Nowadays there is an entire ocean of cryptocurrency marketplaces out there and new users usually struggle with finding a good place to start buying coins at. Further down the road they face a similar challenge when they want to sell those same coins as they will have to look for a good exchange site. This is why we created this guide and handpicked some of the best cryptocurrency exchanges and marketplaces out there in an attempt to help new users better find their perfect match in the constantly developing crypto world.
First, we will introduce you to our top five picks, show you a comparison chart between them and then we will dive into all the little details that make a crypto market great. Hopefully, by the end of our guide you will be able to look for the things that are specifically important to you and be able to differentiate between a marketplace that isn’t legitimate and a real one which will help you on your way to becoming richer and happier. So, let’s get started, shall we?
Top Cryptocurrency Markers Comparison Chart
| Crypto Market | Security | Coins Available | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
Binance Check Here | Great | Plenty | 5 |
Coinmama Check Here | Good | Most Of The Big Ones | 4.5 |
Bitpanda Check Here | Average | Most Of The Big Ones | 4.5 |
eToro Check Here | Best In Class | A Few | 4.5 |
LocalBitcoins Check Here | Good | All tradable ones | 4.5 |
Binance Crypto Marketplace
Our Rating:
Binance is one of one of those marketplaces where everything revolves around the user experience. Here, you will easily be able to register your account and enjoy a Level 1 verification which will allow a bearable amount of daily trading limit. Furthermore, there is a good (but not so speedy) support staff which will address all your needs. What sets Binance apart from all the other exchanges and crypto markets is that it has one of the, if not the, lowest transaction fees. On top of that there are a decent amount of deposit and withdrawal methods and as a whole the site feels quite premium and is nicely secured. If you want to learn more about it check out our full review on it.
Coinmama Crypto Marketplace
Our Rating:
Coinmama offers some of the most iconic cryptocurrencies on today’s market for trade. It is the go-to choice for many people, as it has been around for more than 4 years now. The level of security combined with the competent and quickly responding support staff make it a nice place for beginners to find their safe haven until they can take the training wheels off. Some things put a stick in your bike spokes, though, as the withdrawal times are often lengthy and the transaction fees are higher than you’d want them to be (in the 3-5% range most often). There are three levels of verifying your account and each is responsible for its own buying and withdrawing daily, weekly, and all-time limits. All in all, it is one of the most well known places to trade and has a great community around it that will help you with any novice questions you have. Check our full review about it to learn more about Coinmama’s unique features.
Bitpanda Online Crypto Exchange
Our Rating:
Bitpanda is the answer to all the European’s questions for the last decade. There hasn’t been as single efficient and secure way for the population of the old continent to browse for cryptocurrencies without the need of a VPN and this one addresses that in the best possible way. With an elegant interface and geared towards the European payment methods, Bitpanda is a very reliable crypto exchange which has three levels of account verification, just like Coinmama. The last level will require official documents of yours but will also open the door for almost limitless trading options with daily, weekly, and all-time limits which will be hard to reach. Even more, there is a nice community forum to this crypto marketplace which helps beginners find their way around the crypto world much faster and far safer. To read more on this market, check our review on it.
eToro Online Trading Platform
Our Rating:
There isn’t a single person who is even remotely familiar with the online trading business and doesn’t know anything about eToro. That is because that trading platform has been around for a decade and a half. With its close to 10 million users it is a online trading giant. It isn’t specifically geared towards crypto trading but you can find the main crypto currencies in it and learn tons of useful tips from the vast library of learning materials they have. Most users who go there to trade with cryptocurrencies usually end up learning more about trading with other assets and transfer to other trading niches. It possesses some of the highest security levels, has a gorgeous user interface and an insanely large community around it which is full of people ready to help you. There аре an iOS and Android app which makes this platform available on the go too. If you want to learn how to trade with assets online in general, this is the place to start your online career. Check out our full review for further information.
LocalBitcoins Online Exchange Platform
Our Rating:
Last on our list, but definitely not least is a kind of a unique crypto exchange. In LocalBitcoins you can browse for sellers who have their bitcoins for sale. Each seller has his own reputation points, his number of sales and experience listed. It is a unique community which pretty much spans over the whole globe and even allows you to look for sellers in your region allowing for external deals to be done. There are security measurements put into place that prevent accidents from happening and furthermore there is a team specially assigned to dealing with conflicts between buyers and sellers. There are fees but they are paid by the seller and are usually around 1% (which is almost as low as it gets in the crypto world). The prices are a bit higher than the day’s average but that is mainly due to the human aspect and that sellers determine a higher price to negate the effect of the fee. If you are looking for a novice-friendly place to start buying and selling bitcoins this is the place to go to. Check our full review on LocalBitcoins to find out more about this unique website.
Find out which is the best GPU for mining Monero on this article.
Guide To Cryptocurrency Markets
Cryptocurrency markets are found in the form of sites and currently there are hundreds, if not thousands of them. The good ones which are worth your time and resources, though, can be counted on the fingers of your hands. This is because many of those marketplace sites cannot be trusted and have a shady history or are just brand new and still have to make a name for themselves. That is the case with Binance – it is one of the newest sites but it gained traction rather fast as people saw that it can be trusted. One thing is important to understand right off the bat here – if a site has a large following this is always a good sign in the crypto world, as bad news travel fast and issues with a few customers can bring a whole site down very fast.
When it comes to choosing the marketplace which will be your future crypto home, there are a few things to keep your eyes open for and take into account. Those are:
- How easy it is to register and verify your account
- How easy it is to navigate through the site and its menus
- Is it easy to deposit and withdraw money
- What payment methods does the site offer you
- What are the withdrawal times
- Which cryptocurrencies does the platform support
- What are your daily, weekly, and all-time buy and sell limits
- Is there a good security on the platform
- How fast and how good does the support staff handle issues
- Other things such as social media and forum presence are important as well
Now, let’s take a closer look at each of those aspects and see why it is important to pay attention to it.
Ease Of Registration
This might seem like a useless thing to point out but the registration process in some sites can be phishy. Stay away from sites that require any sort of detailed personal information or credit/debit card information on the initial sign up process. Those are usually a scam. A good sign up process should not require anything more than your email and a password. Then, once you verify your email and in the marketplace itself you should have further options for higher verification levels such as ID, passport, picture, etc.
Site Navigation
Site navigation is an often overlooked aspect of crypto sites as people usually think it is not important. That is wrong because finding your way through a stock exchange is a matter of money and proper investment. If you can’t find the numbers you need fast it probably isn’t the most ideal interface for you. A great trading site should have all the vital information at one place and the buttons to buy and sell shouldn’t lead to further forms and buttons which will slow down the process itself. That is especially true if you are a beginner and everything seems new to you.
Depositing And Withdrawing
Depositing money or cryptocurrencies into a crypto exchange site should be a straightforward process. Beware of sites that try to externalize this action as they might try to scam you by taking your payment information. Be careful that you don’t enter your credit card information, and more importantly the CVV code in a pop-up form. Some sites, such as Binance do not accept fiat currency and only accept deposits in the form of crypto coins. Those can be a bit harder to manage at first if you are a beginner, so just move past them.
Withdrawing money on the other hand is usually always simple and just requires you to enter the way you want to get your funds. Still, there are different methods for each site, as well as different periods for which this happens, as we will discuss below.
Payment And Withdrawing Methods
Most sites accept the usual methods:
- Visa
- MasterCard
- Bank Transfers (not so common)
- Neteller
- Skrill
- SEPA
- Amazon.de voucher
- Others
What is rare is to see a paypal option to withdraw and is what people generally look for as paypal is a synonym for fund security these days. Depositing or paying on a crypto exchange with paypal is something people look for as well but it is very rare due to the chargeback option in paypal which can easily ruin a deal.
Wire transfers are rare too but are accepted in reputable places such as eToro.
An important thing to note is that different methods mean different withdrawal times, so let’s discuss that.
Withdrawing Periods
If you withdraw to your credit card, chances are that the money (euro, dollars, etc.) will arrive later than a few days after you finalize the procedure. Withdrawing cryptocurrencies to an online or offline wallet is much faster and usually happens within 10 minutes.
Neteller, amazon vouchers. Skrill, and SEPA are very fast means of withdrawing money from online crypto exchanges and are preferred by people living on the old continent.
Supported Cryptocurrencies
At the beginning of your crypto journey you will most likely look around for just the most stable and famous currencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, etc. Further down the road, though, you will find that some other not so well known coins have investing potential as well. This will push you to exchange sites and online crypto markets that have those, and that will narrow your site choices heavily, as the biggest ones do not support the less known currencies. For example, eToro is the biggest trading platform and it only supports six of the famous cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH, BTC Cash, ETH Classic, Litecoin, Ripple).
Buying And Selling Limits
Limits are another hot topic widely discussed as people do not really understand how they work. For instance, Binance gives you a 0 dollar buy limit if you do not have a higher than Level 1 account verification. This means that if you only provide email address you won’t be able to buy anything. You have to go up to Level 2 by providing official documents such as ID, passport, or driver’s license to be able to start trading officially. Even then, you will have daily, weekly and all-time limits on how much worth of Bitcoin you are buying or selling. This discourages huge investors as well as very small ones which do not want to expose their personal information on the internet.
To answer that, online exchanges tend to have different servers specifically designed to hold personal information. That way they can isolate it and protect it even harder against hacks and malicious attempts.
Since there are buying limits there also are selling ones, which are usually not so strict and far higher. In other words, sites that allow selling of currencies try to encourage you to do it through them as they will get a commision from that sale for basically doing nothing except being the catalyst for the deal.
Security
This is perhaps the most important aspect of a crypto marketplace. It is the most important aspect of any site where you place your personal and payment information for that matter. Different marketplaces have different layers of security in them ranging from the basic protocols to deeper hack-proof security systems which are on par with federal regulations.
No matter how great of a security has though, personal security can always fail if a person isn’t taking care of his log in credentials well. Do not store your credentials anywhere online and make sure to have a two-factor authentication. That way, nobody will be able to log in to your account without having your phone with them.
Support
Support can be a delicate matter as most people love to discover things on their own. Sometimes there can be issues with the trades themselves, though. That can lead to potential conflicts of interests between the seller and the buyer. This is what support teams have to be extremely prepared for. There even are resolution teams specialized in solving deal conflicts. Still, sometimes sites get bugs and there are interface issues which would go unnoticed unless someone files a ticket.
Other people just like to contact support and ask for general stuff like page navigation, payment information, etc. A good site should answer its supporting tickets within the business day or at least have a live chat.
Social Media, Community, And Forums
Keep your eyes open for marketplaces which have an active community around them. Forum members can give you excellent trading tips and advice and are also good for when you need assistance with something. Daily news and previews of the current market situation can guide you towards more logical business decisions as well.
Finding the best cryptocurrency exchange site can be challenging and this is why we made this guide to help you understand which are the things that matter the most when choosing your next investment platform. Furthermore, if you don’t want to pick a site on your own, we’ve created a top 5 list with all the best sites to invest currently. We hope you’ve learned a lot and wish you good luck on your financial adventure into the cryptocurrencies world!
