Best Crypto Exchanges 2024: In-Depth Reviews and Recommendations

Insider Tips: Reasons Why You Should Use a Crypto Exchange

There are other ways to buy cryptocurrencies, including peer-to-peer trading and ATMs, but exchanges are the easiest way to trade fiat currencies for cryptocurrencies or to simply purchase cryptocurrency from the comfort of your home. With an exchange, you do not have to meet up with someone in person to buy cryptocurrency, and the fees are typically much lower than with Bitcoin ATMs.

The best crypto exchange for you depends on your needs. If you are exchanging Bitcoin for USD or CAD, you may need a cryptocurrency exchange that offers competitive rates for transferring fiat currencies to your bank account. If you are planning on cryptocurrency trading or simply are interested in diversifying your portfolio with a few different digital assets, then you will want to peruse our crypto exchange reviews for the top crypto exchange in terms of trading fees, volumes, and transaction fees.

Understanding Why People Store Their Crypto on Exchanges

Conversely, there are a few interesting reasons why you may choose to store assets on the exchange instead of transferring them to a wallet:

Staking

Many exchanges offer both liquid and locked staking options through their exchange. Locked staking means you have no access to those assets for the staking period and earn interest on that amount, while liquid staking means you have the flexibility of taking the assets when you want and interest is often added daily.

Events

Some exchanges offer trading competitions with rewards, where the top volume traders for an asset have a chance to win crypto or even physical prizes such as cars or electronics. Some of the top exchanges have gotten very creative with their events.

Convenience

While storing your assets on the exchange does come with the risk of exposing your assets, having them readily accessible to be traded for other cryptocurrencies or exchanged for fiat currencies is very convenient. Plus, each transaction you make sending to and from an exchange incurs a network fee. If you are likely to trade an asset, it makes more sense to leave it on the exchange. This enables you to save on fees and increase your total income.

In addition, some users may not trust themselves to secure their own crypto. While crypto is all about self-sovereignty, there’s nothing inherently wrong with using a highly trusted exchange for custodial services.

A Checklist of What to Look for in a Good Crypto Exchange

We’d argue that security is easily the most important factor for a crypto exchange because if you can’t trust an exchange with your coins, then every other feature of the service is essentially pointless.

Other than security, there are some features that you should look for in a good crypto exchange. When you’re exploring your options, use our handy checklist before deciding:

✔️ Security Features

• Cold Storage and Management of Customer Funds

The best exchanges will store over 90% of customer assets in cold storage, where they can’t be accessed in the case of a security breach. Likewise, the best crypto exchanges never lend out customer funds and shouldn’t even consider doing so.

• Proof of Reserves

The best exchanges provide a clear proof of reserves page where users can verify the assets held for themselves and by the exchange. They should be audited as well.

• Licenses

Perhaps the most obvious security feature of an exchange is having the proper regulatory licenses. Make sure an exchange is licensed for operation in your jurisdiction.

• Extra Security Layers

Top crypto exchanges offer extra layers of security for your account such as two-factor authentication (2FA) or SMS code requirements for withdrawals.

✔️  Customer Support

It’s especially important to have good customer service and support when you’re just getting started with crypto. Good customer support will help you with your crypto questions and issues.

✔️ Available Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin and Ethereum are available on nearly every exchange, but there are thousands of different coins that might be of interest to you. Make sure the exchange you’re interested in offers the digital assets that you’d like to trade.

✔️ Fees

Crypto exchange fees are extremely important to high-volume traders because it cuts into their bottom line. If you’re new to crypto, then paying a 2% fee on your initial purchase isn’t the end of the world. But if you intend to make lots of trades, you should probably find a low-fee exchange.

✔️ Payment Methods

You’ll likely want to use a debit card, bank transfer, wire transfer, or credit card to fund your account. Some exchanges offer limited payment methods, however. Make sure the crypto exchange you’re signing up for offers the payment method of your choice. The best crypto exchange might not be the best for you if you can’t make a deposit.

Kraken is renowned for providing Proof of Reserves. Credit: Kraken

Do All Exchanges Accept Credit Card or Bank Transfer?

Short answer: no. Not all cryptocurrency exchanges accept credit card and bank transfer deposits, and some only support these methods through specific financial institutions, such as SEPA. Some cryptocurrency exchanges exist only for trading cryptocurrency, and therefore only accept deposits and withdrawals in cryptocurrency.

We would advise you choose a crypto exchange from our selection and checkout our reviews of them. Choose an exchange where you’ll be able to buy and sell cryptocurrency with fiat currencies such as USD, EUR, GBP, or CAD. Each cryptocurrency exchange will offer different fees for the varying deposit and withdrawal methods that they accept. So think about how you want to fund your account and whether you’re planning on trading or holding your digital currency. Once you have determined that, you can look through our crypto exchange reviews for the one that will make your funds go the farthest.

An example of a crypto exchange dashboard. Credit: Coinbase.

Now That You Just Bought Crypto - Here Are Your Next Steps

The crypto you bought is now on the cryptocurrency exchange and is stored in your exchange wallet. This is considered a non-custodial wallet, meaning you do not have complete control over your crypto assets stored in your wallet, the exchange does. Since exchanges deal with massive volumes of money and store large quantities of assets at many wallet addresses, they are extremely tempting targets for hackers. The best crypto exchanges cycle assets to cold storage to reduce their exposure in the rare event of a hack.

Need some advice? Here’s a look at the top 5 safest crypto exchanges we recommend.

💡 Top tip from us: The safest thing you can do with your cryptocurrency is to store it in a software or hardware wallet to which you hold the private keys.

• Software wallets are often free and are certainly a step-up in security compared to keeping them on the exchange.

• Hardware wallets such as the Ledger Nano X or Trezor Model T are some of the best ways to store your assets in cold storage, meaning your crypto assets are offline, with no connection to the internet, making it extremely low risk of being hacked.

Take a look at some of the best cryptocurrency wallets on the market today.

Once you’ve secured your crypto, there are a variety of different things you can do with it, including the following:

👉 Send it to friends and family or clients

👉 Stake it to earn a passive yield

👉 Use it to buy NFTs

👉 Play around with DeFi

👉 Trade crypto with the goal of earning a profit

👉 Simply hold it until it’s (hopefully) worth more

An example of a cryptocurrency hardware wallet.

Why Do People Store Crypto on Exchanges?

Conversely there are a few interesting reasons why you may choose to store assets on the exchange instead of transferring them to a wallet:

Staking

Many exchanges offer both hard and soft staking options through their exchange. Hard staking means you have no access to those assets for the staking period and earn interest on that amount, while soft staking means you have the flexibility of taking the assets when you want and interest is often added daily. Top crypto exchanges such as KuCoin, Coinbase, and Binance offer both these options.

Events

Some exchanges offer trading competitions with rewards, where the top volume traders for an asset have a chance to win crypto or even physical prizes such as cars or electronics. Some of the top exchanges have gotten very creative with their events.

Crypto.com Exchange has an event which they call The Syndicate. Staking a minimum of 10,000 of their native token, CRO, for 180 days, gives users access to these events. During this 24 hour Syndicate, users have the ability to purchase a cryptocurrency offered at that Syndicate at a discount. This discount can be anywhere from 25%-50% off market price. Once the event has ended, users receive their discounted digital assets. Having these events has pushed CRO to the borderline of being a top 10 asset.

Convenience

While storing your assets on the exchange does come with the risk of exposing your assets, having them readily accessible to be traded for other cryptocurrencies or exchanged for fiat currencies is very convenient. Plus, each transaction you make sending to and from an exchange incurs a network fee. If you are likely to trade an asset, it makes more sense to leave it on the exchange. This is enable you to save on fees and increase your total income.

In addition some users may not trust themselves to secure their own crypto. While crypto is all about self-sovereignty, there’s nothing inherently wrong with using a highly-trusted exchange for custodial services.