In the last 12 months the cryptocurrency market has seen a surge in demand for margin crypto exchanges, which currently account for 50% of all global crypto volume. It is also one of the most popular ways to earn extra crypto.
Beginners should be mindful that margin trading can also compound your losses, so if you're learning how to trade, you should first use a demo account to trade crypto before depositing funds into a margin platform.
We have carried out extensive research to find the best cryptocurrency margin exchanges based on important user factors such as leverage amount, trading fees, charting features, technical indicators and platform security.
Here is our list of the best crypto platforms that offer leverage trading:
Exchange | Leverage | Fees | Review | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | 100x | 0.025% (Maker) 0.075% (Taker) | 5 / 5 | |
 | 101x | 0.025% (Maker) 0.075% (Taker) | 4.8 / 5 | |
 | 5x | 0.075% | 4.6 / 5 | |
 | 100x | 0.5% | 4 / 5 | |
 | 30x | Spread (varies) | 3.4 / 5 | |
 | 100x | 0.025% (Maker) 0.075% (Taker) | 3.2 / 5 | |
 | 100x | 0.025% (Maker) 0.075% (Taker) |
| 3 / 5 |
 | 2x | Spread (varies) |
| 2.8 / 5 |
Margin Cryptocurrency Exchanges: Reviews
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 one of the best, if not the best cryptocurrency margin trading exchange with over 100,000 active users and counting.
The daily trading volume on the exchange has seen astronomical growth with the founders even claiming to rank overall second in liquidity.
Read more: ByBit Review (the BitMEX KILLER) – Should You Make The Switch?
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 trading tools and indicators provided by TradingView to refine their trading edge in 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 crypto leverage trading 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.
Create a free Bybit account and claim up to $90 in rewards.
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 your trading fees.
FTX offers extremely low 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. Essentially, the more you trade the lower trading fees you will pay.
Related: FTX Exchange Review – Should You Make the Switch?
FTX also users are rewarded with a 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 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 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 allow trading with margin:
- 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 going long or short 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.
Related: Binance Review: Crypto, Trading & Fees
Of course, being one of the most popular cryptocurrency platforms in the world, you can expect the platform to come with all the trading features, indicators, drawings tools and advanced orders to apply proper risk management.
Create a free account with Binance.
Prime XBT
Prime XBT is a popular Bitcoin-based cryptocurrency trading exchange that allows speculating on traditional financial products. The crypto leveraged exchange will suit a wide variety of skilled investors and traditional traders that want to profit in Bitcoin but prefer to 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 trading tools that you would typically expect for a modern cryptocurrency 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 (or selling) power equal to 100x times of the deposit value. PrimeXBT provides high leverage for other instruments, allowing traders to maximize trading profits.
Related: Prime XBT Review: Is It Safe? Bitcoin, Trading & Fees
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 you buy or sell 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 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 margin.
Create a free account with Prime XBT.
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: Your capital is at risk
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 platforms mentioned in this review.
Read: Plus500 Review: Trading Crypto CFDs, Features & Fees
Plus500 cryptocurrency CFD trading platform includes all of the risk management tools expected for a 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 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 buy and sell contracts for cryptocurrencies (not the actual coins themselves) combined with margin trading up to 100 times. This means only Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals are permitted. It is a great platform for cryptocurrency digital traders looking to increase their BTC holdings by trading the market.
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.
Also: BitMEX Review – Is It Still Reliable? (Do Not Sign Up Until You’ve Read This)
Active positions are displayed at the bottom and can be easily monitored. The asset, position size, entry price, margin, 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.
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 you are paying fees on positions that are much larger than your margin. 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.
Users that place a traditional futures BTC order will earn a small compensation, as BitMEX rebates the maker trader 0.025% and charges the taker 0.075%.
BitMEX runs a first-of-its-kind multi-signature deposit and withdrawal system. This means users BitMEX addresses are multisignature and storage of assets are kept offline. In the event of a full system compromise, including web servers, trading engine, and database, there would not be enough keys available to an attacker to steal funds. No private keys are kept on any cloud server and deep cold storage is used for the bulk of funds.
Sign up to Bitmex using our referral link and receive a 10% discount on your trading fees for 6 months.
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.
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 quite reasonable compared to other cryptocurrency margin 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.
eToro
Last, but certainty not least we have eToro. 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 second passive income.
eToro recently expanded its offering to include cryptocurrency enabling its clients to 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 traders that are interested in trading digital currencies.
A great feature of eToro is the well designed and intuitive 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.
Conclusion
Using a crypto trading exchange with margin is a fantastic way to earn money trading 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 too long and make sure you withdraw profits to a reputable crypto hardware wallet for safe keeping.
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