What exchange is safer? Bittrex? Poloniex? Kraken? Each of them got some history by this point both in terms of trading volumes, hacks and security issues. However, there is, definitely, one that is safer could be considered safer than another. In this post, we’ll be dwelling on distinct comparative features of the two giants playing pretty much in the same calibre - Bittrex and Poloniex. Let us get it straight from the start: both crypto exchanges were designed to be professional trading platforms. This means that they both offer services and features that might be difficult for beginners to use.
You have to look at the numbers to work out the size of a crypto exchange. One of the most important numbers for a crypto exchange is their 24-hour trading volume.
Note: The 24-hour trading volume of an exchange is how much cryptocurrency is bought and sold on the platform in one day. The number is usually calculated in US Dollars.
Let’s look at the trading volumes for Bittrex vs Poloniex on July 25th, 2018:
- Bittrex – 251,918,985 USD
- Poloniex – 185,361,196 USD
That’s a lot of trading! As you can see, more trading has been done on Bittrex. Users of Bittrex traded about 30% more cryptocurrency than users of Poloniex. How do Bittrex and Poloniex compare to the other exchanges on the market though?
CoinMarketCap provides information on over 200 crypto exchanges. The total 24-hour trading volume of all these exchanges on 05/08/18 was 23,394,415,076 USD. This means that both exchanges only make up about 2% of the market each. Although this makes the exchanges sound small they are both quite high on CoinMarketCap’s list. Bittrex is rated as the 12th largest exchange and Poloniex is only just behind in 15th place.
Bittrex and Poloniex traders make hundreds of thousands of trades every day. Poloniex isn’t quite as big as Bittrex today, but you’ll have to check again tomorrow to see if this is still true. The numbers can change fast in the world of crypto!
In 2014, Poloniex was hacked. Hackers stole 12.5% of the Bitcoins held on the exchange. The Poloniex team were fast to react. They stopped the attack and refunded users who lost money. Since this happened, Poloniex has worked very hard on improving user safety.Like Bittrex, Poloniex keeps most of its funds in cold storage and encourages users to set up two-factor authentication.
Again, is Poloniex safe? Yes, it is.
Verification on Poloniex
The account creation on Poloniex is rather simple and can be done in under 5 minutes. The user provides necessary information and needs to click on the confirmation email in order to complete the creation of an account.
The verification process is similar to the verification on other exchanges, and it has two levels. The first verification level requires email verification, first and last name as well as country of residence. When completed, the daily withdrawal is set to 2,000 US dollars, and margin trading is enabled. The second verification level requires personal information, address, phone number and a scan of a photo ID (passport, national ID, driver’s license) and a picture of the user holding Photo ID. It can take a few days for the staff to review the submission and to verify the account. In the case of any problems, a user will be notified to contact support regarding the verification.
When completed, this level of verification allows a daily withdrawal limit of 25,000 US dollars. There’s also a third level of verification which can provide limits higher of 25,000 US dollars. Additional details about the requirements aren’t publicly available, so users or companies need to contact support.
When you compare the security of Bittrex vs Poloniex, you can see that they are both safe platforms that offer similar security features. However, it is very important to remember that crypto exchanges aren’t banks.
Bittrex and Poloniex have both been criticised for being slow to help users who are having problems. Neither exchange gets very good reviews for customer service! This means that all traders should make sure they are doing everything they can to protect their own accounts. Both platforms offer similar security features. However, the Bittrex team are all security professionals and the platform hasn’t been hacked. For these reasons, Bittrex is the more secure exchange.