In the last 12 months the cryptocurrency market has seen a surge in demand for cryptocurrency trading exchanges that offer derivatives and futures markets with leverage. It is also one of the most popular ways to earn Bitcoin or other crypto coins.
Beginners should be mindful that exchanges that offer margin trading cryptocurrency can compound losses. Beginners that are learning how to margin trade should use a demo account to trade crypto before depositing any real funds.
Where To Trade Crypto With Margin
Here is our list of the top rated cryptocurrency exchanges to trade with leverage:
- Bybit (popular platform with advanced features)
- FTX (innovation platform, variety of markets to trade)
- Binance (leading crypto exchange by liquidity)
- eToro (social trading platform, copy-trade others)
- Prime XBT (trade crypto, stocks, indices and metals)
- Plus500 (CFD provider, competitive spreads & fees)
- BitMEX (famous short term trading exchange
- StormGain (margin contracts settled in USDT)
- Deribit (Bitcoin only leverage trading platform)
Best Crypto Exchanges For Margin Trading
This comparison guide provides an overview of the best cryptocurrency exchanges that offer high leverage to buy and sell digital assets. Some 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.
Exchange | Leverage | Fees | Review | Rating | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Binance | 5x | 0.1% | 4.8/5 | ||
 Bybit | 100x | 0.025% / 0.075% | 4.7/5 | ||
 FTX | 101x | 0.025% / 0.075% | 4.6/5 | ||
 eToro | 2x | Spread (varies) | 4.6/5 | ||
 PRimeXBT | 100x | 0.5% | 4.3/5 | ||
 Plus500 | 30x | Spread (varies) | 4.2/5 | Disclaimer: Availability subject to regulations | |
 BitMEX | 100x | 0.025% / 0.075% | 4.1/5 | ||
 StormGain | 100x | 0.025% | 4.1/5 | ||
 Deribit | 100x | 0.025% / 0.075% | 4/5 |
Margin Cryptocurrency 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.
Bybit
Bybit is aiming to revolutionize today’s cryptocurrency market by combining the best of cryptocurrencies and traditional finance to bring about the industry’s safest, most reliable, fairest, and most user-friendly exchange to date.
The trading interface is smooth, reliable, fast and provided with all the charting tools for beginners and professional traders. Bybit is fast becoming the best margin trading cryptocurrency exchange with over 100,000 active users and counting. The daily margin trading volume on the exchange has seen astronomical growth with the founders even claiming to rank overall second in liquidity. The high liquidity is excellent for short term traders looking o to fill large orders.
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 bear the full cost of of financial loss due to system error or as a result of downtime.
The charting interface is sleek, responsive and fully customizaable to suit your preference. The charts are by TradingView that are renowned for smooth, intuitive and clean charts. Traders will be able to make use of advanced margin trading tools and indicators provided by TradingView. It is a solid interface to develop a margin trading edge to maximize profits and minimize risk.
ByBit provides advanced orders to set up their take profit and stop loss in one click from the order confirmation window and gives access to multiple order types and time in force. You don't need to manually enter orders for stop loss and take profit. It will prompt you before a order is executed.
Overall, we can conclude that ByBit is one of the best margin trading cryptocurrency exchanges for perpetual futures. The exchange has successfully combined the best of cryptocurrencies and traditional finance markets to bring about the industry’s safest, most reliable, fairest, and most user-friendly exchange to date.
For traders that know how to hold their own margin trading and want a leading-edge cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform, ByBit is a great choice.
FTX Exchange
FTX 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 platform. Through innovation, the platform offers new and exciting ways to invest and speculate on cryptocurrency.
Sign up to FTX using our referral link and receive a 5% discount on margin trading fees.
FTX offers low margin trading fees in comparison with other crypto trading platforms. FTX fees for futures and spot markets are based on a tiered structure according to your trading volume. The high margin trade volume per month will reduce the amount of fees to pay.
FTX also users are rewarded with a margin trading fee discount by up to 30% by simply holding a certain amount of the exchange's native FTT token which is valued in USD. The discount amount is dependent on your currents FTT holdings.
Using FTX leveraged tokens helps trader with risk management. The exchange automatically reinvests any margin trade profits back into the asset being traded. This means if your leveraged token position is sitting on a profit, the tokens will automatically put on 3x leveraged positions to it. On the flip side, leveraged tokens will automatically reduce risk if the position is negative.
Binance
Binance is the largest digital currency exchange platform in the world that offers more than 100 cryptocurrencies assets to margin trade. The exchange features innovative trading services such as a spot exchange, margin trading, crypto staking rewards, savings accounts to earn interest on crypto and much more.
Binance has millions of users in multiple countries across the world and is regarded as the world's leading cryptocurrency exchange. The platform bridges the gap between traditional fiat money and crypto through an innovative feature-rich services.
Binance offers two crypto products that allows traders to open a margin position:
- Margin trading with leverage between 3-5x
- Futures trading with leverage up to 125x
The futures product is a good way to hedge your portfolio by placing a long or short position with leverage to reduce risk or make additional profits in volatile markets. If you already have a Binance account, you can transfer USDT from your spot wallet to the futures trading wallet.
Of course, being one of the most popular cryptocurrency platforms in the world, the platform comes with all the trading features, indicators, drawings tools and advanced orders to apply proper risk management for short term leveraged trading.
eToro
eToro is a global financial brokerage that provides financial trading and investing platform that includes a variety of markets such as Crypto, ETFs, Stocks, Indices, Commodities and Forex. They are well know for their social trading platform.
A great feature with eToro is that users are able to copy trade the most profitable traders, or get copied yourself to earn a passive income. Traders on the platform can either long or short position a wide variety of markets.
eToro recently expanded its offering to include cryptocurrency enabling its clients to margin trade and invest in Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Litecoin and 12 other popular digital coins. These assets are traded in the form of a CFD, this means that you don't actually own the cryptocurrency and speculate on the price movements only. Given the volatility of cryptocurrencies, this might suit traditional financial margin traders that are interested in trading digital currencies.
A great feature of eToro is the well designed and intuitive leveraged trading platform and charting package that is available to desktop and mobile. Given it's a social platform, there are tools to allow interaction with other traders. The expansion suite of social tools makes eToro one of the best crypto leverage brokers.
Create a free account with eToro.
Prime XBT
Prime XBT is a popular Bitcoin-based cryptocurrency leveraged trading exchange that allows speculating on traditional financial products and regular trading markets. The crypto leveraged exchange will suit a wide variety of skilled investors and traditional traders that want to profit in Bitcoin but prefer to margin trade familiar traditional markets they know and love.
Traders are able to trade a broad spectrum of markets including Forex (FX), cryptocurrency, commodities and indices using Bitcoin as collateral – something not many cryptocurrency exchanges offer today.
When you first login to Prime XBT, the first thing you will notice is how well laid out, smooth and intuitive the trading dashboard is. There are no complicated menus or distractions - just an ease to use trading interface.
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 has the functionality to allow multiple charts so you can display one asset across multiple time frames, or keep an eye on a few different assets at the same time.
PrimeXBT offers 1:100 leverage on all cryptocurrencies, commodities and indices available on the platform and 1:1000 leverage on Forex majors. All users are automatically provided with the buying power (or short position) equal to 100x times of the deposit value. PrimeXBT provides high leverage for regular trading markets, allowing margin traders to maximize trading profits on short term or long term positions.
The exchange charges two different types of fees: a trade fee and overnight financing. The trade fee for cryptocurrency assets is 0.5% each time a trader places either long or short positions on the market. The overnight finance fee varies for the different cryptocurrencies based on the liquidity. It is essentially the borrowing cost to finance a leveraged position overnight. If you open and close a leveraged position within the same trading day, you are not subject to overnight financing.
With an excellent charting interface, zero deposit fees, competitive margin trading fees and various traditional assets to trade with leverage, PrimeXBT is without a doubt one of the best cryptocurrency trading exchanges to trade Bitcoin with a margin position.
Plus500
Plus500 is a leading CFD provider in Shares, Indices, Forex, Cryptocurrencies, ETFs, Options, and Indices. It is a regulated CFD provider that offers its services to customers in over 50 jurisdictions across the world through its different subsidiaries.
Disclaimer: Availability subject to regulations
Plus500 allows its massive customer base to trade the world's most popular cryptocurrencies with up to 30x leverage. Plus500 allows its users to trade cryptocurrency CFD's such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Neo, Ripple XRP, EOS, Cardano, Tron and Monero. There is also a Crypto 10 Index.
Screenshots are shown for illustration purposes only. Actual product may vary.
Plus500 is simple and easy to use which will be suitable for beginner traders. It even provides an option to configure real-time alerts for the price movements of instruments.
Alerts can be configured based on price, % change and traders sentiments whereby a notification can be sent based on a certain percentage of buyers or sellers reaches a predefined level. This feature can be used with great effect to counter-trade the market and is not offered on cryptocurrency margin trading platforms mentioned in this guide.
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.
Plus500 is a CFD service meaning that you trade the difference in price but don't own the actual asset. In terms of fees, Plus500 trading platform offers customers most of its services free of charge. The exchange charges the difference between the Bid and Ask spread and does not charge commission on margin trades. There is a overnight and inactivity fee. To view the full spread charge for each cryptocurrency, visit the Plus500 instruments page.
BitMEX
BitMEX is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency derivatives trading platform that offers high leverage contracts that are bought and sold in Bitcoin. It is the largest and most widely used margin trading platform in the world.
It's users are able to enter into long or short positions on cryptocurrency trading pairs (not the actual coins themselves) combined with leverage up to 100 times. This means only Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals are permitted. It is a great platform for cryptocurrency digital margin traders looking to increase their BTC holdings by leveraged trading positions.
Sign up using our referral link and receive a 10% discount on margin trading fees for 6 months.
The trading interface does appear to be a little dated compared to the newer exchanges such as Bybit and PrimeXBT. However the charting package by provide traders with advanced trading tools to refine their trading edge in maximize profits and minimize risk. BitMEX charts offer a wide range of time frames and tools to draw trend lines, add indicators and draw chart patterns to perfectly time a trade order using a market, limit or stop order.
Active positions are displayed at the bottom and can be easily monitored. The asset, position size, entry price, margin position, and unrealised P&L are all displayed and update in real time. Pending orders can be displayed as well which provides the option to review, modify or delete the order.
A great feature is the BitMEX margin trading calculator which can determine the potential profit and loss on an order based on the amount of leverage. More importantly, it will display the liquidation price so you can adjust the leverage and position size to suit your risk tolerance levels and avoid a margin call.
Trading fee's are a important consideration when selecting a cryptocurrency trading exchange. It becomes even more critical when trading larger position sizes and on a futures exchange where the user are paying fees on a margin position that is much larger than their available balance. BitMEX exchange works on a maker & taker model so the trading fees are dependent on the type of order (e.g. futures or contracts) and the cryptocurrency coin.
Bitmex is suited to intermediate cryptocurrency traders who are familiar with trading volatile risk assets and exposure to margin trading. The exchange has done a lot of things right to become the worlds largest cryptocurrency derivatives platform to speculate on the market to earn Bitcoin.
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.
Trading on StormGain using it's unique user interface and charting screen is excellent. It is packed with features trading functions expected for a world-class leverage exchange. The user interface includes a list of crypto assets, live price charts, wallet balances and open positions.
The charting screen can be maximised to full screen mode. Indicators, trend lines and patterns can be overlaid on the chart by right-clicking the screen. Technical drawing tools that are inserted on the full screen chart remain to monitor positions and even analyse other cryptocurrency pairs.
Other features on StormGain that will benefit its users include:
- Rapid sign up and registration
- No KYC process to start trading crypto
- Advanced trading platform and sleek user-interface
- Cloudminer Tool to mine crypto from mobile app
- Trading signals
- Practise crypto trading on a demo account
- Mobile trading app for iOS and Android
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.
Deribit offers perpetual futures contract for Bitcoin and also contracts which expire quarterly. The fees for the perpetual contract are 0.075% for market takers and a 0.025% rebate for market makers. The fees for quarterly contracts are 0.05% for market takers and a 0.02% rebate for market makers. Options fees are 0.04% of the underlying or 0.0004 BTC per option contract. This is reasonable compared to other cryptocurrency margin trading exchanges such as BitMEX.
Deribit's charting package will not draw too much excitement but provides all of the features one would expect trading the markets. The charting package is provided by TradingView that will add some familiarity for new users.
Deribit take security very seriously and like other exchanges, store approximately 99% of customer deposits in cold storage wallets. Vast majority of funds are stored vaults with multiple bank safes. This adds an airgap between the users funds and the internet to prevent hacking attempts. This can delay withdrawals from the exchange, however this is a worthwhile compromise. The exchange also has an extensive bounty program to identify any vulnerabilities before the hackers do.
Conclusion
Using a crypto trading exchange with margin is a fantastic way to earn money online. Users should also be very aware that exchanges are vulnerable to getting hacked as these sites store huge volumes of money.
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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