6 Best Crypto Exchanges for Day-Trading
If you’re looking for the best crypto exchanges for day-trading, you’re probably new to trading or looking for a better alternative.
According to the most recent report by CoinMarketCap, the average daily crypto trading volume has risen over $90 billion per day.
What does that tell us about crypto day-trading?
It tells us that crypto day-trading is more popular and mainstream than ever before, which means there will also be more options to choose from than ever before.
But worry not. Today, we’ll help you find the best crypto exchange for day-trading and the factors that you should look for when choosing one.
This list only includes centralized exchanges. To understand this difference between centralized exchange and decentralized exchange, read this.
What Makes a Crypto Exchange Ideal for Day-Trading?
What makes a crypto exchange ideal for day-trading? This is the question you should ask first. There are many factors, but some are more important than others.
So, before we move on to the list of the 6 best crypto exchanges for day-trading, let’s find out the factors that make a crypto exchange ideal for day-trading.
Trade Volume
Ideally, you should look for a crypto exchange with high trade volume.
Why?
Because trade volume represents the number of trades taking place in a particular exchange. High trade volume allows easier conversion between different coins, assets and fiat currency.
Don’t confuse trade volume with the number of cryptocurrencies an exchange offers. It doesn’t matter if Binance or Coinbase offers hundreds of cryptocurrencies if there are no actual trades taking place for those cryptocurrencies.
Liquidity
Trade volume alone isn’t enough if liquidity is low.
Liquidity refers to how quickly and easily you can convert an asset into cash.
In day-trading, liquidity is crucial for many reasons but mainly because it determines how easily and quickly you can open and close positions.
If the liquidity is low, the trader will struggle to find a buyer or seller to complete their trade and make a profit.
Fees
In theory, trade volume and liquidity are the most important factors for ranking the best crypto exchange for day-trading.
But practically speaking, most of the well-known, established crypto exchanges are already offering decent trade volume and liquidity for you to start.
What actually differs is the transaction fees that most crypto exchanges charge. Every exchange has a different fee structure. Some are pretty expensive, while others are really cheap.
You have to find a good balance between affordable fees and good trading tools and features.
Speaking of which…
Trading Tools and Features
What are trading tools and features?
It can be anything from educational resources to tracking and analysis tools or trading features like margin trading and options trading.
Not every exchange will offer the same tools and features. While some exchanges may allow users to do options trading, others might only allow margin trading and vice versa. While some may offer TA indicators, others may not.
However, these are relatively less important than the other factors we talked about since most of the popular exchanges already have the essential trading tools and features you need to get started.
Now that you know what factors we considered to rank the best crypto exchanges for day-trading, let’s dive into the list.
1. Binance
Binance has everything we need to say it’s the best crypto exchange for day-trading.
It has some of the lowest transaction fees in the industry and offers a wide range of trading tools and features suitable for beginners and advanced traders alike.
However, the user interface is a little complex, and beginners will probably go through a short learning curve to get used to it. But once you’re there, it gets easy.
Other than that, Binance is one of the leading platforms in trade volume and liquidity.
2. Kraken
Kraken is one of the best crypto exchanges for day-trading as it offers low fees and a wide range of cryptocurrencies to trade from.
It’s not available in New York and Washington, though.
Kraken has good liquidity and decent trade volume. It also has a relatively easy user interface for newbies in day-trading and offers advanced trading features for veterans too.
All in all, Kraken is a great place to start your day-trading journey or shift to if you’re already in it.
3. eToro
Let’s get it straight from the start – eToro is not for everyone, especially not for beginners.
eToro has a very complex fee structure and also a higher barrier-to-entry in terms of minimum trade requirements. So, it’s clearly not for everyone.
However, it’s not all bad. While it may not be the best for beginners, veteran crypto day-traders may find eToro really helpful as it offers many advanced trading tools and features, some of which they may not find anywhere else.
eToro may not be for everyone, but it surely has the potential to be one of the best crypto exchanges for day-trading.
4. Bittrex
Bittrex is overall great. However, it’s certainly not the best crypto exchange for day-trading.
Despite its low fees, Bittrex lacks in some key areas. For example, Bittrex doesn’t have the option to do margin trading, which alone can turn away many traders.
It also has a relatively low trading volume compared to other crypto exchanges. Plus, it has received a significant amount of negative reviews from its users.
5. Coinbase
Coinbase is one of the most popular and mainstream crypto exchanges out there.
It has a second or alternative platform, whatever you wanna call it, called Coinbase Pro, which offers lower transaction fees and more trading tools and features than the standard Coinbase.
And since it’s one of the most popular crypto exchanges, it has high trade volume and liquidity at all times. However, beginners may struggle to get used to the platform.
6. Bitfinex
Bitfinex is a tricky one. Though it offers attractive low transaction fees and has all the essential trading tools and features you need, it has its drawbacks. The biggest one being it’s not available in the US. So, if you’re from the United States, Bitfinex is already out of the question.
It also has a controversial history with regulatory issues, which might turn some people away. Ironically, Bitfinex is considered one of the most reliable and safest crypto exchanges for trading.
It’s worth mentioning that Bitfinex also offers impressive trading volume and liquidity to its users.
Final Thoughts
So, that’s it. That’s your list of best crypto exchanges for day-trading. However, if you’re already day-trading or thinking about starting, you need to familiarize yourself with the tax consequences of trading cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin.Tax is the leading crypto tax calculator in the market that helps you collect all your trade history, calculate capital gains and other taxes and create a tax report.