The virtual currency market, like any other market has its own infrastructure. Over the past few years this infrastructure has already significantly expanded and continues to develop. Today there are hundreds of different cryptocurrency exchanges and exchange services that offer users to purchase, sale and exchange fiat money for digital coins or one cryptocurrency for another. These services differ in terms of functionality, security, the number of available cryptocurrencies, etc. They have different terms of use and often provide different rates, as the price of a particular coin may differ depending on supply and demand at certain platforms, their location, popularity, transaction volume, commissions, etc. Today The Coin Shark will tell about five popular services that many users have chosen to trade their cryptoassets.

1. Binance

This cryptocurrency exchange service was founded by Changpeng Jao ​​in 2017 and in half a year it managed to become one of the top exchanges. Binance became one of the most popular and largest platforms in terms of cryptocurrency transaction volume. The headquarters of the exchange was originally located in Hong Kong, but in March 2018 the management decided to move to Malta, because of the growing pressure of the authorities on the cryptocurrency market. By January 2018, the number of clients of the service had increased so much that the exchange temporarily suspended registration of new accounts and upgraded the equipment to cope with that over load. Today, the exchange can process 1,400,000 orders per second, which makes it one of the fastest platforms on the market. Binance is also one of the leaders in the number of available altcoins. In April 2018, nearly 8 million users were customers of Binance.

2. CoinSwitch

CoinSwitch is a popular exchange service that unites exchanges and enables users to monitor rates on different platforms live. CoinSwitch also operates a huge number of different coins (more than 275 cryptocurrencies in total). CoinSwitch is actually a single place where users can access nearly the whole cryptocurrency market, monitor coin rates on different platforms and see statistics. The service simply offers to compare prices on different exchanges, choose the best price, exchange the cryptocurrency and easily monitor the status of your transaction. Depending on the exchange the service interacts with, users pay commissions from 0% to 0.75% (additional commission can be charged by an exchange). CoinSwitch does not set a minimum transaction amount, however, users should take into account that their transaction should at least cover all commission payments. According to the information on CoinSwitch website, transactions are usually processed within 15-30 minutes, if the blockchain is not overloaded or subjected to hacker attacks.

3. OKEX

According to coinmarketcap, OKEX is the largest exchange by the daily trading volume, with the largest part of this volume being EOS coins, and the top five including Bitcoin, True Chain, Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash. The exchange was established in 2014 in China and today is one of the largest on the market. In terms of fiat money, the platform operates only Chinese yuan. OKEX also offers users operations with futures contracts. An important feature of the platform is that it is usually used in the desktop version. OKEX software is downloaded to the user's hard drive. However, it is also possible to use the service in a browser or a mobile application.

4. Kraken

Kraken is perhaps one of the most famous and popular cryptocurrency exchange. "The best bitcoin exchange", says its website. Kraken is considered a platform for professional trading, with a high level of security, solid relations with the banking sector and high speed of orders processing. The company was founded back in 2011 in San Francisco, the USA. Since then it managed not only to became a major service on the market but also to build relationships with the traditional financial sector and government bodies in many countries.

Kraken operates US dollars, Canadian dollars, UK pounds, Japanese yen, and euro. Kraken has a good reputation, it has never been hacked our appeared in any cryptocurrency scandals.

5. CEX.IO

CEX.IO is a popular London based exchange founded back in 2013. Soon the platform became popular thanks to its legality and reliability - during the entire CEX.IO operation there were no cases of theft of users' funds and "maintaining such reputation is a matter of honor for the company." As payment methods the service supports Visa, MasterCard, bank transfers (SEPA, SWIFT), cryptocurrency transfers. One of the main CEX.IO advantages is its legal status. The exchange is officially registered in the UK, registered in the Financial Crime Enforcement Network of the US Treasury Department and has a strong relationship with the banking sector. CEX.IO offers users operations with bitcoin and major altcoins such as Ethereum, Dash, Zcash, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, and also works with US dollars and euro.