Best Crypto Exchanges in the USA

Kraken is a close second, it has much lower fees than Coinbase and supports more Cryptocurrencies. It’s one of our top exchanges because it’s located in the US and has a great balance of everything: from great customer support to it’s superior trading platform. The key to Kraken’s longevity is its impressive top-notch security system, owing to its founder’s background in cybersecurity. To secure your account, you can activate the customary two-factor authentication code to access your account, use a special Kraken “Master Key” for restricted account actions, and a Global Settings Lock as the last line of defense from unknown-party changes.

Thanks to the effort of its dedicated team of experts, Kraken has never been successfully attacked by hackers. The clutter-free dashboard filled with colorful illustrations and a soothing color palette hints at the impeccable user experience. When you visit the website, Kraken inquires on your level of expertise and based on that, you’re redirected to an informative page optimized according to your level.

The exchange is a favorite among experienced traders and institutional investors interested in margin trading (5x leverage), OTC trading, futures, and automated trading. Despite some negative reviews in the past, recent improvements in managing customer queries have brought a shower of praises for Kraken for its support team’s responsiveness.

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Coinbase is one of our favorite crypto exchanges for people in the USA and one that caters to the needs of newbies and professional traders alike. It has higher fees but it’s the most used and most trusted exchange in the US. Starting out as a wallet service in 2012, before evolving into a fully-fledged crypto exchange, Coinbase has served more than 30 million customers worldwide.What makes this exchange so reliable is that in order for Coinbase to add support for a new cryptocurrency, that coin needs to be approved by the platform’s Digital Asset Framework first. The evaluation is based on metrics like market capitalization, velocity, customer demand, etc.

Moreover, Coinbase is a high-liquidity brokerage which means that users buy the supported assets directly from the platform itself, and not from other users. Once you pass their KYC verification check, you can choose one of the following fiat deposits: debit card for small investments, wire transfer for large investments, or bank account for both.

Coinbase excels in protecting customers’ money first by implementing an insurance policy for funds stored online (2%), and by using cold storage for the remaining 98% of the money. The platform has an easily navigable and beginner-friendly interface. Don’t hesitate to join one of the best exchanges in the USA and get ready for a spotless trading experience.

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CEX.io was founded in London in 2013, popular in the USA because it’s a licensed exchange with high liquidity that’s currently available across 31 US States. The platform allows you to deposit both fiat and cryptocurrencies which is something that not many exchanges offer.CEX.io offers cross-platform trading and margin trading with up to 10x leverage, but we don’t suggest these trading options to beginners as they require extensive knowledge of the market. The main disadvantage is that CEX.io charges high fees for the services. CEX.io’s brokerage service locks the best price available on the market but these orders incur up to 7% in fees. If this seems like a lot, you can trade assets on its trading platform at volume-based fees.

Recently, CEX.io has begun promoting staking, i.e. holding on to your coins and keeping them on the platform. This way, your coins do the work for you and increase in amount with monthly rewards by the platform. This still seems risky and untested, so definitely read some reviews if you’re interested. The platform is secure, and also comes with a completely functional mobile app to manage your orders and trade on the go.

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Binance has quickly become one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, and for good reason! The company changed its headquarters from China to Japan, before finally settling down on the island of Malta. Malta is known as the first country to offer any formal framework for crypto regulation, called the Virtual Financial Assets (VFA) Act.

Binance used to be available to US citizens until September 2019 when succumbing to the pressure made by US financial regulators, it was forced to open a separate American trading platform under the name Binance.us. The exchange has its own native token, the Binance token (BNB), which comes in handy when you’re paying for transaction fees as Binance gives you the option to spend your BNBs and cut the fees in half.

The best feature that Binance has up its sleeve is its Secure Asset Fund for Users, or SAFU for short, which basically functions as a money vault to which Binance appropriates 10% of its trading fees and saves them for future incidents. When the platform was hacked in May 2019, they were able to reimburse the damage done to their customers from the money stored in the SAFU. Clever, right?

They also offer advanced crypto trading features like futures, and you can even short crypto. Check out our guide on how to short BTC if you’re interested.

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Gemini is a NY-based crypto exchange that became famous through its founders, Cameron and Tyler, known as the Winklevoss twins (hence ‘Gemini’). These were the guys who in 2008 accused Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea for Facebook. The matter was taken to court and the brothers went home with a $65 million legal settlement. Just enough for them to invest in the crypto market and launch their own crypto exchange Gemini in 2015.

Operating as an American exchange, all US dollar accounts are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Gemini is a licensed and regulated exchange, that adheres to the DFS rules and regulations, which adds to its status as one of the top crypto exchanges in the USA. You can buy only the most prominent cryptocurrencies and deposit fiat via bank (ACH) transfers or wire transfers.

However, it has received some negative criticism for frequently going offline during busy times. This isn’t done intentionally as a marketing strategy to prevent users from benefiting from high liquidity. On the contrary, these outages are most likely the result of overloaded servers and Gemini has dealt with them promptly and effectively. Their team shows great commitment to security.

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Bitstamp is another crypto exchange veteran that goes back to 2011. Originally from Slovenia, the platform was relocated to Luxembourg in 2016 and has remained there ever since. It used to be primarily focused on the European market, being the first nationally licensed crypto exchange, but now offers its services globally.

Bitstamp has a US subsidiary that was granted a virtual currency license from the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) in 2019. This makes it even more attractive to US customers who see the exchange as both reliable and convenient, as they’re allowed to buy and trade cryptocurrencies with USD.

If you just want to trade cryptocurrencies, you’ll only be asked to provide your full name, email address, and country of residence. However, if you want to link your account to a bank account or a credit/debit card, then you’ll need to verify your identity with a government-issued ID.

Bitstamp hasn’t been immune to hacker attacks, and in 2015 these hackers managed to get away with more than 19,000 BTC that were taken from the users’ accounts. The company proved its team can handle such a blow and together they have improved the platform’s security methods to avoid such security breaches in the future.

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Another European exchange on our list, this time with headquarters in Prague, Czech Republic. Changelly is one of the less common (but secure and highly reliable!) decentralized crypto exchanges in the industry.

One of the great things about it is that it doesn’t have any geographic restrictions and supports a great variety of cryptocurrencies, from the most prominent ones, all the way to the lesser-known tokens. Although traders can use any fiat currency to their liking, the platform will automatically convert them into USD or EUR.

To start trading, just sign up with your email address without providing any extra information about yourself. Changelly has partnered with other leading crypto platforms in search of the optimal coin market price that comes with an extra-low service fee.

The commission and processing fees for credit or debit card purchases are on the higher end of the scale so try to avoid them as much as possible. Another slight drawback is that Changelly sets limits for the first few crypto purchases, but these get lifted off in less than a month.

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Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Bittrex is a well known American crypto exchange. It was founded by a team of security engineers that used to work for big corporate names like Amazon, Microsoft, and Blackberry, before getting involved in the crypto industry with their own exchange.

Although Bittrex is suitable for beginners, experienced traders can leverage its features to the fullest, especially if they’re interested in stop-loss, GTC, and instant buy or sell orders. The platform is also praised by customers for the great variety of charting tools and the large offer of crypto tokens (including stablecoins and DeFi tokens).

Bittrex used to be a crypto to crypto exchange only, but as of June 2019, the exchange allows fiat deposits for both personal and corporate accounts that have completed a KYC check. The platform accepts regular bank transfers, SEPA, wire transfers, or debit cards (but not credit!). Traders are encouraged to use Bittrex’s digital wallet for any currency in their possession. Plus, the platform has some of the best trading fees in the industry.

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Coinmama is a bit different from other crypto exchanges because it only gives you the option to buy cryptocurrencies and not sell or trade them on the platform. This makes Coinmama a buy-only outlet or a broker. It’s based in Israel and has managed to win the global market, including the USA, by pioneering the option to pay with credit and debit cards when purchasing cryptocurrencies.

Users buy coins directly from Coinmama and the platform immediately sends them to the users’ digital wallets. However, you should know that Coinmama doesn’t provide one itself, so we recommend browsing online for a wallet that suits your needs.

Coinamama has three levels of account verification tied with a purchasing limit. If your plan is to trade lower sums then you can use any kind of ID to sign up for an account and this gives you the right to a daily limit of $5,000.

This is great for people who are careful about cybersecurity and giving away their personal information. Coinmama has its shortcomings too, such as the brokerage fees which sometimes amount to 6%. This becomes way too expensive once you add the 5% fee for a credit or debit card purchase.

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LocalBitcoins is the second decentralized crypto exchange on our list of best crypto exchanges in the USA. It functions on the basis of connecting buyers and sellers, as an escrow, and allowing them to complete peer to peer transactions among themselves. The platform uses the user’s location to pair him with another user nearby, i.e. it matches them with a local trader, hence the name LocalBitcoins.

A user can be trusted based on his/her reputation rank and public history records where you can check the activity and past transactions linked to that account. Faced with regulatory pressure, the platform has added a mandatory KYC check for users who’ve made more than 1,000 EUR in annual trading volume.

The convenience of the exchange lies in the flexibility of the traders as they accept all kinds of payment methods. If you can’t find an exchange where you can purchase bitcoins with the payment method of your choice, LocalBitcoins might be the right place for that. A word of advice though, it’s always better to opt for cash deposits or wire transfers as they tend to have better exchange rates.

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