I’m sure if you’ve been online at all this past weekend you know about the issues at various exchanges, especially Kraken. This has lot of crypto traders looking to find alternative exchanges to trade on and one of the more popular choices is becoming Binance. This Chinese based exchange is relatively new, but is becoming more popular. So let’s take a look below at what they have to offer and some pros and cons regarding Binance.

Sign up process – The sign up process is exceedingly simple, especially if you choose the “non verified’ options. With this all you need is a valid email address and you are ready to start trading cryptos within a minute or two. You will have a 2 BTC limit on withdrawals if you remain unverified, which isn’t too bad at all. For a 100 BTC limit, you can move to enhanced verification which requires a passport photo to be uploaded. Verification has been relatively fast in my experience. With some taking as little as 15 minutes and others taking a day or two. With some exchanges taking weeks to get verified, that’s not bad. Also, with Bittrex seemingly cracking down on verification, this may be a good option for some of you.

Trading – Overall, the site has a very minimalist yet standard trading layout. With a chart taking the center of the screen, the buy and sell areas below, and the order book and trades on the sides. It has a very clean look and will only take a few minutes to figure out for most people who have traded crypto before. The charting tools are similar to Bittrex, but for serious chart work, I would suggest using a site like Trading View, which is free to use and has very quality tools.

The site itself runs faster than Bittrex, at least in my experience, so it is possible to run more windows if you choose to trade that way without slowing down your computer so much, but of course your experience may be different based on your computer and internet speed. But the site seems easier on resources than Bittrex in my testing.

Assets – One thing that is lacking is some assets that can be traded on Binance and this is probably my biggest negative on the site, although it could change. They have a good amount of coins, but there are some notable exceptions, such as Monero, and the recently rising Vertcoin among others which can be found on other major exchanges. So you may want to check which coins are available before you move money into the exchange to make sure the trading pair you want is available. However, they are adding coins pretty regularly.

Executing orders – So far in my experience there have been no issues with executing orders. The site runs smoothly and orders execute quickly, very similar to Bittrex which I have also never had an issue with executing an order. Obviously if there is a meltdown in some currency things could change, but during normal trading I have had no issues. Funds moved into the exchange are available after 2 confirmations and I have had no issues with deposits or withdrawals as long as you are within your limits.

Now one interesting thing to note is that Binance raised funds to start its exchange via an ICO where they created their own token on the ERC 20 protocol. This is of some importance because the Chinese government has signaled interest in cracking down on companies that used ICOs to raise to money, not to mention exchanges themselves. Now there is no way to know what this means exactly and whether the Chinese government will interfere with Binance in some way, but I figured it was worth mentioning.

However, they do offer an interesting feature based on the ICO token in which you can use their BNB token to pay for your trading fees and receive a discount. You must hold the BNB tokens in your account and they are used to pay for fees at a 50% discount. An interesting approach and one that could save you money depending on your trading style and portfolio, and as the platform gets more popular, the token itself could go up in value.

But overall, it is a good idea to have accounts at more than one exchange if possible. And with the ease of signing up to Binance for an unverified account, it makes sense to try them as a possible back up to your main exchange, and if you end up liking it, you can move more of your trading over there.

As always, do not keep a large amount of your funds on ANY exchange. Only move money onto an exchange when you are ready to trade, and move your money off when the trade is complete.