The top 15 best Bitcoin exchange and trading platforms by volume stand out among the rest as they collectively amass over 96% of the total volume of Bitcoins that changed hands over the last six months. However, it should also be pointed out that only four of these 15 exchanges amass over 10% of the total volume each. However, these 15 exchanges see a large trading volume and they are all well-established and relatively safe platforms, which makes them the best choice for people interested in buying or selling Bitcoins.
Bitcoin is the oldest, largest and most popular cryptocurrency, which was introduced in 2009. While overlooked by many, bitcoin had its fair share of popularity around the darker corners of the Internet, with many buyers that required anonymity in their transactions using the cryptocurrency. In its first couple of years, the Bitcoin traded below $1 as the demand was low and the only thing that affected its value being the complexity of the mining process. Over the years, the popularity of the cryptocurrency increased, which in turn led to its price advancing. In 2013, the price of the Bitcoin went above $1,000 for the first time, helped by the banking crisis in Cyprus, which resulted in capital controls and people resorted to Bitcoins as a way to store the value of their money and to work around the restrictions.
At the beginning of 2017, the Bitcoin passed again the $1,000 mark and didn’t look back as it continued its growth to over $7,000. There are a number of reasons that aided to this growth, more favorable legislation in Japan and South Korea, several central banks recognizing the Bitcoin as a legal cryptocurrency, and a tightening supply. The inventor of the Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, set a policy that involves a limited supply of 21 million Bitcoins. We explain how the supply of bitcoins works in the article covering the five best bitcoin mining machines you can buy.
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As the popularity of the Bitcoin grew, it created an entire industry around itself, with many FinTech companies developing apps that allow to securely store Bitcoins, called wallets (take a look at 11 best Bitcoin wallet apps for iPhone and Android), Bitcoin ATMs and, most importantly Bitcoin exchanges and trading platforms. Bitcoin exchanges and trading platforms allowed people to exchange easily their Bitcoins into fiat money (US Dollars, Japanese Yen, Euros, etc.), or to buy Bitcoins in case they needed them for transactions or just preferred to invest in them, which, given the surge in their price, proved very rewarding.
While there are many Bitcoin exchanges, only a handful established themselves as reliable and trustworthy after several major incidents when people got their Bitcoins stolen from them or scammed, with the company that operates the exchange disappearing together with the coins that were kept on their platform by the users. Moreover, the best Bitcoin exchange and trading platforms by volume managed to attract more users doing transactions on them with user-friendly interface, availability of many functions and tools that allow investors to identify profitable entry and exit points and to exchange Bitcoins into different fiat currencies.
With this in mind, let’s take a closer look at the top 15 best Bitcoin exchange and trading platforms by volume based on Bitcoinity data.
15. BitBay
Total Volume (Bitcoins): 172,5867
BitBay is the largest Bitcoin exchange in Poland, which, in addition to Bitcoins, also includes Litecoin, Ethereum, and Lisk. The platform allows the buying/selling of Bitcoins and altcoins using US dollars, euros, and Polish zlotys. BitBay offers a spread of 0.30% for zlotys, 2.35% for dollars and 2.42% for euros.
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14. CEX.IO
Total Volume (Bitcoins): 236,671
Next in line in the list of 15 best Bitcoin exchange and trading platforms by volume is CEX.io, which allows buying and selling Bitcoins with US dollars, Euros and Russian rubles. The platform allows paying for Bitcoins with bank transfers and credit cards and has relatively low fees for credit card transactions of 3.5% + $0.25 or 0.20 euro, or 5.25% + 15.57 RUB. CEX.io operates in many countries and has several account types with increasing levels of privacy and buying limits.
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13. HitBTC
Total Volume (Bitcoins): 313,754
HitBTC is a Hong Kong-based Bitcoin exchange that has a high trading volume, and includes Ethereum and Litecoin, as well as US dollars and euros. It offers a demo mode, margin trading and has an easy user interface. Moreover, HitBTC uses 2 Factor Authentication on actions like login and withdrawal of funds. It has transaction fees of 0.1% on every trade, but funding the account with fiat money can be tedious as it requires account verification by HitBTC and funding can take up to 14 days, while withdrawals can take up to 20 days.
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12. LocalBitcoins
Total Volume (Bitcoins): 345,709
LocalBitcoins is a global exchange that works as a peer-to-peer platform. Users that want to buy or sell Bitcoins can agree between themselves on the terms of the transaction and the platform acts as an escrow, taking a small fee in exchange. Because it is peer-to-peer it is private, as the platform does not require personal information, although it might be a request from one of the parties involved in a transaction. It also doesn’t have limits and offers many payment methods, although those that can be reversed should be avoided.
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11. itBit
Total Volume (Bitcoins): 390,789
itBit was the first Bitcoin exchange registered with the New York State Department of Financial Services and because it is licensed it follows consumer protection laws and is audited regularly. It also offers an over-the-counter trading desk, which allows trading of large amounts of bitcoins. itBit charges 0.2% on the exchange and 0.1% on the OTC trading desk.
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10. BTC-e
Total Volume (Bitcoins): 643,869
BTC-e was a Russia-based exchange that offered Bitcoins and altcoins trading. BTC-e was one of the first Bitcoin exchanges, launched in 2011, but earlier this year it was shut down after the domain was seized by the US authorities in relation with the arrest of a Russian national in a money laundering case. The platform has been recently re-opened on another domain, but it managed to get back only 55% of the confiscated funds and offered customers debt tokens in exchange for the rest. The company plans to eventually relaunch BTC-e.
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9. Luno
Total Volume (Bitcoins): 863,213
Luno is the name of the Bitcoin exchange that was known as Bit-x until recently. The exchange has a simple interface without many features and focuses only on Bitcoin. Luno has been around since 2013, but is responsible for only around 2.89% of the total Bitcoin transactions, so despite its history, it didn’t get a lot of popularity. However, Luno also offers an Android Bitcoin wallet, which was downloaded between 500,000 and 1,000,000 times.
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8. Gemini
Total Volume (Bitcoins): 1.82 million
Gemini is a digital currency exchange launched in 2015 by the renown Internet entrepreneurs Winklevoss twins. Gemini is the second licensed exchange operating with Bitcoins (after itBit) and last year it became the world’s first licensed Ether exchange. A year after its launch, Gemini expanded its operations into Canada and the UK.
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7. BTCC
Total Volume (Bitcoins): 1.94 million
BTCC (BTC China) was the largest Bitcoin exchange operating in China. However, in September, the company has announced that it would close its trading activity after pressure from the Chinese authorities. The company that operated BTCC also offers a mining pool, which remained unaffected by the closure of the exchange.
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6. OKCoin
Total Volume (Bitcoins): 2.80 million
OKCoin is one of the largest Bitcoin exchanges in China, which offered CNY/BTC spot pair, before it was cancelled, as well as USD/BTC and BTC/USD for its international customers. In September, OKCoin said it would halt the Yuan-to-Bitcoin trading, allowing only cryptocurrency-to-cryptocurrency trading. The move came after several other exchanges, including BTCC, announced their shut-downs following pressure from regulators. In April, OKCoin said it had stopped accepting US dollar deposits (operated by its Singapore office) due to banking issues.
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5. bitFlyer
Total Volume (Bitcoins): 2.94 million
On the fifth spot among the 15 best Bitcoin exchange and trading platforms by volume is bitFlyer. The Japan-based Bitcoin exchange has announced plans to expand to the US market earlier this year and has opened an office in San Francisco. bitFlyer also secured regulatory approval to operate in 34 US states, allowing customers to trade between dollars and Bitcoins.
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4. Bitstamp
Total Volume (Bitcoins): 3.06 million
Bitstamp is the fourth among the best Bitcoin exchange and trading platforms by volume as it has a market share of around 10.30% among all Bitcoin transactions in the past six months. Bitstamp is headquartered in Luxembourg (where it moved from London in 2016) and allows trading between bitcoin, litecoin, ethereum, ripple, US dollar and euro. It offers a simple user interface, but also includes advanced trading tools with graphs and trading parameters.
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3. Coinbase
Total Volume (Bitcoins): 3.16 million
Coinbase has a global presence in over 30 countries and in addition to the exchange it also acts as a Bitcoin broker and offers a wallet. The San-Francisco based company was founded in 2012 and has secured investments from many well-known backers, including the NYSE and IVP. Recently, the company has found itself in hot water when customers threatened to leave after it said it wouldn’t offer Bitcoin Cash (a cryptocurrency that was spun-off from Bitcoin), but later it changed its mind and said it would add support for it next year.
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2. Kraken
Total Volume (Bitcoins): 3.59 million
With a share of nearly 12% of all transactions, Kraken is on the second spot in the list of best Bitcoin exchange and trading platforms by volume. San Francisco-based Kraken is the largest Bitcoin-to-euro exchange by volume. Kraken offers several account types with different levels of verification, but most customers go for the Tier 2 account, which allows them to buy Bitcoins and altcoins. However, there have recently been reports about issues with the company’s support.
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1. Bitfinex
Total Volume (Bitcoins): 6.37 million
On the first spot among best Bitcoin exchange and trading platforms by volume is Bitfinex, which amassed around 21% of the total Bitcoin transactions in the last six months. The platform is operated by iFinex and is based out of Taiwan. Earlier this year, Bitfinex announced that it wouldn’t offer users the possibility to withdraw funds in USD due to a limitation on wire transfers from Wells Fargo. In 2016, Bitfinex was hacked and $72 million in Bitcoin was stolen from customers’ accounts and earlier this year the company managed to pay back all of the customers’ lost funds.
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These are the 15 best Bitcoin exchange and trading platforms by volume. As you can see many of these platforms have been around for years and have experienced many issues, with some even shutting down. This shows that no matter the size or the time in operation, Bitcoin exchanges can still be unsafe or unreliable, which is why extensive research is required before choosing a platform to trade Bitcoins on.
