Despite the crypto market experienced a rough 2018, the world leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance still made 446 million USD in profit last year, which is slightly fell short of estimates of $500 million but still satisfied most insiders’ expectations.

Upon the news that Binance is accepting credit card payments through the technological support from payment processing platform Simplex, most commentators believe that the competition was officially on between Coinbase and Binance.

Binance remains on top of a pyramid of crypto exchanges as its security stands, user-interface, and range of cryptocurrencies offered are outstanding compared to other similar altcoin-focused platforms.

The exchange, famous for its crypto-to-crypto trading is now moving to offer fiat currency options to customers in over 400 active markets. Binance has opened fiat currency trading outposts in Uganda and Jersey and is about to offer similar service in Liechtenstein, Singapore, and other places. By 2019, the number of Binance fiat exchange may grow to 10 according to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ). In addition, support for credit cards is a major part of its fiat trading strategy.

Nevertheless, some people believe that Coinbase might have rivaled Binance. The San Francisco-based exchange expected to hit $456 million in profit last year. While even less is know about Coinbase’s finances, there is no doubt that the company outperformed the 2018 crypto crash.

In the fourth quarter of 2018, Coinbase managed to secure $300 million in funding from Tiger Global, Y Combinator, A16Z, Polychain Cap, and a number of other crypto-friendly venture groups. After this funding round, Coinbase was valued at an astonishing $8 billion and becomes the most valuable company in the crypto ecosystem.

However, although Coinbase has garnered a reputation as one of the easiest and safest exchanges in the world, they don’t offer many types of crypto assets. In addition, despite having similar offerings, the same transactions made with a credit card on Coinbase would incur slightly higher charges compare to Binance. All these made Binance more competitive in the fiat trading market as a newcomer and some believed that the competition between Binance and Coinbase escalates.

In response to this rumor, Binance CEO tweeted that there was no competition, but just offers users more choice and he wanted to make the industry to grow along with other industry leaders.