In this piece, we will take a look at the 15 best cryptocurrency trading platforms in 2023. For more cryptocurrency trading platforms, head on over to 5 Best Cryptocurrency Trading Platforms in 2023.
The cryptocurrency market is one of the riskiest and wildest investment opportunities you are bound to come across. It is also one of the most controversial, with one half of the finance industry claiming that it's all smoke and no game while the others swear by the massive returns offered. The world's premium cryptocurrency is Bitcoin, and its popularity has turned a vast number of individuals into billionaires, as well as bankrupted many more and even managed to shock the income statements of well established technology firms.
A brief look at the returns history of Bitcoin compared to major stock market indexes makes for an interesting exercise. Since the end of 2015, if you had invested $1 into Bitcoin, you would have $8,437 today provided that you held on to your investment with fortitude and avoided selling it. During the same time period, if you had invested a similar amount into the NASDAQ Composite and the S&P500, you would have $1,269 and $874 respectively. These figures alone lend a strong hand to the arguments of cryptocurrency bulls, as the sheer scale of the returns offered by Bitcoin manages to vastly outpace two of the most widely tracked stock market indexes in the world.
However, on the flip side, if you had invested a single dollar at the peak of the market in late 2021, your dollar would be worth 50 cents today, while the NASDAQ would have led to your lone dollar losing only 27 cents of value. These two extreme case scenarios shed light on the volatility of the cryptocurrency market and indicate that where there are big returns to be made, larger losses might also be lurking around the corner.
This tricky balance between risk and return is amplified by turmoil in the industry. The broader market itself has seen significant uncertainty for the past twelve months as soaring inflation and rising interest rates have shaken up the business paradigm. Both firms and banks are facing several difficulties, and money is flowing away from the stock market into the comfort of bank deposits. For the cryptocurrency sector, the collapse of one of the world's leading exchanges, FTX, last year was an important event that generated shockwaves all around. FTX's downfall came as it lent consumer funds to its partner research firm and then used its own issued token as collateral for these loans.
This hoodwinkery worked well and good as long as no one knew about it, but a single article from CoinDesk brought the house of cards tumbling down as depositors, wary of their money, started to withdraw funds and the exchange was unable to cough up sufficient liquidity to fulfill all of these orders. These days, FTX's founder Mr. Sam Bankman-Fried is facing criminal charges in American courts, which could see him spend more than a hundred years in prison. His bail bond has also set a new record, with a $250 million bond being the largest for an American criminal case. His bail package is also the latest development in the case, with the disgraced executive's lawyers trying to convince the judge to allow him access to a flip phone and a laptop - both without internet access.
However, even as cryptocurrency watchers were digesting the sheer impact of FTX's collapse, in March 2023, they were dealt with another shock. The month saw two major American banks collapse, out of which one was tied closely to the cryptocurrency sphere. Signature Bank, which formerly traded under the ticker symbol SBNY on NYSE, became the first to accept customers from the cryptocurrency industry in 2018. This led its share price to swoon and by February 2023, more than 30% of its total deposits had come from the cryptocurrency sector. Signature Bank's collapse - the third largest in U.S. history - was lightning fast. The bank was closed on Sunday, March 12, 2023, but on Friday, March 10, its management was confident that despite jitters in the industry, it could meet withdrawal obligations. Signature Bank had run the Signet, a digital platform that allowed fund transfers through the blockchain, but Signature Bank is not the only bank that felt the ramification of FTX's collapse.
The third bank that suffered during the month of horror, March, is Silvergate Bank. Silvergate Capital Corporation (NYSE:SI), which is still up and running, announced earlier in the month that it plans to wind down its operations. While the bank did not provide a timeline for the winding down, it was one of the most severely affected financial institutions by the FTX collapse since its Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN) had enabled cryptocurrency exchanges and financial institutions to exchange fiat and digital currencies. Silvergate was the source of liquidity for exchanges, and as exchange users started to withdraw their funds, its liquidity was stretched to an extent that forced it to sell assets earlier this year to maintain cash at hand. To make matters worse, the Department of Justice is also investigating the bank for accounts that were tied to Bankman-Fried's businesses.
Amidst this backdrop, we'll take a look at some of the top cryptocurrency exchanges right now out of which the highest ranked are Coinbase Exchange, Kraken, and Binance.
15 Best Cryptocurrency Trading Platforms in 2023
Photo by jason briscoe on Unsplash
Our Methodology
We started our research process by identifying which cryptocurrency exchanges are popular among the userbase and then used CoinMarketCap to determine their ranking based on factors such as liquidity, trading volume, monthly traffic, the number of currencies supported, and overall trading volume. Out of these, the top fifteen are listed below and are ranked through their liquidity since it is one of the most crucial things to look out for in an exchange right now due to turmoil in the financial markets. The liquidity score ranges from 0 to 1,000, with the latter being the most liquid.
Best Cryptocurrency Trading Platforms in 2023
15. KuCoin
Latest Liquidity Score: 566
KuCoin was set up in 2017 and is headquartered in Seychelles. It offers support for a variety of currencies such as BTC, ETH, and USDT. However, the exchange is not available to users in the U.S. KuCoin also charges maker and taker fees, which starts from 0.10% and go as high as 0.3%.
Latest Liquidity Score: 586
OKX is headquartered in Seychelles and was set up in 2017. The exchange supports more than forty different fiat currencies, and it was initially set up in 2013 in China. The exchange offers spot trading, options trading, futures, swaps, loans, and stablecoins along with other products.
13. bitFlyer
Latest Liquidity Score: 598
bitFlyer is a Japanese exchange that is headquartered in Tokyo. It also has a U.S. subsidiary that is located in San Francisco. The exchange was set up in 2014, and it supports major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. However, its fiat support is limited to the Japanese Yen, the Euro, and the U.S. Dollar. It is also one of the world's top cryptocurrency trading platforms.
12. Bitfinex
Latest Liquidity Score: 575
Bitfinex is one of the older cryptocurrency exchanges since it was set up in 2012. The exchange is based in Hong Kong, and it is owned and operated by iFinex, Inc. The exchange charges a 0.1% maker fee and a 0.2% taker fee. It also supports a vast number of different cryptocurrencies and four fiat currencies.
11. Bitstamp
Latest Liquidity Score: 597
Bitstamp is one of the oldest exchanges on our list since it was set up in 2011. It operates in several different countries including the U.S., Luxembourg, Singapore, and the U.K. The exchange supports the British Pound, the Euro, and the U.S. Dollar as well as 80 cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin and Ethereum.
10. Gate.io
Latest Liquidity Score: 603
Gate.io has one of the widest lists of cryptocurrencies to pick from, as it supports more than a thousand different currencies and trading pairs. It is also one of China's oldest exchanges and was set up in 2013. Fiat currencies supported are the Korean Won and the Euro.
9. Crypto.com Exchange
Latest Liquidity Score: 638
Crypto.com Exchange is one of the youngest exchanges on our list since it was set up in 2019. It is headquartered in Singapore and is available in several American states.
8. Bybit
Latest Liquidity Score: 644
Bybit is headquartered in Singapore and has support for more than a hundred different cryptocurrency tokens. It is a relatively younger exchange since it was set up in 2018. Despite this, Bybit has $3 billion in assets and a daily trading volume that often exceeds $1 billion. However, Bybit is not accessible to residents in the U.S. due to regulatory constraints.
7. Lbank
Latest Liquidity Score: 648
LBank is an exchange that is based in the British Virgin Islands. It supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other currencies and charges a 0.10% maker and taker fee.
6. Gemini
Latest Liquidity Score: 654
Gemini is an American cryptocurrency exchange that was set up in 2014 and is based in New York, New York. Apart from being available in nearly every U.S. state, the exchange also provides services in other major countries such as the U.K., Australia, Singapore, and South Korea. Gemini's coverage and liquidity make it one of the world's top cryptocurrency trading platforms, joining others such as Coinbase Exchange, Kraken, and Binance.
