On this page, you’ll find a comprehensive overview of the best crypto exchanges to use based on your goals. Here at WhiteboardCrypto, we think it’s best to give you all the information, then let you decide which is the best exchange.
Although, if you want our recommendations, you can scroll down this page to see them. To learn how to use this tool effectively, watch the video below the exchange sorter!
Please note that links on this page may be affiliate links, which may help to continue support our work, and also may allow you to pay lower fees (or claim a signup bonus) as we have negotiated with some of the exchanges listed.
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If you find any wrong information, feel free to leave a comment below and we will update it as soon as possible! As always, please do your research, and none of the advice or opinions on this page are financial advice.
Pros and Cons of Exchanges
These are my own opinions that I’ve developed from using each of these exchanges, hopefully they will be helpful for to decide on an exchange to use.
Coinbase
Pros
- Easy to sign up
- Offers most popular coins
- Friendly interface
- Can stake your coins for interest
- Cryptocurrency is insured
Cons
- Not the best customer service
- Long deposit and withdrawal times
- Medium trading fees
Coinbase is THE exchange for beginners. The user interface is very clean, they are easy to set up, easy to use, and they offer all the popular coins that someone new to crypto would want. Some issues are that the fees start to get expensive if you trade with them a lot, and their customer service time has been reported to take forever.
The cool thing about Coinbase though, if you use Coinbase, you can also use Coinbase Pro, which is basically the advanced version of Coinbase that lets you set limit and market orders, unlocks a few more cryptocurrencies, and has lower fees, I highly recommend looking into it if you’re using the regular Coinbase a lot.
Binance
Pros
- Can set limit and market orders
- Low trading fees
- Decent amount of coins and tokens
Cons
- Not the best customer service
- Not available in certain states
Binance is a great exchange if you want to be a trader or have access to some features that Coinbase doesn’t offer. They offer many coins and have generally low fees. Last I checked, you can lower your fees by holding BNB in your account, which is their own coin. Their app is also very well designed and useful, however similar to Coinbase, the customer service isn’t always the best
KuCoin
Pros
- No KYC or personal information
- TONS of cryptocurrencies
- Can make leveraged trades
- Low fees
Cons
- Can only fund with Credit Card and other crypto
- Not licensed in the US
- Complex interface
KuCoin is my favorite exchange currently because they have low fees, they don’t have KYC, and you can trade one crypto to a ton of other cryptocurrencies. Not having KYC doesn’t mean you shouldn’t report it on your taxes, but it means they don’t have your information stored somewhere and that the account isn’t connected personally to you. The downside to this is that you can really only fund KuCoin with crypto you’ve already bought. I use it all the time to swap from one crypto to another crypto. They also have a few other tools that Coinbase and Binance don’t have.
Pionex
Pros
- Lots of available coins
- Extensive trading bots
Cons
- Can’t fund account with fiat
Pionex is cool because they have a bunch of trading bots available. I haven’t nerded out and tried all of them yet, but the ones I have tried seem useful to anyone who knows what they are doing. Pionex also has a ton of coins and tokens available.
Gate.io
Pros
- Lots of available coins
- Limit and Market orders
- Great app
Cons
- Can’t fund account with fiat
- Not the best customer service
- Lots of features can be confusing for beginners
Gate.io is really close to Kucoin in how many coins it offers, there are a ton, plus the fees aren’t outrageous, it’s just KYC, so if I had to pick between Gate.io and Kucoin, Kucoin would win because they’re not taking my personal information. There are many coins you can only get on Gate.io though, and that seems to be it’s most unique reason to join.
Voyager
Pros
- Low trading minimum
- 0% trading fees
Cons
- Doesn’t offer best prices
- Not self-custodial, they own your crypto
- Only fiat to crypto pairs
Voyager literally has 0 trading fees, but they make their money by the difference in what they buy it for and what they charge you, which means they don’t always offer the best market price. They are also KYC and really gaining popularity since their app’s user interface is very clean and easy to use.
WazirX
I haven’t personally used WazirX, but almost everyone I know who buys crypto in India uses it, so it’s very popular.
The rest of this page will be a bunch of frequently asked questions about the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges. They also include some important features to keep in mind when decided which crypto exchange to sign up to.
Does KYC Matter for a Crypto Exchange?
Yes, KYC is very important when it comes to deciding which Exchange to sign up to. KYC is simply an acronym for Know Your Customer. Basically, if you’re trying to buy crypto, if an exchange is KYC compliant, it means they’re going to collect your name, phone number, address, social security number, and possibly even a picture of your face. Personally, I get a little anxious about giving my information to a bunch of companies, but almost all the exchanges in the US require this. There are a few that don’t, and they the real MVPs.
If an exchange requires you to submit KYC or your personal information, you can be assured they’re going to give your information to the local government and IRS as well – so this means you need to be keeping great records of your buys and sells and report them properly, otherwise you may be committing tax fraud. For exchanges that don’t require KYC, they are more lenient and there may be no way that the IRS could know of your buys and sells, although I would never advocate for tax fraud, just personal privacy. In my exchange sorter tool I’m about to share, I have gone through all the major exchanges and found out if they are KYC or not so you don’t have to worry. If you want to stay anonymous when buying crypto, you can.
What Deposit Methods do Crypto Exchanges use?
There are 5 main deposit methods to transfer money from your account to the exchange:
- Credit Card
- Debit Card
- ACH (or bank transfer)
- Wire Transfer
- Depositing Crypto
The way you buy crypto is usually by connecting an account of some type. Some exchanges allow you to connect a credit card, so you can buy crypto with it, which isn’t always recommended. Other exchanges let you buy with a wire transfer, which is usually recommended for larger purchases.
Most exchanges let you buy with an ACH or Bank Account Transfer, which is my preferred method to fund my account with dollars. Finally, almost all exchanges let you deposit other crypto you have to be able to trade with. These deposit methods don’t matter too much, but it is frustrating when you sign up to an exchange only to find out you have to set up a wire transfer to be able to use it, as these are a bit advanced and take more time to set up.
It is worth mentioning that most exchanges will connect to your bank account in a special way. First, you’ll submit your account and routing number, then they will deposit two amounts into your account. For example, maybe 51 cents and 28 cents.
Within the next few days, they’ll ask you how much you deposited, and if you’re correct, it shows them that you truly own that account and can then withdraw money. One last thing worth mentioning on deposit methods is that most exchanges will let you trade with your deposited money immediately, but won’t let you actually withdraw it until after a few days to make sure your account actually can transfer the funds.
Which Exchanges have the lowest Trading Fees?
Kucoin, FTX, Voyager, and Binance are the most trusted crypto exchanges with the lowest fees. Kucoin has .26%, FTX has .10%, Voyager has 0% (although they charge on spread), and Binance has .10%.
Trading fees are very important, and they fall into two categories. The first is the fee you pay if you are buying or selling crypto at the market price (called the taker fee) because you’re matched with someone else who wants to sell you their crypto at that price. This trade is automatically transacted.
The second is the fee you pay if you want to buy or sell your crypto at a certain price, but nobody wants to agree with your price yet (and this is called a maker fee). This isn’t automatically transacted, but will be when someone agrees.
Some exchanges charge high rates, while others charge low rates, but overall most are less than 1% for a trade. I have also added these fees into the best crypto sorting tool that I’m going to share in a minute, so you can see them clearly.
Which Crypto Exchange has the most coins available?
Kucoin, Gate.io, and Binance are the 3 crypto exchanges with the largest amount of coins and tokens available.
If we’re trying to find the best crypto exchange out there, two things that are immensely important are coin availability and the ability to withdraw those coins. I went through all the top exchanges and put all of the coins they offered into a big spreadsheet which works as the data that I feed into the exchange sorter. Even more important is the ability to withdraw your tokens, and especially on the network they are on.
See, blockchains are all different networks, and some blockchains let you have tokens on their network, which could be representations of other coins. For example, Ethereum is a network, but it’s also a coin. On the Ethereum network, I can have Tether tokens, USDC tokens, Chainlink tokens, and Shiba Inu tokens. However, there’s another network called Polygon which is faster and cheaper, and it’s token is called MATIC. The issue is that I can have MATIC on Polygon and on Ethereum, so the same token on both blockchains. True MATIC is on the Polygon network, but most exchanges only let you withdraw to the more expensive Ethereum network, which is an issue if you’re wanting to invest in DeFi without the crazy Ethereum gas fees. This is actually the main reason I made this crypto exchange sorter, to help people who wanted to find out which exchange they can withdraw certain coins on certain networks without doing a ton of digging.
Which Crypto Exchange has the lowest Withdrawal Fee?
It is very difficult to sort an exchange by the lowest withdrawal fees, since the fee will be determined by the crypto that is trying to be moved. For example, Stellar Lumens have a very low network fee of less $0.01, while Ethereum fees are commonly above $20.
Nothing sucks more than trying to withdraw $100 from your exchange and realizing there’s a $20 withdrawal fee. Usually these fees are based on the crypto you’re attempting to move, for example a transaction on the Bitcoin network is much cheaper than a same transaction on the Ethereum network due to how many other people are trying to make transactions. Sometimes there are minimum amounts you have to withdraw as well.
It is difficult to put this into the sorter since the fee is almost always dependent on which crypto you’re trying to exchange, but I do have separate exchange reviews you can click through to which share the withdrawal fees. Personally, these fees are usually fairly low if you’re withdrawing more than a few hundred dollars of crypto at a time.
Not your keys, not your crypto
One thing I want to share briefly with you is the concept of “Not your Keys, Not your Crypto”. I actually have a whole video about this topic, but the idea is that when your crypto is on an exchange, the exchange has the crypto.
Think about it like this: Let’s say you go to a car dealership and buy a car. However, after you buy the car, you leave it at the dealership. If they wanted, they could take your car for a spin, racking up miles on it, and even getting into an accident. The same goes for your crypto. If you leave it on an exchange, they will use it on their balance sheets and probably do stuff with it. Instead, you should find a way to withdraw your crypto from the exchange and put it into an account that ONLY you own.
There are many ways of doing this, and I’ve been thinking about creating a separate video on how to do so, drop a comment below if you’re interested in that. Basically, I highly recommend moving your crypto off an exchange, even if they offer good APYs to stake, otherwise they could lose your crypto in a hack, they could illegally steal your crypto, and they are probably doing things with your crypto that are making them money. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get into a mini review of all the exchanges I’ve personally tried.
