Bittrex

  • iReviews
  • August 28,2017
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Bittrex

If you’ve been following our blockchain and cryptocurrency series, you know there are several platforms where you can trade your cryptocurrency.

 

Bittrex is one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, offering many cryptocurrencies to trade. The company, founded in 2014, operates from Nevada.

Ease of Use

Bittrex offers multiple trading market categories. They support over 250 coins, which can all trade against Bitcoin. There is also a market for trading against Ethereum. Bittrex supports fiat currencies also: USD-Tether and BitCNY. Some markets are verified, while some don’t have enough volume. But at least there are many options to trade your currency.

 

Bittrex’s website is not as detailed as the other exchanges we’ve looked at. They have a one-page website with not many outbound links and the obvious goal being to sign up new users. There are small inconsistencies throughout the website, and the overall design is lacking a theme and effort. Visiting the website is the first step taken by any new user, but it seems Bittrex is not too concerned with first impressions.

 

On the platform itself, because there are 250+ currencies to trade, Bittrex creates a sort of chaos. With so many currencies, it can get overwhelming and confusing. Although the platform is easy to use, there is no mobile app, unlike Bitfinex, Kraken, and Coinbase.

 

There are no portfolio performance analysis tools, but their withdrawing and depositing seem to work quickly. Some users complained about the time to verify identity, so you may not be able to withdraw or deposit for a while signing up for Bittrex.

Quality

Speaking of account verification, there are two accounts on Bittrex: basic and enhanced. Basic users can withdraw up to 3 BTC worth of digital currency equivalent per day with two-factor authentication (2FA). Enhanced accounts can withdraw up to 100 BTC per day with 2FA enabled. Basic account verification requires name, address, and birth date, which Bittrex verifies through public records.

 

If your public records do not match, you must enter a mobile phone number and receive a text. If that fails, you need to acquire enhanced verification. Enhanced account verification requires scans of your ID and selfies. Bittrex uses a verification provider, Jumio, which utilizes a number of heuristics to verify that the ID is legitimate and the faces match.

 

Like Kraken, Bittrex is one of a handful of exchanges allowing traders to pair almost an unlimited number of cryptocurrency pairs. In just the Bitcoin market at Bittrex, 250 pairs trade on the exchange. However, unlike Kraken, Bittrex does not offer margin trading as of now. The company is working on a new trade engine that will allow traders to profit from margin trading, but it’s not ready yet.

Cost and Fees

All trades going through the exchange pay a 0.25% portion of their profits from the trade. Bittrex calculates this by multiplying the amount by purchase price by .0025. Any portion of an order not executed will be refunded fully when the trader cancels the order.

 

The fees are on the higher side, especially compared to the other exchanges we’ve looked at in the past. Overall, this means lower liquidity, making trading costly.

Trading Limits

As of this writing, Bittrex had the third-highest trading volume for exchanges with fees, so there is lots of potential for traders to make a nice profit from their executions.

 

There are no fees for deposits, though your account verification level will limit the amounts. Each coin has its own withdrawal fee, however.
While some exchanges offer many different order types for more seasoned traders, Bittrex only offers limit and marker order types.

Security

As with most other exchanges, Bittrex spends a lot of money on ensuring security is tight. 2FA is easy for users to find and activate.

 

Like Kraken, Bittrex has never been hacked, which is a rarity these days. And the exchange thoroughly vets new altcoins’ source code before adding it to their platform. In the past, a few cryptocurrencies tried to get on the exchange to pump-and-dump. While some of those scam-coins still get through the verification process, Bittrex is dedicating time and effort to improve the overall quality of their listings.

Customer Support

Many exchanges have terrible customer service. And worse, some have sparse, vague information in their Knowledge Bases. Bittrex’s Knowledge Base is at a good level of detail, though they can improve by adding even more information. If you’re not logged in, you may not get to chat with support, but you can definitely leave an email.

 

Most of its users are generally happy with the platform. Though their platform can lag (causing the exchange to temporarily freeze your wallet) and their fees are relatively high, the almost-200 choices of cryptocurrencies to trade make this platform one you should check out anyway.

 

Sources: The Merkle

PROS
  • Many Market Categories
  • Never Been Hacked
  • High Volume
  • Offers 250+ Cryptocurrencies to Trade
CONS
  • High Fees, Comparatively
  • No Mobile Apps
  • Website and Knowledge Base Could Use More Work
  • No Margin Trading (Yet)