Poloniex is a US-based exchange suited to the experienced trader. Founded in 2014, it now offers dozens of cryptocurrencies with which to trade, although it doesn’t allow any trades using fiat currencies. It has relatively low trading fees, while its withdrawal fees are among the very lowest in the industry. However, despite offering a clean interface and plenty of trading options, its security isn’t quite as good as some of its rivals. It suffered a hack in March 2014, and doesn’t offer any concrete information on the security measures it takes to reinforce its system. Another issue is that customer support gets a little unresponsive at peak times, although this problem certainly isn’t exclusive to Poloniex.
Pros
- Low fees
- Wide range of cryptocurrencies
- Wide range of trading options
Cons
- No fiat currencies
- Question marks over security
- Customer support can be slow at peak times
Fees
When it comes to trading, Poloniex’s fees are low, but you can still find cheaper trading fees elsewhere. They vary depending on whether the user is a ‘maker’ or ‘taker’ of liquidity (i.e. on whether they trade by making a new order or by taking an old one), and as the table below illustrates they decrease in proportion to the user’s 30-day trading volume.
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For the sake of comparison, Kraken provide a taker fee of zero.16% for any trades between EUR one,000,000 and EUR a pair of,500,000 (163.74 BTC and 409.35 BTC), whereas Poloniex offers zero.16% provided that users trade between vi,000 BTC AND twelve,000 BTC (EUR thirty six,643,738.86 and EUR seventy three,287,477.73).
In alternative words, Poloniex’s taker fees square measure on top of Kraken’s. However, they’re below GDAX’s, as an instance, which needs users to own a 30-day volume of around vi,792 BTC before the taker fee drops from zero.25% to 0.24% (although GDAX don’t charge maker fees).
As for deposits and withdrawals, Poloniex doesn’t charge anyone for depositing cryptocurrency (fiat currencies can’t be deposited, withdrawn or purchased). Customers are going to be charged for withdrawals, though these square measure set by the network of every individual cryptocurrency being listed.
For example, bitcoin withdrawals value zero.0005 BTC, creating Poloniex among the terribly least expensive of exchanges for withdrawals (equal to Binance, cheaper than Kraken, Bittrex, Bitfinex and HitBTC).
Background
Based in Delaware, USA, Poloniex was launched in January 2014 by character D’Agosta, UN agency includes a background in music and antecedently established the Polonius piece of music company in 2010. It’s associate degree exchange occupation for the old bargainer, giving a variety of advanced trade sorts, likewise as margin commerce and even crypto loaning. additional natural action its standing as a home for skilled traders solely, it permits exchanges in dozens of cryptocurrencies, however not in any enactment currency.
Poloniex offers a number of the bottom commerce and withdrawal fees on the market. However, its name for security isn’t quite as robust as its name for costs, having suffered a high-profile hack in March 2014, likewise as variety of isolated account hacks and customer-reported withdrawal problems since then.
Still, it more experienced its 2014 hack brazenly and by giving full reimbursements for the purloined ninety seven bitcoins out of D’Agosta’s own company profits. And in early 2018 it had been noninheritable by payments company Circle, UN agency reportedly arrange to rework it into America’s 1st totally regulated crypto exchange.
Security
Security isn’t Poloniex’s greatest strength. Not solely did it suffer that March 2014 hack, however it’s not entirely clear simply what general measures the exchange has taken since then to secure itself.
To be fair, it will provide two-factor authentication to all or any customers, though this is often one thing that is currently fairly normal across ninetieth exchanges in protective accounts from hacks.
And to be truthful once more, character D’Agosta did write in 2014, “Since the hack, we tend to enforced continual automatic auditing of the complete exchange, bolstered the protection of all servers, associate degreed redesigned the manner commands square measure processed in order that an exploit just like the one employed in March is not possible.”
However, there’s no page on Poloniex’s web site expressly particularization, parenthetically, that the exchange uses cold wallets, SSL/TLS and PGP/GPG cryptography, or multisig wallets. As such, there’s no guarantee that Poloniex is kind of as safe because it may presumably be, notwithstanding the acquisition by Circle would possibly recommend higher things to come back.
Usability
Despite peripheral security issues, usability are some things that Poloniex will well. The vary of screens, windows and boxes it offers might confuse additional inexperienced traders, however it offers seasoned crypto handlers a good deal of flexibility and power in however they're going concerning their commerce. other than market trades, there's the choice to create stop-limit orders, likewise because the ability to margin trade and to lend (at a most rate of fifty per day).
Doing any of the 3 is simple, requiring solely that the user transfer cryptocurrency from their exchange accounts to either their margin or loaning accounts. this is often additionally helped by the clear layout of Poloniex’s screens and pages, that have associate degree tidy, white-background style.
Similarly, completion of trades and withdrawals is fairly fast, with the exchange stating that withdrawals can take no quite twenty four hours at the terribly latest. That said, some customers have complained that, throughout peak commerce periods, they'll wait a short time for a response from client support.
Poloniex doesn’t provide a mobile app (contrary to a phishing scam that has done the rounds). However, it will have a mobile version of their web site, that makes navigating the exchange on a smartphone a lot of easier.
Deposit/Withdrawal ways
Poloniex permits trades solely in cryptocurrency, thus unsurprisingly customers have to be compelled to create deposit and withdrawals victimisation crypto wallets. luckily, this is often straightforward enough: the Deposit & Withdrawals page offers customers a case address for every cryptocurrency they want to deposit, and it permits them to enter their own external case address for any currency they want to withdraw.