altcoin-exchanges

Altcoin Exchanges

Since the birth of the largest cryptocurrency of the world Bitcoin, the altcoins have grown in popularity. Altcoin trading refers to the act of trading the various digital currencies against each other or against the fiat currencies. It provides a hope of making a good profit on the price swings. Picking one of the best altcoin exchanges is very essential while you are trading in the altcoin market. 

The altcoins are already having a relatively lower market cap than its counterpart, Bitcoin (BTC). Thus, you must avoid picking an altcoin exchange bearing scarce order books, which might be subject to periods of low liquidity and flash crashes. 

In this detailed guide, we will be looking at some of the best altcoin exchanges suitable for altcoin trading. Additionally, we will also discuss the key information that you must consider before rushing into an altcoin trading platform.

 

What Is An Altcoin?

Altcoin is termed as any cryptocurrency that is not Bitcoin. The term “altcoin” means alternative coin. It had been coined around 2011 after the launch of the first ever altcoins called ‘Namecoin’. All the altcoins are traded on the altcoin exchange. Stay tuned to know more about the altcoin exchanges in the latter part of the article. 

The Altcoin Market: A Glimpse

The Altcoin market has lately risen to unbelievable heights and the rise has been prominent since 2017. The year 2018 had seen the largest altcoin by market capitalization, Ethereum (ETH). In the start of the year the value of Ethereum was around $8. At some point it went above $1400. With this massive market mobility, it has attracted a huge number of the traders and investors. It had forced them to place even more positions in altcoins in the hope to receive massive profits. 

However, the altcoin market is much different from that of the Bitcoin market. You can experience new projects almost everyday. Currently, CoinMarketCap provides data on more than 2000 projects. Nevertheless, many of these projects will not survive in the future as a lot of them bear extremely low levels of liquidity.

What Is An Altcoin Exchange? How Does The Altcoin Exchanges Work?

People are always curious to know about the altcoins, how they perform, what are altcoin exchanges and how these would help them trade their alt coins. Here is what you have been looking for. 

An altcoin exchange is a trading platform that offers its users an open space to trade their altcoins digitally. Usually, these exchanges do not require any KYC or Know Your Customers checks. They are used frequently by thousands of the traders throughout the world owing to the increased volatility of the Altcoins.

All the altcoin exchanges work by carefully matching the orders of the various altcoin traders on their platforms. Once the orders are matched, the assets or funds are transferred accordingly to the respective parties (buyers and sellers). 

How To Use An Altcoin Exchange?

Want to know how to trade altcoin? Find below what exactly you will need to get started.

Getting started with an altcoin exchange is very easy and straightforward. You can start directly even if you do not have much knowledge. Here are the there basic steps that will help you get started:

  1. Select your most preferred altcoin exchange and sign up on it. 
  2. Start off by making a deposit.
  3. Begin trading on the platform.

What Should You Look For While Choosing An Altcoin Exchange?

There are certain parameters that you need to consider before you start trading your altcoins in any of the best altcoin exchanges. These parameters establish if your chosen altcoin exchange is the right one for you. Here are some of the primary things that you need to look out for while choosing your exchange:

  • Customer Support
  • Deposit & Withdrawal Methods
  • Design & UI/UX
  • Fees
  • Functionality
  • Location
  • Security

Top Altcoin Exchanges To Rely On This Year 

Most of the time, the users are eager to invest in a specific project that only a handful of exchanges list. Here, we have listed the best altcoin exchanges having best liquidity and operations. These altcoin exchanges are those where you are likely to find your most preferred altcoins. Thus, this is the complete list of top altcoin exchanges. Additionally, you can also check out the Best Bitcoin Exchanges of all times.

The trading platforms for the alternative coins that we have included here lets you speculate on the altcoin price with the fiat currencies. You can do the same with the crypto-to-crypto trading. Some of these platforms help you to learn how to trade altcoin and this piece might be treated as a base for some famous altcoin exchange reviews .

Let’s get through!

Binance

Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange by far in the means of trading volume. This platform will be helpful if you want to know how to buy altcoins in USA or with USD. It lists 1,313 leading altcoins. Every week new coins are added. The users can trade their crypto coins against Bitcoin (BTC), BNB (Binance’s own crypto), Ethereum (ETH) and USDT (a stablecoin that is pegged to the USD). Considering the crypto-to-crypto trading, Binance is one of the best options to go for. It has the most liquidity. It has a wide range of project listings while it also delists certain projects if they are not worthy.

Binance offers a set of tools for assisting the traders. These include the depth chart, price chart and the order book. The altcoin trading fees on this platform are also very competitive. However, all the users who hold BNB can avail the lower fees. It comes with a no KYC policy.

Mainly, Binance operates in the cryptocurrency-to-cryptocurrency trading. The platform also has plans to open partnership exchange in Singapore having fiat support. These days the platform also supports fiat-crypto purchases using Simplex.

Pros

  • New altcoins are added weekly.
  • Has higher liquidity.
  • Offers lower fees for the market makers.
  • Offers margin trading.

Cons

  • The customer support and the verification processes are slower.
  • Owing to the larger number of traders, it might have a delay in trading.

Bittrex

Bittrex has been the longest in the market where the altcoin traders had depended all throughout. Bittrex was followed by Binance and finally by the other exchanges that brought about a variety of altcoins. But, Bittrex bore one of the largest cryptocurrency-to-cryptocurrency offerings. Very recently, the platform added the support for fiat currencies that is enough to compete with Kraken and Coinbase. 

Bittrex bears markets pairing altcoins against the US Dollars, Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC). Most surprisingly, there are over 500 altcoin pairings against Bitcoin. The tools that the platform offers includes a price chart, an order book, trades printing and depth chart. All trades incur a competitive fee of 0.25%.

However, something that adds further risk to the users’ fund is the fact that the platform is not regulated. Nevertheless, Bittrex had been successfully operating since 2014 while the executive team has been publicly known to add accountability. The prime benefits of trading via Bittrex altcoin exchange are – wide variety of the altcoin availability, relatively lower trading fees and the wide suite of the trading tools offered by the platform.

Pros

  • Offers large crypto-to-crypto trading
  • Has relatively low fees
  • Various trading tools are available.

Cons

  • The platform is not regulated.
  • Has a poor user interface.

Poloniex

Since 2014, Polonium has been a name while considering the crypto-to-crypto exchange. Circle had acquired the platform back in the year 2018. Poloniex is such an altcoin trading platform that people have a love-hate relation with. Apart from some primary caveats, there are some amazing benefits as well. We have made sure to list the pros and cons so that it is easier for you to decide whether to trade on one of the known altcoin exchanges

The fees for trading on this platform is pretty competitive and it progressively decreases depending on the amount of the volume being traded. Talking of the key benefits, they include ability to open short positions, margin trading and of course lending. The fees for the margin trading are charged based on the margin positions on the market environment at that time. 

The Poloniex users can make use of their funds for lending it to the other traders and earning an interest rate. This feature is offered by a few crypto exchanges. It also allows the traders to take a short position.

Pros

Cons

  • Withdrawing funds can be challenging.
  • It does not permit trading with the fiat currencies.

Kraken

One of those altcoin exchanges that offers margin trading is Kraken. The platform supports the major fiat currencies such as the USD, EUR and GBP. This helps the traders to speculate both short and long with their fiat currencies. The crypto exchanges that deal with the fiat money mostly do not deal with the fiat currency and also do not have quite a wide selection of the supported altcoins. However, Kraken is an exception that supports a considerable amount of the altcoin pairs.

There are various ways to short the altcoin via margins and derivatives. The Kraken exchange permits you to utilize your fiat currency for shorting altcoins. The fees get excessively lower depending on the volume of the trades. To open a position, there is a 0.01% to 0.02% fee. The same amount of the fee is also charged each four hours based on what product is being traded. 

Additionally to this, the platform also offers a suite of trading tools. This platform is also one of the most liquid crypto exchanges. The best part is that the platform is one of the largest exchanges in Euro Bitcoin Trading in the whole world. It has garnered an awesome reputation since it started its operation in 2011.

Pros

  • Offers high liquidity.
  • 2FA is enabled for the users.
  • Possesses relatively low fees.

Cons

  • The trading options are quite limited. 
  • The platform offers pretty slow customer support.
  • The interface is very complicated.

1Inch Exchange

1Inchexchange is probably one of the best non KYC altcoin exchanges for the ERC20 token. The platform is a DEX aggregator that helps the users to get the best rates from the decentralized exchanges such as Sushi, Uniswap and others. This is probably the best website for you if you are planning to trade freely without worrying about the KYC. Best part is that you can connect to the 1Inchexchnage utilizing Metamask or any other crypto wallet

Pros

  • The user interface is pretty smooth.
  • It bears no trading deposit or withdrawal fees.
  • The platform has high liquidity and excellent rates.
  • Availability of CHI gas tokens to reduce transaction fees.
  • 1Inch Liquidity Protocol permits yield farming.

Cons

  • It does not support fiat currency usage.
  • Beginners might struggle getting a hang on the platform usage.
  • Infinity lock feature might involve potential security risk in future.

Conclusion

While all the crypto exchanges including the altcoin exchanges serve the purpose of enabling its peers to buy and sell altcoins, they differ a huge deal. This being said, when it comes to choosing the best altcoin exchanges from a list of altcoin exchanges, you need to be extra careful and consider some of the most important parameters that are mentioned earlier. This will help you in determining which altcoin exchange will be the most suitable for your purpose.