At this time, the digital currency exchange market is filled with a wide variety of choices, therefore choosing the right exchange or trading platform can be quite a headache for both novice and veteran cryptocurrency users.
Binance is a popular cryptocurrency exchange which was started in China but recently moved their headquarters to the crypto-friendly Island of Malta in the EU. Binance is popular for its crypto to crypto exchange services. While the company is still fairly new on the market ( it launched last year ), it has managed to gain a lot of popularity thanks to its impressive number of Initial Coin Offering listings, professional attitude and friendly CEO and also due to its low trading fees.
In our review, we will attempt to outline everything that you must know about Binance, including how it works, the crypto pairs that you can exchange, trading fees/limits, security aspects, and customer support.
Those who visit Binance for the first time will quickly notice that the platform offers two options for digital currency trading- basic and advanced. Neither the basic, nor the advanced versions are bound to be easy to use for complete beginners. However, anyone with a background in digital currencies and with a bit of knowledge into how exchanges work should be able to use the platform and its different services.
The main difference between the basic and the advanced version is that the advanced one offers more-in-depth technical analysis of digital currency value over time. At this time, the dashboard for the basic version offers several graphs and charts for the pairs that you’re trading, order books, and trade history.
This is what the basic view looks like :
The Basic view is nicely designed and well laid out, all the information you need is clearly presented with prices on the left, graphs in the center along with the buy and sell boxes and the trade history is presented on the right so you can quickly see what the latest trade prices were.
And this is what the advanced view looks like:
The advanced view uses a dark theme and makes the trading charts larger and the latest trade prices are displayed on the right with the buy sell boxes underneath.
Which you choose is a matter of preference really, I like the lighter colored basic view and find the layout a little easier to use.
Binance Signup & Login
To use the exchange, users will first have to create an account. The process behind this is fairly simple and straight-forward and you don’t have to verify your account for level 1 which is a 2BTC daily withdrawal limit. For level 2 which allows up to 100BTC per day, you need to upload a photo ID and wait till you are approved. There are higher limits still, but you will need to contact them directly to arrange that.
Time for verification can vary depending on how busy the site support staff are, so make sure to plan ahead if you wish to withdraw larger amounts and make sure this step is complete before depositing and trading large sums on the exchange.
Now, that this is out of the way, users can go ahead and fund their Binance account. While you can choose from a multitude of digital currencies, it is recommended that you stick with either BTC or ETH.
To fund your account visit the “Funds” > “Deposits / Withdrawals” link at the top of the site and find the currency you wish to send, then click the “Deposit” button next to it which will then you give you the wallet address. You can then send your funds to this address to begin trading on the platform, depending on which currency you deposit it will take different times to show up as this is reliant on that currencies blockchain. Some currencies like Ethereum are faster than Bitcoin which can take a while.
Now that your account is funded, you can simply start trading, exchanging and investing in various digital currency pairs. Binance offers plenty of choices, as they support all major digital currencies, but also numerous ICO listings and their respective tokens.
At this time, the platform can only be used to generate limit and market orders. This has been considered a disadvantage by some, as many expected trading options that would be more advanced. Following the placement of your order, simply wait for it to be fulfilled according to the terms that have been set.
How to Trade on Binance
Trading on Binance is fairly straight-forward if you have used any other cryptocurrency exchange before. To get started, make sure you have deposited some funds – there are options for trading pairs in BTC, ETH, BNB and USDT. Once you have your funds, at the top right menu, select “Exchange” > “Basic” or “Advanced” to load the trading screen. We will be using the Basic view.
On the right hand side, of the screen select a tab from BTC, ETH, BNB or USDT this is what you will be trading in. Then choose your desired currency from the list. You can also search here and you can create a favorites list by clicking the star next to any currencies.
Once your desired currency has loaded, take note of the left-hand column which shows prices that people are willing to sell at in the top half in red and prices people are willing to buy at in green in the bottom half. The number in the middle shows the last sale price.
Now to place a buy order, use the center box underneath the graphs and you will see the buy box is in green on the right. You can manually enter a price you wish to purchase at, but a better way is to click a number on the left-hand column. You can then enter the amount of the currency you wish to buy or click the 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% buttons which will fill it with an amount based on how much of the buying currency you have ( in this case BTC ).
Once your order is placed it will be show underneath in the “Open Orders” section until it is filled. At that point your new currency will be available under the “Deposits / Withdrawals” menu where you can withdraw it to the wallet of your choice.
Supported Crypto Currencies
Binance has often been praised for its wide variety of support coins. Traders can use the platform for multiple digital currencies, including, but not limited to Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, EOS, Dash, LiteCoin, NEO, GAS, Zcash, Dash, Ripple and more. As mentioned before, Binance also supports numerous tokens, as part of ICO listings. With this in mind, traders can use the platform to trade these tokens for a profit as well.
Binance is currently very quick to add new coins and tokens after their ICO which usually means you can purchase them cheaply which allows for greater profit down the road.
They currently offer trading pairs in BTC, BNB, ETH and USDT.
Binance ICO & BNB Coin
Another thing to note is the Binance Coin, which was issued during their own ICO. The Binance coin can be used to pay fees and it will also feature in their future plans to create a Decentralized Exchange where it will form one of the key base currencies. Purchasing the Binance coin itself looks like a good investment for the future as the exchange plans to use their profits to buy back a portion of the coins every quarter and destroy them: hence decreasing the supply and making them more valuable for holders.
Every quarter, we will use 20% of our profits to buy back BNB and destroy them, until we buy 50% of all the BNB (100MM) back. All buy-back transactions will be announced on the blockchain. We eventually will destroy 100MM BNB, leaving 100MM BNB remaining.
Binance Fees & Limits
At the time of writing, Binance charges an average fee of 0.1% on each trade that a user makes. Those who choose to pay via the Binance token can get a 50% discount on the trading fee, which is absolutely great news. These are surely some of the lowest fees available at this time.
Withdrawal fees tend to vary for each digital currency. For instance, 0.0005 is charged for Bitcoin withdrawals, and 0.005 is charged for ETH withdrawals.
When it comes down to transfer limits, there is no limit on the number of coins that you can deposit. However, without getting verified, users are limited in terms of how much they can withdraw. Verification will establish you as a level two users, thus lifting these limits and providing a lot more freedom when using the platform. The verification process requires users to provide Binance with their full name, country, gender, a photo of passport/government-issued ID, and even a selfie with the passport.
Binance Competitions
A unique feature of Binance you will notice is that they regularly hold competitions with some amazing prizes. Some examples of competitions in the past include Waves and Tron. The waves competition gave away 20,000 Waves to Traders based on how many trades they have made of this currency.
The other competition for Tron (TRX) gave participants the chance to win a Maserati car, Mercedes Benz car, a Macbook Pro or a iPhone X. Again, the winners were the people with the highest trading volume of this currency.
The current rankings show that the person in first place had over 358 BTC volume in trades so you will need to be a whale to be in with a chance of winning first prize. There are other regular competitions though, so keep an eye on the site for your chance to enter.
Is Binance Safe?
While Binance is one of the newest cryptocurrency exchanges available on the market, it has quickly managed to attain a high level of trust from its users and the digital currency community. However, the exchange fails to provide users with enough information on how the funds are being secured, yet we like to believe that security is taken seriously. Two-factor authentication is available and is always a nice sight. It is however known that the platform offers a multi-tier and multi-tier system architecture.
Update: In March 2018 Binance suffered a hacking attempt.
The hackers tried to pull off an audacious move which was luckily caught by the automated systems in place at the exchange. For months the hackers had been accumulating people’s logins via a phishing website and secretly installing API access on the affected accounts. They then struck, converting all the victims altcoins to BTC and purchasing Viacoin, pumping the coin to a huge price and then selling their own supply of Viacoin at the high point, before trying to withdraw the BTC to their own wallets. Luckily no one lost funds as the hack was caught and the only people to lose out were the hackers, whose funds will be donated to charity.
As this hack was made possible by people entering their site logins and 2FA details into a fake website, you should always make sure you are on the correct Binance url before logging in. We recommend you bookmark the site and only use that to access it, never click links from emails, Twitter, Telegram etc.
This event has done a lot to instill confidence around Binance, not only did their automated processes catch the attempted hack before anyone lost any funds, they have since offered a $250,000 bounty to anyone who can help catch the hackers. Throughout this event, Binance acted exemplary and have been praised for their swift action in resolving this.
Binance Customer Support
For an exchange to be successful, it requires a great customer support team, capable of answering all user questions and requests in a timely manner. While the support area on Binance could use a little work, the team is responsive and capable of offering professional aid to traders in need. Support tickets are submitted via an online form featured on the website, and responses are made via email. There is currently no live chat support, nor a phone number where customers can get in touch with the support team.
Other than the CS team, Binance offers a couple of FAQs and articles meant to help users get accustomed to the exchange and the way it works.
It should be noted that customer support on Binance has been known to be slow to respond to customer requests. This is a familiar phenomenon with most of large exchanges and is due simply to the volume of users and amount of support staff. The exchanges have grown at an explosive rate this past year and the companies simply haven’t been able to keep up with demand. Binance grew fast especially, going from launch to the largest exchange on the planet in a few short months. Support staff for exchanges have to be carefully vetted and trained due to the technicalities and security requirements involved – unlike other traditional companies where staff can be trained quicker.
Some things to bare in mind are double-checking wallet addresses, make sure you are sending the correct cryptocurrency to it’s corresponding address on the site. Mixups with wallets are one of the biggest mistakes people make when using exchanges. Other things to note are, try a smaller test payment first if you plan to transfer large sums – it may cost you a little more in fees but will be worth it for peace of mind.
If you do need to contact support, make sure you provide them with enough information to be able to help you first time. Include wallet addresses, times of transactions and any other information you think they might need to help speed up the process.
The Move to Malta
In March 2018, Japanese Newspaper Nikkei reported that Binance was trading in Japan and not following their official regulations. This caused some turbulence in the markets until Binance made an official announcement that they were going to be moving operations to the crypto-friendly island of Malta in Europe, stating :
After reviewing several different locations, the company decided to invest in the European nation due to its existing pro-blockchain legislation and the stability that it offers financial technology companies through its regulatory framework.
This is good news for the company and they even received a warm welcome from the Prime Minister of Malta on Twitter. Binance also announced that they were in talks with Maltese banks with the goal of providing Fiat transactions, meaning they can offer an on-ramp for fiat to crypto transactions in future along with fiat trading pairs on the exchange.
More good news for Binance, it seems as their profile and reputation within the industry continues to grow.
Launching a Decentralized Exchange
More recent news for Binance and what seems like good news BNB holders is the fact that they are planning to launch their own Decentralized Exchange ( DEX ):
“After extensively researching decentralized exchange frameworks and analyzing existing implementations, we believe significant improvements can be made in providing Binance users with a level of trading experience to which they are already accustomed. Centralized and Decentralized exchanges will co-exist in the near future, complementing each other, while also having interdependence.”
The BNB digital asset, now an ERC-20 token, will migrate as the native token of that network and be used for paying the trading fees on the new exchange.
Launching a Decentralized Stock Exchange
More good news recently for Binance is that they are partnering with Neufund to build the world’s first Decentralized Stock Exchange. Alongside the Malta Stock Exchange, they are aiming to create a regulated and decentralized, global stock exchange for listing and trading tokenized securities alongside crypto-assets.
According to CapLinked, the market cap of equity tokens alone is projected to reach $1 trillion by 2020 and thanks to the partnership with MSX, a subsidiary of the Malta Stock Exchange and Binance, Neufund will become the first end-to-end primary issuance platform for security tokens, in particular, equity tokens. It will secure ways for secondary trading of equity tokens and enable companies around the world to fundraise on Blockchain in a legal way while offering much-needed liquidity.
This is more positive news for Binance as they aim to consolidate their position as the world’s number one Crypto Exchange.
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