Picking the best crypto exchange can be a complicated process.
First and foremost, you’ll want a secure exchange. As crypto has grown more popular and desirable, it’s become an increasingly large target for hackers, and many leading exchanges, including Binance’s international operation and KuCoin, have been hacked recently to the tune of tens of millions.
While exchanges often reimburse those whose coins are stolen through their insurance, you probably don’t want to be in that position to begin with. That’s why it’s important, to minimise your risk, you only invest your money on reputable exchanges.
You can further minimise your risk by spreading your crypto purchases across multiple exchanges or moving your crypto off of an exchange’s default wallet to your own secure “cold” wallet that is not connected to the internet (and therefore much harder to hack), though you’ll need to keep up with your passcode or you could lose access to your crypto forever. But you’ll also need to look out for withdrawal fees when you move crypto off of an exchange. These often vary by coin type.
Also consider the cryptocurrencies available on a given exchange. You might be perfectly OK using a crypto exchange with only one coin if it’s the only coin you want. Conversely, if you’re a crypto-phile, you may want access to all of the more than 600 available on Gate.io.
But sheer availability of coins isn’t sufficient if there are no trades happening. You’ll ideally want to see hundreds of millions of pounds of daily crypto trading happening to ensure you’ll have enough liquidity, so you can easily trade your coins and sterling when you want or need to.
If you’re an advanced crypto trader, you may want to make sure your preferred exchange offers the trading types—like limit orders, which can prevent slippage by setting a hard price—and margin you want. Remember trade types involving the latter are still evolving, so different exchanges’ offerings may vary over time.
If you’re just getting started with buying cryptocurrency, look for an easy-to-use platform with thorough educational resources to help you understand this complex, rapidly developing commodity.
And don’t forget about fees. You may be fine with paying a premium for a simple interface when you’re still learning the ropes, but higher fees eat into your eventual returns. High-frequency traders especially want to lower costs.
Finally, don’t assume that an exchange is available in the UK just because you can access its website.
And remember picking the best crypto exchange can be complicated, and the factors above are some of the key considerations.
