Top 10 Cryptocurrency Exchanges 2021

Jan 15, 2021
16:01
2 min reading

Choise.com team

Picking the best cryptocurrency exchange is not simple. To come up with the ten choices below, we’ve compared dozens of crypto exchanges on a variety of factors including payment methods, exchange rates, trading tools, user-friendliness, security features, customer support, reputation, liquidity, selection of cryptocurrencies, and more.

If you’re thinking of exploring the vast universe of digital assets, the list of best cryptocurrency exchanges in 2021 we’ve prepared offers you a perfect starting point. All you need to do now is go through it and find the one that better meets your standards and requirements. Also, do not be afraid to use several exchanges at the same time to benefit from their specific benefits. After all, fees are usually only charged after you perform trades.

Top 10 Cryptocurrency Exchanges of 2021

Coinbase

Founded in 2012 and based in San Francisco, Coinbase is a digital currency wallet provider that offers trading tools that allow merchants and consumers to trade different cryptocurrencies, including Litecoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin, and more.

Thanks to the recent surge in cryptocurrencies’ popularity, their exchange platform has been able to reach a market capitalization of $10 billion having raised more than $117 million from top investors around the globe such as DFJ Growth, USV, and Andreessen Horowitz.

Today, Coinbase boasts 10,000+ developer apps, 46,000 merchants, 33,100,000 wallets, and 9,900,000 users. Coinbase also developed GDAX — a professional trading platform for cryptocurrencies. As you would expect from a fully regulated exchange, their exchange includes solid trading tools like advanced charts, stop loss and take profit orders.

While all of these features might sound very exciting, there’s a rather important downside to Coinbase and that’s the ability to serve clients internationally. As a US-based exchange platform, many of their features are only available for American residents only.

Binance

Binance is undeniably one of the most reputable cryptocurrency exchanges for conducting crypto to crypto trading. Also ranked as one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchange platforms, Binance provides an impressive list of offerings as well as a low trading fee.

While the platform is a young invention in the industry, it has grown rapidly and now offers a huge selection of altcoins such as Tether, Ethereum, and Bitcoin pairings on its platform.

Have you heard of BNB? That’s Binance’s own coin and you will find it in their exchange platform. As a centralized cryptocurrency exchange, Binance also offers a standard transaction fee of 0.1% and will even offer decent discounts if the payment is made using their BNB token.

Coinmama

Owned by NBV international (New Bit Ventures’ daughter company), Coinmama accepts members from virtually every country worldwide. The company itself isn’t regulated, but its owner is a registered Money Service Business with FinCen.

Coinmama’s trading interface is also easily accessible, making it ideal for novice crypto traders looking to buy cryptocurrencies swiftly. Typically, transactions can be executed within minutes, although fees aren’t the most competitive ones out there.

That said, even though Coinmama is a trustworthy and safe cryptocurrency exchange, it’s your responsibility as a user to protect your coins by preventing scams and picking a reliable wallet.

LocalBitcoins

LocalBitcoin is the most popular peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchange platform that users can use to trade between digital coins and fiat currencies.

As a peer to peer crypto exchange, LocalBitcoins works as a medium between two parties who have already decided how many Bitcoins they’re going to trade, the price, as well as the method through which the exchange will happen.

This implies that traders can use LocalBitcoins to make personal transfers of both Bitcoin and fiat currencies while at the same time avoiding any taxes or regulations that they would have faced if they were making the same transaction on a traditional exchange.

There are two clear cons about Localbitcoins: time and fees. As a P2P exchange, you’ll have to dive into the extensive list of offers to find a suitable rate and execute the transaction. If you’re looking for a quick exchange, this might not be your best choice. As for fees, the platform charges a fixed 1% fee on every transaction which seller has to pay. But here’s the thing: sellers are allowed to inflate the price as they see fit. So if you’re buying Bitcoin or any other digital asset through LocalBitcoins, you could be paying fees without your knowledge.

Bitfinex

Launched in 2012 in Hong Kong, Bitfinex is one of the most advanced cryptocurrency exchanges out there today. That said, it hasn’t been an easy road for the company.

Back in 2016, the exchange platform was hacked and more than 110,000 bitcoins stolen but the company still managed to pay back user’s investments and compensate for most of the losses.

This move by the platform won the heart of new traders who now classify Bitfinex as one of the few truly reputable exchanges. Better yet, to ensure that a hack like that never happens again, Bitfinex improved all its security measures and now stores its digital coins in cold cryptocurrency storage wallets.

The platform also offers advanced trading channels to its customers and accepts cryptocurrency and wire transfer payments.

In regards to the ideal type of trader that should choose the exchange, Bitfinex must’ve been designed with long term investors in mind. Novice traders can use it as well, but note that it does not retail with live chat support, which is a feature that’s rather essential for those unacquainted with crypto exchanges.

Prime XBT

Prime XBT is a next-generation crypto-to-fiat exchange platform that offers extremely high leverage, cutting edge trading tools, and pooled liquidity from multiple cryptocurrency exchanges. This combination of features is what has made Prime XBT a top choice among advanced as well as novice traders intending to capitalize on short term crypto price movements.

Prime XBT also offers an extremely advanced user interface and leverage that’s up to 100 times your deposit. This is 2 to 3 times more leverage compared to some of the most competitive trading platforms. Another feature of PrimeXBt worth noting is the fact it has some of the lowest trading fees in the blockchain realm.

Kraken

Established in 2011, Kraken is the largest cryptocurrency exchange platform in high liquidity and euro volume. As a matter of fact, the firm is a partner in the 1st crypto bank.

Kraken allows its users to sell and buy bitcoins or even trade between bitcoins and British Pounds, Japanese Yen, Canadian Dollars, US Dollars, or euros. The company also permits its users to trade order digital currencies other than bitcoin including Stellar Lumens, Ripple, Dogecoin, Litecoin, ZCash, ICONOMI, Augur REP, Ethereum Classic, Monero, and Ethereum.

Seasoned cryptocurrency traders will be pleased to know Kraken offers its clients margin trading in addition to its other wide array of trading features, which makes it an ideal choice for expert traders. Kraken also pioneered as the first verifiable cryptographic proof of reserves audit system and got listed on the Bloomberg Terminal in 2014.

Bittrex

Bittrex is one of the few cryptocurrency exchanges that were designed with only one priority in mind, and that’s security. In fact, the exchange platform was created by a team of individuals who had decades of experience working in the security departments of major software companies like Amazon and Microsoft.

Bittrex also keeps all of its customers’ funds in a cold storage that is inaccessible to hackers and has a robust verification system everyone has to go through before accessing their account.

In addition to advanced security features, Bittrex also focuses on offering its clients a wide array of crypto to crypto trading pairs. At the moment, you can buy, sell, and trade more than 500 pairs using the Bittrex exchange platform.

Changelly

Changelly is a cryptocurrency exchange platform that allows users to virtually buy and sell a wide array of digital coins. Thanks to its easy to follow verification procedure, users can process transactions between 10 and 30 minutes.

What’s more? Changelly is ideal for seasoned as well as novice traders. So, regardless of whether you’re already a professional trader or are looking to get started and get some hands-on experience with cryptocurrency trading, you can take advantage of Changelly and start exchanging digital coins without complex features.

Changelly also allows all its users to expand their trading portfolios in a straightforward manner.

The only downside I could find with Changelly is the fact that it’s not regulated by any legislative board. That said, the company has still managed to gain both a great reputation as well as the trust of its clients by partnering up with some of the most reputable cryptocurrency exchanges.

Crypterium

Unlike most of the cryptocurrency exchanges mentioned above, Crypterium stands out as a choice that’s optimized to meet everyone’s needs. Whether you’re a crypto newbie or an expert trader, Crypterium Wallet has proven to be a solid option to exchange cryptocurrencies for over 350,000 customers in 170+ countries.

Designed with users in mind, this mobile-first cryptocurrency wallet integrates features that allow you to manage digital assets with absolute comfort at all times. The in-app exchange option offers real-time exchanges for the world’s top cryptocurrencies at very competitive rates. The app is connected with the top exchanges out there, so that you get the best rate possible without having to pass identity verification on multiple platforms.

But that far from all. Crypterium Wallet also provides users with a full range of banking-grade services such as cryptocurrency deposits, live chat support 24/7, and insurance on all accounts. Crypterium Wallet allows you to buy, cash out, exchange, send, and store from a single-access platform, which makes it one of the most convenient services available today.

Another distinctive aspect of Crypterium Wallet is the seamless integration of Crypterium Card — a sleek and free VISA payment card that connects your digital assets to more than 40 million retailers around the globe.

The bottom line

There’s no doubt that picking the best cryptocurrency exchange for your particular needs might require a lot of due diligence and research, which can be a time consuming and difficult process. Couple that with the number of crypto exchanges that fake their trading volumes to attract more users and the process turns into a seemingly impossible task.

With that in mind, to ensure we only included accurate information on the platforms above, we have checked every single platform listed as of the time of this writing. Hopefully, this guide will help you decide which is the best cryptocurrency exchange for your needs.