The last 12 months the cryptocurrency market has seen a surge in demand for cryptocurrency trading platform that offer derivatives and futures markets with leverage. Trading with margin is a great way for advanced traders to increase their potential profits by trading much larger positions.
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Exchanges To Trade Crypto With Margin
Based on our reviews, these are the best places to trade crypto with leverage:
- FTX (best for innovative trading markets)
- Binance (best futures exchange overall)
- Bybit (best for charting features)
- Huobi (best for Ethereum trading)
- Prime XBT (best for traditional markets)
- Plus500 (best for CFD trading)
- BitMEX (best for ease of use)
- StormGain (best for USDT settled contracts)
- Deribit (best for Bitcoin margin trading)
Some of the above exchanges require you to own a Bitcoin hardware wallet such as a Ledger Nano X. If you don't have a wallet, make sure to read our guide on the best cryptocurrency hardware wallets.
What Is Crypto Leverage Trading?
Crypto leverage trading is a tool for investors to open a long or short position that is much larger than their own capital by leveraging borrowed funds in a transaction. This allows the person to maximise potential profits by increasing their buying power using a small amount of money. For example, a trader that enters a trade with 100:1 leverage can hypothetically trade a $10,000 position size with $100.
Best Crypto Exchanges For Leverage Trading
This comparison guide provides a list of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges buy and sell digital assets with leverage or margin.
Exchange | Max. Leverage | Trading Fees | Rating | Promotion | Website | Review |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Binance | 5:1 | 0.1% | 4.8/5 | 20% off trading fees | ||
 Bybit | 100:1 | -0.025% / 0.075% | 4.7/5 | None available at this time | ||
 FTX | 101:1 | -0.025% / 0.075% | 4.6/5 | 5% off trading fees | ||
 Huobi | 125:1 | 0.02% / 0.04% | 4.55/5 | None available at this time | ||
 PrimeXBT | 300:1 | 0.5% | 4.3/5 | None available at this time | ||
 Plus500 | 30:1 | Spread only | 4.2/5 | None available at this time | Disclaimer: Your capital is at risk | |
 BitMEX | 100:1 | -0.025% / 0.075% | 4.1/5 | None available at this time | ||
 StormGain | 300:1 | 0.025% | 4.1/5 | None available at this time | ||
 Deribit | 100:1 | -0.025% / 0.075% | 4/5 | None available at this time |
Margin Crypto Trading Exchanges: Reviews
Our review and assessment of the best leverage exchanges to trade cryptocurrency is based on important factors such as ease of use, reputation, charting features, leverage amount, margin trading fees, deposit methods, security and customer support.
1. Binance
Binance is the largest digital currency exchange services in the world that provides a platform for trading more than 200 different cryptocurrencies. The platform has seen a meteoric rise since being founded in 2017. Binance is the biggest cryptocurrency trading exchange trading at 1.2 Billion daily volume and 1.4 Million transactions per second.
Binance has a mobile trading app for iOS and Android devices which is highly intuitive, easy to use, runs smooth and performs all the basic functions expected of a trading app. The app include live Bitcoin and crypto prices, ability to execute orders, manage each digital asset, view P&L and search trade history.
Features:
overall
Ease of use
Reputation
Deposit methods
Fees
2. Bybit
Bybit is a derivatives exchange platform that is designed to offer a seamless experience to margin long or short coins like Bitcoin, Ethereum, EOS and XRP trading pairs with up to 100x leverage. The derivatives exchange offers perpetual contracts that follow the cryptocurrency price. Bybit has released USDT-settled perpetual contracts that can be traded on the exchange with high leverage.
Bybit promises 'No server downtime' and their system functionality is available up to 99.99%. The exchange features a State-of-the-Art Matching Engine at 100,000 transactions per second which can complete a trade within 10 microseconds. Bybit guarantees to bare the full cost of of financial loss due to system error or as a result of downtime.
Features:
Ease of use
Reputation
Deposit methods
Fees
3. FTX
FTX and FTX.US for is a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange built by traders, for traders. The platform differentiates itself from its competitors by offering a wide variety of indices and leveraged tokens that can be traded on the futures or options market. FTX is known for creating the world’s first cryptocurrency index futures that allows its users to capitalize on the rise or fall of a particular index in the form of a future contract. Index futures can be traded directly from within the FTX exchange platform.
Features:
Ease of use
Reputation
Deposit methods
Fees
4. Huobi
Huobi Global has been providing a safe and trustworthy place to buy, trade, store, earn and sell 348 digital currencies. The exchange services tens of millions of users in more than 195 countries worldwide and is currently ranked #5 for the top cryptocurrency derivatives exchanges based on trading volumes behind Binance, OKEx and Bybit.
Huobi offers a variety of cryptocurrency markets that can be traded using the same user account. Individuals can speculate on digital currencies using the Spot Exchange, Margin Exchange, Futures Market, Options and USDT-Swaps with leverage up to 125x. The emergence of leverage crypto trading allows customers to hedge spot their positions by short-selling Bitcoin to balance a crypto portfolio and exposure to market conditions. The benefit of using Huobi for margin trading is the ability to access other features, products and services on the same exchange such as staking and earning interest on cryptocurrencies.
Features:
overall
Ease of use
Reputation
Deposit methods
Fees
5. PrimeXBT
Prime XBT is a popular Bitcoin-based trading exchange that allows speculating on traditional financial products. Traders are able to trade a broad spectrum of markets including Forex (FX), cryptocurrency, commodities and indices using Bitcoin as collateral – a feature that not many exchanges offer today.
PrimeXBT charts includes all of the advanced leveraged trading tools that you would typically expect for a modern trading platform such as drawing lines, rectangles, horizontal, Fibonacci retracement, arrows, text and so on. The platform allows multiple charts to display one asset across multiple time frames, or keep an eye on a few different assets at the same time.
Features:
Ease of use
Reputation
Deposit methods
Fees
6. Plus500
Plus500 allows its traders that want to open buy and sell positions on Crypto CFDs (Availability subject to regulation) with margin such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Neo, Ripple XRP, EOS, Cardano, Tron and Monero.. There is also a Crypto 10 Index.
Plus500 cryptocurrency CFD trading platform includes all of the risk management tools expected for a margin trading platform. These include stop loss orders, trailing stops and guaranteed stop loss orders to put an absolute limit on potential losses. Even if the price of the instrument moves significantly against you, your position will automatically be closed at the specified price, with no risk of slippage.
Screenshots are shown for illustration purposes only. Actual product may vary.
Features:
overall
Ease of use
Reputation
Deposit methods
Fees
Disclaimer: Your capital is at risk
7. BitMEX
BitMEX is a peer-to-peer trading platform that offers high leverage contracts that are bought and sold in Bitcoin. It is one of the largest market makers and most widely used margin trading exchanges. Beginner and advanced users can buy and sell contracts for cryptocurrencies (not the actual coins themselves) combined with margin trading up to 100 times.
Features:
overall
Ease of use
Reputation
Deposit methods
Fees
8. StormGain
StormGain is a cryptocurrency trading and investing platform that comes with high leverage contracts and cutting-edge trading tools. All margin trades are settled in the stablecoin Tether (USDT) which will appeal to traders that want to limit portfolio exposure when investing into cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
The exchange has taken the best of investment and cryptocurrency markets to offer an innovative platform to trade crypto futures contracts. StormGain traders can capitalize on the volatile crypto markets with the most popular crypto pairs and using leverage up to 200x. There is also the option to fund a crypto account using a credit card.
Features:
overall
Ease of use
Reputation
Deposit methods
Fees
9. Deribit
Deribit is a popular trading platform that has done a lot of things right to make our list for best crypto leverage trading platforms. The exchange allows traders to take advantage of up to 100x margin trading Bitcoin futures or options. The platform has seen a surge in trading volume and is currently ranked second in overall trade volume behind Binance.
The exchange has recently expanded to include Bitcoin and Ethereum futures that can be traded with leverage. The CEO of Deribit is a former options trader since the late 90’s and a Bitcoin enthusiast who has created the platform Deribit, which comes from the words derivative and Bitcoin.
Features:
overall
Ease of use
Reputation
Deposit methods
Fees
Conclusion
Using a crypto trading exchange with margin is a fantastic way to earn money online. Users should also be very aware that crypto exchanges have been hacked as these sites store huge volumes of money. For beginner traders, we would recommend avoiding margin platforms and learning how to trade with no leverage. Losses can be compounded very quickly and result in account liquidations. Traders that are easily influenced by social media and FOMO into trades are most at risk.
If you plan to trade on a leveraged exchange, remember to not hold you money on these exchanges for the long term and withdraw profits to a reputable crypto hardware wallet for safe keeping.
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