May 01, 2018

Coming May 15: consistent, competitive trading fees

Here at Circle, we're reviewing every aspect of the Poloniex user experience with a fine-tooth comb. There is one very obvious low-hanging fruit that's ripe for improvement: our trading fees.

We last updated our Bitcoin-denominated fee tiers in March 2016, when the price of BTC remained relatively stable at around $415. The world has changed a lot since then – particularly when it comes to cryptocurrency prices! – and our fees in their current state don't work as desired.

To correct this we'll be rolling out three changes, effective on May 15, 2018:

Trading fee tiers will be based on 30-day volume in US Dollars, not Bitcoin. While we remain a crypto-only exchange for now, calibrating pricing in a currency as volatile as Bitcoin can lead to confusion and inconsistency for users. We want you to have reasonable expectations for the fees you will pay based on how much you trade, regardless of drastic movements in currency prices. Going forward, we will be calculating your rolling 30-day trading volume based on the daily average of the BTC-USD rate found here.

We are lowering trading fees across the board. Exchange users have come to expect more competitive pricing in the past year, with an influx of liquidity and players in the space. To bring our pricing more in line with the market standard, we're lowering our starting taker fee to 0.20% and our starting maker fee to 0.10%.

We are lowering volume thresholds for fee discounts. To reward more of our user base for high levels of trading activity, we'll be lowering the 30-day volume thresholds required to access fee discounts. Fees for makers will go to 0% when they trade $7,500,000 in a 30-day period; fees for takers will go to 0.10% when they trade $30,000,000 in a 30-day period.

As of May 15, our fees will move to this schedule:

Maker Taker Trade Volume (trailing 30 day avg) 0.10% 0.20% < $500K 0.08% 0.20% ≥ $500K 0.06% 0.20% ≥ $1M 0.04% 0.20% ≥ $2.5M 0.02% 0.20% ≥ $5M 0.00% 0.20% ≥ $7.5M 0.00% 0.18% ≥ $10M 0.00% 0.16% ≥ $15M 0.00% 0.14% ≥ $20M 0.00% 0.12% ≥ $25M 0.00% 0.10% ≥ $30M

Our old fee scheme is detailed here. If you have any questions or feedback, we'd love to hear it! You can reach out to our customer experience team here.