See what information you need to get started on the best crypto trading platforms on the market.
When it comes to crypto margin trading, it's imperative that traders make use of a trading platform that ticks several important boxes.
In this guide, we'll be showing you the top crypto margin trading exchanges and giving you all the information you need to get started on the platforms.
Top 9 Crypto Margin Trading Exchanges
Bybit: Best Overall
Phemex: Best Welcome Bonus
FTX: For Advanced Traders
Mayex: Easiest To Use
StormGain: Best Mobile Apps
Binance Futures: Best For Beginners
AscendEX: Top For Spot & Margin Trading
eToro: Best For Fiat Deposits
Poloniex: Best for User Experience
Let's look into these crypto margin exchanges in a little more detail.
There are quite a few things to think about:
Is the trading platform feature-rich enough to accommodate your trading needs?
Is the platform trusted, with high withdrawal limits and a history of stability?
Does the trading exchange support the specific trading pairs you are looking to trade?
Are your margin requirements fulfilled sufficiently?
What sort of trading volume is going on, and what are the maker/taker fees?
We're going to look at these factors, and a few more, to determine which of the crypto margin trading exchanges are the best.
A trading exchange is essentially like a trader's home: you're going to be spending a lot of time on it, so picking the right one from the get-go is very important.
- Bybit
Bybit is the Best Overall crypto margin trading exchange. You may notice that when you hop onto their website's landing page, you're met with a decentralized price feed powered by Chainlink.
This is indicative of Bybit's core values as a trading exchange: transparency. As per their home page, Bybit is the safest, fastest, most transparent and most user-friendly margin trading exchange.
People looking for a powerful margin trading platform are going to love Bybit, since Bybit comes equipped with 100x leverage for margin trading Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a lot of other cryptocurrency trading pairs.
The leverage allowed is very similar to BitMEX margin trading -- however, Bybit comes with a lot of additional features that crypto traders are going to love.
Bybit allows traders to make speedy & safe deposits/withdrawals, with their secure hot/cold storage system.
Bybit offers market, limit, and conditional orders, as well as inverse perpetual contracts, and a mark/index pricing system.
Bybit's intuitive user interface makes sure that traders from all walks of life and all experience levels can understand how the platform works -- it caters for both novices and people looking to get into advanced trading strategies.
For maximum safety, Bybit also offers a testnet platform with capabilities that mirror the main website.
You can create an exchange account on Bybit's testnet to play around with their powerful functionality -- that way, when you get your main account setup, you already know exactly what to do, and you can start trading like a pro right off the bat.
Bybit offers an insurance fund for risk management, very similar to BitMEX, ensuring that people's positions are always safe.
There's 24/7 customer support, and Bybit even has an affiliate rewards system, so traders can generate passive income without even needing to be trading crypto.
So -- if you're looking for a place with high Liquidity , competitive fees, amazing leverage trading capabilities, great customer support, and more, Bybit really is one of the best cryptocurrency exchanges out there.
- Phemex
Phemex is a phenomenal crypto trading exchange, and it has the Best Welcome Bonuses around.
It's fairly new -- Phemex launched in Singapore in 2019, but has quickly risen the ranks to become one of the best and trusted crypto exchanges out there.
Phemex has earned its name as both a powerful spot and margin exchange, offering leverage from 5x leverage all the way up to 100x leverage.
It even has a native mobile app, so you can trade on the go, which other 'bigger' exchanges like BitMEX don't have.
Phemex is a blazingly fast and responsive place to trade. Alongside their high leverage, their trading engine has a <1ms order response time, over 300,000 orders executed per second, $1b+ in average trading volume daily, and over 30 liquidity providers integrated directly into their order book.
All of this, combined with their low fees, makes Phemex one of the best trading platforms on the crypto market right now.
What really makes Phemex stand out as an exchange is its deposit bonus system.
Simply for creating an account and making a deposit, Phemex gives traders a deposit bonus so that they can start trading with a bigger amount immediately.
Their deposit bonuses vary from time to time, but there are always some amazing deals going on if you take a look at their bonus page by clicking here.
Bonuses vary -- you can get crypto bonuses for signing up & making a deposit, linking a social media account, creating a spot trade, creating one of their famous leveraged positions, and a lot more.
The crypto bonuses are always juicy and exciting, and new ones come out every month, so be sure to bookmark that page so you can always remain in the know.
- FTX
FTX, created by Sam Bankman-Fried of Alameda Research, takes the cake as the best crypto margin trading exchange For Advanced Traders.
Backed by both Binance and Alameda Research, FTX takes trading to the next level, since it's built 'for traders by traders'.
As an introduction to why FTX has quickly become so great, we can look at SBF's general leadership style, which is extremely hands-on. SBF is easily contactable on Twitter for exchange issues, and he is famed for quickly adding features to FTX every time a trader requests something or finds something lacking.
Along with the usual margin trading interface, FTX has added some pretty neat exchange products that no other place offers right now.
Firstly, FTX has multiple futures contracts -- not just for the big boys like BTC and ETH, but also for smaller coins like EOS and LINK.
FTX also offers leveraged tokens of multiple varieties -- you can buy inverse leveraged tokens, which are essentially positions leveraged against the coin.
For example, you can buy an ETH 'hedge' token which goes down 1% every time ETH goes up 1%. You can also buy 'half' tokens (that go up 0.5% every time ETH goes up 1%).
If you want to create a pure leveraged position, you can buy the long coin ETHBULL or the short coin ETHBEAR. It's a pretty ingenious way to create long & short positions.
FTX is also known to offer some really cool prediction markets, where you can bet on the outcomes of real-world events right from your crypto trading account.
In the past, FTX has had a market for presidential elections, the outcome of sporting events, etc., and they are all represented as native tokens right on the exchange, so you don't need to connect to some complicated on-chain oracle system.
FTX offers some of the lowest fees around, but it gets better with their native FTT token, which is an answer to Binance's BNB token. By staking FTT, traders get to pay less in trading fees, and enjoy several other benefits.
FTX already pays for users' Bitcoin withdrawal fee, but by staking FTT, FTX will pay for traders' ETH and ERC-20 withdrawal fee as well, which is extremely uncommon amongst exchanges.
Judging by the way FTX handles customer support, their unique margin trading offerings, and their enticing fee structures, it's clear that FTX is set to become one of the biggest exchanges out there, and is one advanced traders should definitely create an account on, if not just for the free Bitcoin withdrawals.
- Mayex
Mayex is the leading cryptocurrency derivatives exchange and is by far the easiest exchange to use.
This is due to a number of factors, including low fees, a user-friendly interface, excellent margin trading exchange, and more.
Mayex was founded in London by Rony Blus and John Davis, formerly of Coinan's architect division. The core transaction engine team consists of seven technicians from CoinA, each user is assigned a separate wallet address, and private keys are stored in an offline environment with high security in multi-level encryption.
Privacy is key in the crypto market, and sometimes cryptocurrency traders with leveraged positions do not want to reveal their information to institutions.
Mayex takes this into account and currently anyone can easily register with their exchange - you simply create an account and make a deposit, and you can start trading on margin. You do not need to give up your KYC details.
Mayex supports bitcoin deposits and bitcoin withdrawals, and within the cryptocurrency exchange itself, you can trade a variety of leveraged pairs.
Mayex has the cheapest commissions on the market today, with 0 commission on spot trades and as low as 0.01% on contract trades, and the high leverage of 125x really makes Mayex one of the most versatile crypto margin trading platforms. In addition, the price data is updated very quickly - which is very helpful.
For leveraged trading, Mayex has a very simple, easy-to-understand user interface that really delivers on its functionality.Leveraged trading on Mayex is made easy because all features are highlighted in full color with clear labels, making it intuitive for even beginners to know how to use.
Anyone (from the list of allowed countries) can register and start their crypto trading journey without the restrictions of Mayex. This is what makes it one of the best crypto margin exchanges.
- StormGain
There's a lot to love about StormGain -- it's an all-in-one crypto margin trading app, and it has one of the Best Mobile Apps in the industry. A glance at StormGain's website will give you an insight into why it's now considered one of the best crypto margin trading exchanges out there.
Everyone loves a low fee, that's for sure. StormGain takes this to the next level by charging 0 fees on cryptocurrency trades. You heard that right -- opening orders costs 0 fee!
StormGain has extremely high liquidity, and you can open a leveraged futures position with up to 300x leverage. This is one of the highest leveraged position allowances in the cryptocurrency industry by far.
There are several available margin trading instruments, ranging from Bitcoin futures all the way to smaller currencies like XEM and Dash.
StormGain has beautiful multi-platform integrations, and an amazing mobile app with which you can access StormGain's trading engine and futures exchange no matter where you are. The app has a gorgeous design, is flexible & responsive, and contains most of the features available on the website or desktop ad, so you don't need to compromise your trading just because you're on a separate device.
StormGain already lets you save a lot of money as it is, but it gets better. There are tons of additional ways to earn money on StormGain other than trading, including their loyalty program, their in-house Bitcoin (BTC) mining app, and even their deposit interest which pays up to 12% p.a. simply for holding funds on the website. It's a trader's dream come true.
- Binance Futures
When it comes to crypto margin trading, everyone knows Binance as the king. Binance is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges on the market right now, and often takes the #1 weekly volume spot. Binance Futures is also the Best crypto margin trading exchange for Beginners.
Their crypto margin trading offerings are thus highly liquid, along with their spot trading exchange which has extremely low taker fees, especially if you use their native BNB token to pay trading fees.
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Bitcoin margin trading on Binance is especially good thanks to their highly stocked order book. Alongside Bitcoin margin trading, any high-volume trading pair on Binance will have extremely good liquidity, since a lot of whales use the exchange for trading as of now.
On Binance Futures, for risk management, you can use a variety of margin types like isolated and cross to protect your position in different ways, whether it's 5x leverage or 10x. Their futures exchange is versatile and has low fees, and you can trade a variety of coins (not just the big names like Bitcoin BTC). It's great that you can trade when the price of cryptos goes up or down with Binance Futures.
Before getting started with Binance Futures, there's a short quiz you take to ensure you won't trade with more than you can afford to lose. Since you will be margin trading with borrowed funds, they ensure you won't spend above your means.
Binance is known to be one of the best crypto margin trading platforms also thanks to their enticing fee structure.
By paying with BNB, you can save 25% on fees, and as you progress up Binance's VIP ranks, you can get far more attractive crypto margin trading fees. In fact, if you progress high enough, instead of paying fees on trades, Binance will start paying you simply for crypto margin trading.
Binance boasts 24/7 customer support, several USD trading pairs, and some of the best Bitcoin (BTC) & altcoin liquidity out there. For anyone trading crypto, Binance Futures is an amazing place to make your first margin trade, and they will go the long haul to keep you happy if you're a volume trader.
For those with no experience in the crypto world, Binance is an amazing starting off point to make your first margin trade.
Futures aside, Binance is currently one of the most popular exchanges for beginners to sign up on and make their first crypto trade, simply due to their ease of use, beautiful UI, a great support team, and large trading pair offerings.
Margin trading on Binance uses a similarly beautiful and intuitive user interface, borrowed from the spot interface beginners know and love. As such, if you're already familiar with using Binance as a normal trader, then getting into margin trading will come naturally to you.
The way thoughtful UX design can improve one's experience as a trader is really highlighted when you begin leveraged trading on Binance, and it's tangible from your first margin trade. For beginners, Binance Futures is a highly recommended exchange to get started with margin trading.
- AscendEX
AscendEX, with its massive offering of over 190 spot pairs and over 190 margin pairs, takes the prize of Top Spot & Margin Exchange.
There's a reason why AscendEX is so great for crypto margin trading in general -- it's created by professionals. AscendEX is led by 'a team of Wall Street veterans' who have 'applied traditional market rigor' to create a robust, secure, and reliable experience for their users who are looking to margin trade.
Visit AscendEX.com and get a FREE welcome offer now
Although AscendEX has a relatively high taker fee of 0.20%, this is outshone by their core functionality as a great crypto exchange with a reliable engine for crypto margin trading.
AscendEX integrates charting tools and order book views right into the margin trading window, so you can get all the tools you would need as a professional trader to perform relevant technical analysis right on the site itself, instead of having to jump between TradingView or similar charting sites.
As a margin leverage trading platform, AscendEX is excellent -- their funding fees can be extremely low (as low as 3.65% per year!), which really adds up in the long run for margin traders looking to build long-term leveraged positions.
AscendEX has also partnered up with a licensed payment processing company in order to provide credit card & debit card Payments directly on their website.
Users can easily deposit money and purchase cryptocurrency using their legacy finance payment methods (USD, GBP, EUR, SGD, etc.), and can get margin leverage exchanging right away.
- eToro
eToro is a popular derivatives exchange that is fully licensed and has been around for a long time (since 2007!), which is pretty rare in the cryptocurrency industry. For example, it was founded 4 years before Kraken, and Kraken is one of the oldest known Bitcoin exchanges.
eToro, along with crypto margin trading, has a variety of USD derivative offerings, including forex, CFDs, stock leverage trading, and more. Since they are fully regulated, they are considered to be a very safe exchange, and also fully support fiat deposits from multiple sources.
Create your FREE account on eToro.com here
The price you pay to use a premium platform like eToro is slightly higher trading fees, but this is quickly made up for by their awesome features that you can't really find anywhere else.
eToro offers a unique feature called CopyTrader. Most crypto exchanges don't have something like this, which makes eToro's offering pretty great.
Essentially, you are able to select from a myriad of profitable trader profiles, and you can connect your profile to theirs. Now, every time they trade, your profile will automatically copy that same trade and price as well.
The average CopyTrader profit in 2020 was 83.7%, which is insane and outperforms a traditional stock index by over 10x.
You can choose the best traders to copy and the position they take will automatically be executed in your profile even while you're sleeping. It's pretty neat for people who don't necessarily want to put the work into analyzing every market position themselves, or who simply want to be led by a professional.
eToro supports several funding methods for fiat that other exchanges may not, thanks to its robust regulatory framework. The usual credit/debit cards are supported for USD, GBP, EUR and AUD. You can fund up to $40,000 per transaction.
Amazingly, you can even fund using PayPal (with the same currencies, including USD). Other fiat funding methods include Neteller, Skrill, bank transfer, iDEAL, and more.
You can't deposit Bitcoin on eToro though - if you are looking for an exchange with BTC (Bitcoin) deposits, we recommend Bybit.
- Poloniex
Poloniex is one of the oldest and most established margin trading joins in the cryptocurrency industry. With their recent UI revamp and support uphaul, Poloniex offers the Best User Experience when it comes to margin trading exchanges.
Poloniex has a beautiful and modern user interface after their renewal last year. It's easy to navigate, and it's excellent for beginners who are just getting started with their margin journey.
Go to Poloniex.com and register for your FREE account today
Poloniex has excellent support staff that reply promptly to queries. In fact, there's even a live chatroom for all Poloniex users to enjoy while they trade (dubbed the 'Trollbox') with Poloniex moderators to help with any issues.
Creating a position on Poloniex is fairly intuitive thanks to the careful UX design. Poloniex offers futures, margin leverage, and even a lending section where you can store coins and earn interest on them.
The interest is paid out by traders who borrow your coins for margin trading, and they are assured by Poloniex's liquidation engine.
Poloniex's overall experience caters to people who specifically want to use margin leverage -- you can see this by the emphasis on their margin platform, with the various lending and futures offerings.
Combined with the Trollbox experience, fast support, accurate market price, and clean UI, Poloniex is a pleasure to trade on, and everyone looking to make successful crypto margin trades should definitely sign up.
What Is Crypto Margin Trading?
Crypto margin trading allows you to borrow money and enhance your positions in the market. It's a way for good traders to make even more profits from their trades than they normally would, by adding leverage to their position.
Leverage on a crypto exchange or margin trading platform is a great tool to have, since it can extend the possibilities and expand your horizons as a trader.
Leverage
Leverage can not only help your long positions (betting that the coin you choose will go up), but also your short positions. With margin & leverage, you can borrow a coin, sell it on the market, buy it back cheaper, and repay the loan.
You get to pocket the difference as profit. Shorting isn't possible on spot exchanges, since you need the coin to begin with.
Margin & leverage adds a new dimension to exchanging, since you can make huge amounts of money not only in bull markets but also in bear markets.
How To Margin Trade Crypto
You can set the amount of margin/leverage you want to use in your position. It can be something low, like 2x leverage on a BTC trade (which will double your profits vs. spot, giving you $2 for every $1 BTC goes up), or something insane like 100x, where a 1% move in BTC doubles your entire position. It's all up to you as a trader -- you get to determine your own risk appetite.
Conclusion: The Best Cryptocurrency Leverage Exchanges
We've studied a large number of factors to come to the aforementioned decisions. The crypto exchange market is huge, and there are tens of worthy contenders, but after a close consideration of all of the factors, the exchanges mentioned above are truly the best to margin trade on -- period.
Start Using a Margin Trading Exchange Today
Even within the chosen 9, there is a lot of variety, and which one you'd like to choose depends entirely on what you are looking for as a margin trader.
There are others we like, such as the Kraken margin trading product. Do you want something specifically for beginners? Something with an excellent UI? An exchange with extremely high leverage?
Or just the all-rounded best exchange? Scroll up to the top of the page, have a glance at the list, and make your decision based on the factors that are most important to you.
It's all an individual choice, in the end. Good luck in the crypto trading world!
