FAQ - What's your favorite exchanges and why?

[Malloy]

Someone posted a topic on this...I took the time to answer so I will share it here...you'll probably have a lot to add to this

I'll go down the top 10 with most volume...exclude KRW cause it's just almost impossible to open an account there if you're not Korean.

This is not a perfect take on them...feel free to comment/add anything you think I missed/misread.

Poloniex
Pros: great volume, nice swings, good selection beside XRP, not asking too many questions for basic account
Cons: trades only BTC and USDT pairs, slow transfer,  poor withdrawal choices, very little trading tools, not sure they'll be around next year if the SEC look closely at their past practice and that infamous rip TrollBox
Variable: located in the US and not very transparent, so, politics or regulation could change its status sooner than later

Bittrex
Pros: good volume, very good selection beside XRP, not asking too many questions for basic account
Cons: bad interface (all web site in general), no trading tools, poor withdrawal choices, USDT pairs
Variable: located in the US and not very transparent, so, politics or regulation could change its status sooner than later

HitBTC
Pros: growing fast, good selection beside XRP, fast transfer
Cons: graphic design needs to be revamp, little trading tools, unknown reputation
Variable: located in Hong Kong with restrictions for many countries or states

Bitstamp
Pros: very nice interface, good trading tools, ok volume, EUR pairs
Cons: hard on CPU/GPUs when there's big volume,  very tough on KYC, very little pairs to trade
Variable: located in UK but licensed in Luxembourg and using a Slovenian bank...imagine withdrawing to your bank...they will ask questions about money laundering

Kraken
Pros: fast customer service and new account approval, great trading tools, ok volume, EUR pairs, multiple choices and fast withdrawals
Cons: both old and new interface are very buggy especially with high volume...almost impossible to put an order the first try, often locked out by cloudflare, color themes and fonts to be changed..hard for the eyes
Variable: located in the US but seems to be very transparent about following the rules

Bitfinex
Pros: many options beside regular trading, great volume (no1 BTC), fast execution, easy and fast to setup a basic account
Cons: they show USD pairs but banks block their wire out...only manual withdraw of big amount supported,  no other "real" fiat, little pairs
Variable: located in Hong Kong with restrictions for many countries or states, have been hacked before but handled it with professionalism (it seems)

Ripple Network - Desktop Wallet
Pros: you're the only "master" or your account, huge numbers of pairs with XRPs growing every day
Cons: lower volume than the big exchanges, small bugs like "max fees" when there's a lot of volume when adding or cancelling a transaction...need to retry many times to make it work
Variable: community build so not sure if we'll see some update any time soon

GateHub
Pros: run by known members with very good reputation, access to "your" Ripple account, good support when you go through XRPchat, builiding a nice list of XRP pairs with "Fifth" partners
Cons: confusion between the GateHub wallet (to transfer fiat, etc.) and "your" Ripple wallet accessible throught GateHub interface, trading interface buggy on some browsers, very little trading tools, slow support when you go through their website
Variable: like Bitstamp (GH team used to work there btw) they use a Slovenian Bank for wire transfer which can cause your bank to ask a lot of questions

 

Edited January 24, 2018 by Malloy

[Malloy]

Added GateHub

[Malloy]

NOTE. I'll had some more asap. So many new ones that I think are worth mentioning.