate the single point of failure. A secondary effect is that government taxation or fund confiscation can become nearly impossible.
• It is adviced that you use VPN when trading online as this substantially increases your trading security. We use Pure VPN (use DISCOUNT10 code for a 10% discount).

From the news

• According to Business Korea, cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb is set to launch its own decentralized exchange (DEX) by the end of this month. The South Korea cryptocurrency exchange has partnered with OneRoot for the move. They will provide their Ethereum-based transaction protocol for order matching and liquidity on the new DEX [october 5, 2018].
• On Friday June 29, we say goodbye to GDAX and hello to Coinbase Pro. To take full advantage of this upgrade, we recommend you start using pro.coinbase.com now [june 29, 2018].
• Cryptocurrency Exchange Coinbase is Officially Launching in Japan: Coinbase confirmed the expansion of its services into Japan, one of the biggest cryptocurrencies markets. The company will launch a new office in Japan and ensured it will be working closely with the Financial Services Agency (FSA), the country’s financial regulator, to comply with local laws [june 5, 2018].
• Cryptocurrency Exchange Hitbtc Suspends Services in Japan: HitBTC has announced a service suspension for Japanese residents. According to the company, this decision was made to prevent any trouble with the country’s financial regulator since the cryptocurrencies exchange services are not authorized in Japan. From now on, users with Japanese IP address will be asked to provide their residency information within the exchange’s know-your-customer (KYC) procedure to prove they are not residents of Japan [june 4, 2018].
• Huobi Is Launching a Cryptocurrency Exchange-Traded Fund: Huobi revealed it’s launching a cryptocurrency exchange-traded fund to allow retail investors to gain exposure to a set of assets instead of just one at a time. In accordance with the company, the new investment instrument called HB10 is now open for subscriptions and will include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Eos, and Huobi Token (HT), among other cryptocurrencies [june 1, 2018].
• Bittrex Lists USD Trading Pairs after Landing Banking Partner: Bittrex announced it will offer USD trading pairs to its customers after partnering with a New York-based bank. According to a Bloomberg report, the company has signed a banking agreement with Signature Bank, which will allow the company to accept USD deposits, and also listing cryptocurrencies for trading directly against the dollar [june 1, 2018].
• Kraken Exchange Quits Japanese Market: Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, decided to cease trading with clients based in Japan. According to Bloomberg, the exchange said that it will cease trading in Japan due to rising costs of doing business in the country. However, it will continue to offer its services to Japanese citizens and businesses who are domiciled outside of the country [april 19, 2018].
• Binance Is Launching Its Own Blockchain. Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao said that a decentralized exchange will be launched and will operate alongside with its existing exchange. In addition to facilitating the trade of digital assets, the DEX will likely operate as a launchpad for new coins and ICOs. [march 14, 2018, source].