Unless you are from the US (but there is a Binance US), Binance is the best overall choice for most users with low fees and a wide range of coins
Fees of 0.1% or lower are the best in the industry - and fees matter The largest range of coins of any exchange
Some countries not permitted (e.g. US) and others restrict fiat transactions
Binance is one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. It claims to have over 15 million users worldwide and to do $2 trillion or more in volume each day.
Binance was launched in July, 2017. It was created by a trading software developer named Changpeng Zhao.
In the months after Binance was launched, it became well known for having a large number of coins listed. By January, 2018, it had become the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world in terms of trading volume.
Binance was originally based out of Shanghai, China. But after the Chinese government banned cryptocurrency exchanges, Binance moved its main office to the more crypto-friendly city of Tokyo, Japan.
Binance also has branch offices in Taiwan.
The exchange is most known for the depth of its offering. It carries over 150 tokens and more than 500 trading pairs.
In addition, it is well known for providing support in many different languages.
Trading fees can greatly impact a crypto trader’s profits. And with many brokerages, these fees are complex and often confusing. So we’ll break down Binance’s trading fees here.
Trading fees at Binance are determined by your VIP rating. If you’ve never used the exchange before, you’ll start off at VIP 0. This level has the highest fee of any VIP level.
Still, Binance’s fee is extremely low when compared to competitors - even at VIP 0. The only trading fee is a flat 0.1% per trade. If you don’t own Binance’s own crypto, called BNB, this fee comes out of the crypto you purchase.
For example, our purchase of 500 LOOM incurred a fee of 0.5 LOOM, leaving us with just 499.5 LOOM leftover. And when we later sold 499 LOOM, we received 0.00003209 ETH less than the price we had sold it for.
If you frequently trade large volumes, these fees can add up quickly. But they are still lower than the fees charged by most of Binance’s competitors.
It’s important to note though that Binance doesn’t allow fractional unit trading for most of its coins. This can lead to “trading dust” or fractional coins getting stuck in the platform.
For example, although we held 499.5 LOOM, we could only sell 499 because the extra .5 is a fractional value.
Because a single LOOM doesn’t cost much, this didn’t bother us. But if you trade a coin that has a higher unit price, you may need to take this extra cost into account.
With Ethereum and Bitcoin, however, fractional trading is allowed.
For the casual crypto user, Binance’s trading fee may seem incredibly cheap. But if you are a high frequency and large volume trader, this cost may significantly impact your trading profits.
In this case, you can lower your per trade fee by increasing your VIP level. There are two ways to do this:
At midnight UTC each day, Binance’s computers calculate your trading volume over the past 30 days. Assuming you are not holding any BNB, this volume determines your new VIP level for the day. At 2 a.m. UTC each day, your fee is adjusted based on this new VIP level.
At higher VIP levels, the fee is also determined by whether you are placing a limit or market order.
Here is the volume required and trading fee for each level.
| VIP Level | 30 day volume (in BTC value) | Limit order fee | Market order fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Less than 50 | 0.1% | 0.1% |
| 1 | 50 to 500 | 0.09% | 0.1% |
| 2 | 500 to 1500 | 0.08% | 0.1% |
| 3 | 1500 to 4500 | 0.07% | 0.1% |
| 4 | 4500 to 10K | 0.07% | 0.09% |
| 5 | 10K to 20K | 0.06% | 0.08% |
| 6 | 20K to 40K | 0.05% | 0.07% |
| 7 | 40K to 80K | 0.04% | 0.06% |
| 8 | 80K to 150K | 0.03% | 0.05% |
| 9 | 150K or more | 0.02% | 0.04% |
If you are not doing enough trading volume to reach the VIP level you desire, Binance will allow you to stake its utility token, BNB, to achieve whatever VIP level you want. Here is the amount you’ll need to stake for each VIP level.
| VIP level | Amount of BNB stake needed |
|---|---|
| 0 | 0 |
| 1 | 50 |
| 2 | 200 |
| 3 | 500 |
| 4 | 1000 |
| 5 | 2000 |
| 6 | 3500 |
| 7 | 6000 |
| 8 | 9000 |
| 9 | 11000 |
It’s important to note that if you hold BNB in your account, trading fees will be paid out of BNB instead of coming out of the coin you purchase. For this reason, your stake will decline as you continue to trade.
If you choose this route to high VIP levels, you may want to periodically replenish your BNB holdings to keep from losing levels.
BNB holders also gain an additional discount for all of 2021 and half of 2022. Until July 13, 2022, they get an additional 25% off all trading fees.
After July 13, 2022, Binance plans to give no additional benefits to BNB holders other than what their VIP levels allow them.
Having a great user interface won’t help you much if the exchange doesn’t carry the coins you want. So you may want to know what coins are available on Binance.
Binance excels in this department, offering 19 markets and over 150 coins. There are over 180 BTC currency pairs, more than 100 ETH pairs, 2 pairs with TRX as the counter currency, and 1 XRP currency pair (TRX/XRP).
Binance also offers markets for 15 different stable coins and fiat currencies, including USDT, USDC, EUR, GBP, and more.
And for more experienced traders, it offers tokens that behave like leveraged ETFs. For example, BTCUP allows you to make a leveraged bet on the price of Bitcoin going up, while BTCDOWN allows you to make a leveraged short trade against Bitcoin. Both of these are available in Binance’s “ETF” market.
Binance typically does over $9 billion in trading volume each day. So it has plenty of liquidity for users, another big advantage over many exchanges.
Coins are listed and delisted every day but suffice to say its a long list of coins including for example:
Binance is available to residents of over 100 countries, including the following:
Binance is not available in the US, Malaysia, Singapore, or the Ontario region of Canada. In addition, Binance will not accept international bank transfers from certain countries that it has not obtained fiat money transfer licenses in. The list of countries it does not accept fiat deposits from can be found here
U.S. users are by far the most likely readers of our site to find that they cannot access Binance. For these users, we recommend these exchanges instead.
Overall, Binance has great availability for users across the globe.
Users can deposit fiat to Binance through a variety of local and international payment channels. UK residents can use Faster Payments to deposit, residents of Eurozone countries Advcash or Etana, and Russian residents Payeer or Advcash.
From Ukraine, users can rely on GeoPay or SettlePay to transfer money to Binance, and Australian users can employ PayID/Osko or bank transfer for this task.
Users outside of these areas can deposit using international bank transfer (SWIFT) if no local option is available. Users can also rely on SWIFT for transfers if they don't want to use local options for whatever reason.
Binance has suspended deposits and withdrawals using SEPA and SOFORT, two of the most popular methods for European users. It has done this to satisfy regulators who claim that it did not go through the proper process to make these methods available. However, it is working to satisfy these concerns and bring these methods back as quickly as possible.
In quite a few countries, Binance users can purchase crypto directly using a debit or credit card. Here are the countries where this can be done:
| Austria | Belgium | Bulgaria |
| Croatia | Czech Republic | Denmark |
| Estonia | Finland | France |
| Germany | Greece | Hungary |
| Iceland | Ireland | Italy |
| Latvia | Liechtenstein | Lithuania |
| Luxembourg | Malta | Netherlands |
| Norway | Poland | Portugal |
| Cyprus | Romania | Russia |
| Slovakia | Slovenia | Spain |
| Sweden | United Kingdom | Ukraine |
If you already have cryptocurrency, you can deposit it directly into Binance, bypassing the need for bank transfers or third-party payment providers.
Any coin offered by Binance can also be deposited. However, not all coins offered on the exchange have a pair listed for them. So if you want to trade one small-cap coin for another, you may need to first trade your deposited coin for a major cryptocurrency, then trade this major coin for the small-cap one that you want.
There is no limit on how much cryptocurrency you can deposit.
When dealing with centralized crypto exchanges, withdrawals can be a real headache. So how does Binance stack up in terms of making withdrawals easy?
Binance offers a variety of methods for cash withdrawal. Depending on the country and currency, these include Faster Payments, Adv Cash, Etana, Osko/PayID, Mobile Money and domestic or international bank transfer.
To withdraw fiat, click wallet --> withdraw -->. Then click the Fiat tab. Select the payment method and follow the instructions to withdraw.
Fiat payment channels often charge fees for money transfers, and Binance passes these fees down to users when these channels are used. These fees range from a few dollars all the way up to 2.5% of the total amount. The complete list of fiat withdrawal fees can be found here
Users can also withdraw crypto from Binance to store on a personal device or to use in decentralized applications (Dapps). To withdraw crypto from the account, you need to navigate to the spot wallet from the drop-down menu.
Scroll down the list of coins until you find the one you want to withdraw. The coins that you have the greatest amount of should be listed first.
Once selected you will be presented with a withdrawal form with an address field in the upper-right. Here, you must paste the address of your crypto wallet. Then enter the amount of crypto you want to withdraw in the “amount” field below it.
Important: make sure the wallet you are using is for the coin you have selected. If you send crypto to the wrong wallet (for example, you send BTC to an ETH wallet), you will lose your crypto!
For users withdrawing Ethereum: Binance will ask if you want to use the BEP2 network or ERC20 network. This is a strange question that has confused many users. What Binance means by “ERC20” is the regular Ethereum network, while BEP2 is Binance’s own network. Unless you have a BEP compatible wallet, always choose ERC20 as the network you want to use. Users withdrawing other, non-Ethereum coins should not be confronted with this question.
Once you’ve entered the information, click the yellow submit button.
You have the option of setting up two factor authentication or you can immediately withdraw your crypto. However, setting up two factor authentication is recommended for anyone who keeps crypto in the account.
For both fiat and crypto withdrawals, Binance limits the amount withdrawn to a maximum of 100 BTC (approx. $5.6 million) worth of crypto per day. Users who wish to withdraw more than this will need to complete an advanced level of verification called Verified Plus. They will also need to contact customer service to explain why they need to withdraw more than the limit.
Crypto networks charge a transfer fee each time you withdraw crypto from an exchange. Binance passes this fee down to the user. This fee varies day-to-day and even minute-by-minute. But you can check the current fee here
If want to deposit fiat or crypto and make trades on Binance, you'll need to gain verified status.
Verification requires your full legal name, date of birth, and country of residence. You will also need to upload both an image of your photo ID and of your face. Binance’s computers will compare the image of your face with the image on your ID.
If you pass this test, you’ll move on to the final and most difficult phase of verification.
For the final phase, you’ll need to either have a webcam connected to your computer or else use the Binance app on your mobile device to finish this process.
Either way, you’ll be asked to stare into the camera and move your head from side-to-side until the software confirms that it has recorded adequate images.
When this process is finished, the only thing left to do is to wait for an email from Binance. Verification has to be approved manually, so it can take anywhere from a few minutes up to a week - depending on how backed up the staff is with its attempts to process these verifications.
If your verification is rejected the first time, don’t despair. It is common for this to happen. It is usually because your photo was blurry or you didn’t move your head just right in the final step. Keep trying.
Overall, getting verified at Binance is relatively painless.
Once you've gained verified status, you can choose to apply for Verified Plus status. Most users will never need to gain this status. But if you want to withdraw more than 100 BTC per day or if Binance asks you to gain this status, you'll need to become Verified Plus.
To become Verified Plus, you'll need to submit a proof of address such as a bank statement or utility bill.
If you are planning to keep a significant amount of crypto on Binance, one of the most important issues you’ll need to consider is the exchange’s security record.
It is generally not advised to keep significant amounts of crypto on an exchange for an extended period.
Binance publishes detailed information about its security practices in its blog.
In the blog, Binance claims that it uses “artificial intelligence” and “big data analytics solutions” to detect unusual activities on accounts. It also claims to maintain a Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) to reimburse users in case of losses from a crypto hack. 10% of all trading fees are put into this fund to protect users. Further, Binance suggests that it will soon create a bounty program to reward users who help “detect and fix potential vulnerabilities in the platform.”
Despite the Binance team’s efforts to ensure funds are secure, Binance has experienced one major hack in the past. This hack was reported on all of the major crypto news networks, and is still a source of concern for many in the crypto community today.
On May 7, 2019, Binance CEO Changpeng Zha reported that a security breach had been discovered on the platform that day. Hackers had managed to steal “a large number of user API keys, 2FA codes, and potentially other info.”
Using this info, the attackers had stolen 7,000 BTC (approximately $40 million worth at that time). All users affected were reimbursed using the exchange’s SAFU fund. No customers lost funds.
In the post, Zha explained that only 2% of crypto holdings at Binance are kept in a hot wallet. The rest are kept in cold storage, on a device with no Internet connection. This was one of the reasons why a greater loss did not occur.
3 days later, Zha promised to make “significant changes to the API, 2FA, and withdrawal validation areas” and to improve “risk management, user behavior analysis, and KYC procedures.”
Binance seems to be making an effort to correct the mistakes that led to the hack. But some crypto users are still concerned that similar incidents may happen in the future, although this could be said about any exchange, hence why its always recommended to withdraw and store your long term crypto in your own wallet. As mentioned above, withdrawal security is strong as long as you use the Two Factor Authentication.
We checked out the Binance user interface to see how it works, and we learned how to register and place trades on Binance. Here is how to use the web version of the interface.
Registering is a simple 3 step process not dissimilar to many site:
If you just want to go to the main menu, click the yellow words Go to Dashboard in the upper-right corner. You can also go straight to the crypto deposit screen by clicking Deposit Crypto from here.
Once you've become verified, depositing fiat currency to Binance is simple. First, click wallet --> fiat and spot --> deposit. Next, click the Fiat tab. Finally, select your currency and deposit method and enter the information required. That's all there is to depositing fiat to Binance.
Depositing crypto takes 6 simple steps
There are several ways to trade on Binance
The simplest way is to use the Converting & OTC Portal page. This allows you to swap one token for another without needing a complicated interface. This can also be used to make trades that don't show up on the order book.
To do a crypto-to-crypto conversion, just select Trade from the menu and then Convert from the dropdown. This opens an interface you can use to swap one coin for another
The classic interface on Binance is a little more complicated to use than the basic one. But it has more features. You can access it from the same Trade menu by selecting Classic
This will open a trading interface that includes a candlestick chart, Depth of Market (DOM), and other useful features for serious traders
Here's how to make a market trade using the Classic interface.
To place a market sell order, use the right side of the box with the red button instead of the left side. Other than this difference, placing a market sell order is done in exactly the same way as a buy order.
In addition to the classic interface, Binance also offers an interface which it calls advanced.
The primary benefit of the advanced interface is its cleaner, less cluttered look. The chart is larger, the order book is to the right of the chart, and the buy/sell widget is closer to eye level.
The advanced interface also lists your open orders at the bottom of the screen. In classic view, your open orders can only be seen by going to a separate page. So if you place many limit orders that tend to not get filled right away, the advanced interface might save you time.
In advanced view, the market and coin selector is in a drop-down menu to the upper-left of the chart.
Whether you like advanced view or classic view is really a matter of personal preference.
Both interfaces give you full access to technical indicators, trend lines, DOM, and other useful trading tools. But the advanced view has less descriptive menus, so it may be more difficult to use for beginners. On the other hand, classic view may feel like a more tedious interface to seasoned experts.
For the most part, we found the Binance user interface to be simple and highly intuitive. Registering and making a deposit was straightforward, as was placing an order using convert & OTC, classic, or advanced view.
If something on the site isn’t working, or if you can’t figure out how to use a particular feature, customer support can be obtained through the submit a request function.
We have searched across the Internet to find users who will vouch for how long customer support requests take. We were not able to find anyone who said they had made a request and received a reply.
We did find several people who said they had made a request and waited a long time without getting a response. One person said he had been waiting for 12 hours, another said 1 week, yet another said 3 weeks.
However, this does not mean that Binance always takes a long time to answer replies. As with all services, crypto exchange users are more likely to post messages on forums if they are unhappy than if they are satisfied.
There may be plenty of users who have gotten quick replies, but they simply haven’t posted messages telling others about these experiences.
However, in a LinkedIn blog post, Changpeng Zhao has admitted that Binance “has a backlog” of support requests. In the post, he states that Binance receives over 25,000 support requests each day, all of which must be processed by a team of 20 customer support specialists. This means that each representative must spend no more than 20 seconds per ticket, which is usually not possible.
Despite this problem, we have noticed that Binance representatives sometimes respond to posts in the Binance reddit group. If you submit a ticket and don’t get a response for a long time, you may want to try posting about your problem to this group.
Binance also offers a support center filled with articles that explain how to perform various actions on the exchange. So you may want to browse through these articles to see if they help answer your question, as this may be faster than using the support request system.
In our own testing, we found that depositing, trading, and withdrawing was simple and easy; so we never needed to contact customer service. But we only tested for a short time. Others may have encountered problems we never did.
Aside from the issue of answer speed, we have tried to find out if there are other problems people have been experiencing with Binance.
Some users say that they have been getting a “maximum deposit amount 0” error message when using a debit card to make deposits. But this seems to be a fairly rare problem.
Other users have complained that their bank accounts are becoming periodically delinked from the exchange. This is forcing them to delete the bank account from Binance and then relink it.
This problem seems to be widespread. But it appears to be only an annoyance. We haven’t found any users who have stated that they were unable to eventually get their accounts linked again.
Crypto exchanges are generally not known for having great service. They usually offer support only through email, not by phone. And it isn’t uncommon to have long wait times for ticket responses. So we think Binance has adequate customer support in the sense that it does what is expected of a crypto exchange. But we would like to either see more evidence of speedier ticket responses or phone or chat support being added.
Binance offers more than just spot crypto trades. It also offers futures contracts for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, XRP, EOS, Litecoin, Tron, and Ethereum Classic.
Positions on these contracts can be entered or exited using Tether (USDT) as the purchasing currency.
There are two types of futures on Binance: quarterly futures and perpetual futures. As could be expected from the use of these terms, quarterly futures must be settled at the end of each quarter, whereas perpetual futures have no fixed settlement date.
If you want to make leveraged trades to increase your rate of return while taking on greater risk, Binance will loan you capital to buy crypto. These trades are not limited to just major cryptos. Any coins listed at Binance can be traded on margin.
When you open a margin account, you must transfer funds to it to be used as collateral. These funds remain separate from your regular trading account. This way, if you lose all of the crypto in your margin account, your regular account will not be affected.
Binance also offers a Peer to peer (P2P) trading system similar to LocalBitcoins or LocalCryptos.
Users post ads offering to buy or sell crypto in exchange for fiat. Other users respond to the ads and work out details as to how payment will be made. An escrow service is used to hold crypto, ensuring that crypto sellers make delivery.
This service is especially popular with Chinese users, as many legal scholars in China believe it does not violate the ban on crypto exchanges.
While most of this review has focused on the web version of Binance, we know that users often need to use their crypto exchange on the go. So we’ve checked out the Binance mobile app.
This review will focus on the Android version of the app. But the functions of the iOS version should be similar.
The official Binance app is available from the Google Play and iOS App Stores. It is not available on the Binance website, so any copies found outside of Google Play or the App Store should be avoided as suspicious.
The app has much of the key functionality of the website, in particular:
We found the Binance Mobile app to be extremely intuitive and easy to use and a valuable tool if you get a sudden urge to trade
Binance has several strengths vs its competitors.
The first of these is the number of coins offered. If you’re looking for a small cap coin that is not offered by other major crypto exchanges, Binance may be your best bet to obtain it.
The second of these is the extremely low trading fees on the platform. High frequency crypto traders will find this especially valuable because it means they will lose a lot less profit from these fees.
The two big disadvantages to Binance are:
However, Binance is working on obtaining approval for SEPA and SOFORT payments. And it maintains a separate exchange, Binance US, for American users. So most users will find these disadvantages to be relatively minor.
Overall, we think Binance is an excellent choice for most crypto users.
BNB is the only cryptocurrency we have found that is only listed on Binance. While Binance carries many more coins than other major exchanges, it is still very conservative compared to most small exchanges that will accept small cap coins.
We are not aware of any minimum deposit amount on Binance. We were able to deposit as little as $15 worth of ETH with no problems. So the exchange appears to be a great option for holders of small accounts.
Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world. Platforms don’t generally get that big by being outright scams. And we had no problems withdrawing crypto in our testing. However, Binance is a centralized exchange. So there is always the possibility that a user could get his crypto stuck in a Binance account, at least temporarily.
Binance is available in the UK and in most countries. Depending on the particular country, users can deposit through international bank transfer or through a local payment channel. However, Binance is not available in the U.S. or the Ontario region of Canada.
Binance users can withdraw cash through variety of means, including domestic or international transfer, Mobile Money, Osko/PayID, Advcash, and more. Paypal withdrawals are not yet an option. But users can still transfer to Paypal indirectly, by withdrawing using another method and then transferring to Paypal.
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