The 7 Best Altcoin Brokers – Spot & Margin Trading
While Bitcoin Trading against fiat money is available on numerous brokers, altcoin trading is a niche in which only few platforms are specialized. And their features differ a lot in various manners.
Depending on which features are critical for your trading activities, you have to choose a convenient broker. Differences concern the range of listed altcoins, if they support fiat money to buy an altcoin with USD or if they support Bitcoin / altcoin deposits only.
Do you search pairings with other currencies than just BTC - such as ETH or USD? Do you want to trade on margin? What are the trading fees? Let's have a look at the best Altcoin Brokers available:
Compare the Top Altcoin Brokers and their individual Features:
90
up to 10x leverage
up to 125x leverage
(bank transfer, credit/debit cards, FinTech services)
- Spot markets: 0.1%
- Margin borrow interest: depends on coin
- Futures: USDT Maker/Taker 0.02%/0.04% | BUSD Maker/Taker 0.012%/0.03%
Binance is a relatively new altcoin trading platform which is already among the most popular ones and often even listed as No 1 trading platform for many altcoins on coinmarketcap.com. The platform seems to be fast growing with a very ambitious team behind it.
86
up to 100x leverage
(fiat deposits only through third party FinTech services)
- Spot markets: up to 0.145%/0.155%
- Futures: Maker/Taker 0.01%/0.075%
Poloniex also has a big altcoin portfolio and you can trade many of them with leverage. USD / Fiat money is not supported at all. But the major altcoins can be traded against USDT. Order types are very basic, at least they have a stop loss function.
84
up to 10x leverage
up to 100x leverage
(credit/debit cards, FinTech services)
- Spot markets: up to Maker/Taker 0.09%/0.1%
- Margin borrow interest: depends on coin
- Futures: up to Maker/Taker 0.02%/0.06%
Kucoin is one of the most well-established international altcoin brokers though it was only founded in late 2017. The platform has listed more than 150 cryptocurrencies. All of them can be traded against Bitcoin, many also against USDT or even ETH. Just like other altcoin brokers, Kucoin has an own platform token (KCS) which can be traded against BTC, ETH or USDT.
86
up to 10x leverage
up to 100x leverage
(bank transfer)
- Spot markets: 0.1% - 0.2%
- Margin borrow interest: depends on coin
- Futures: Maker/Taker up to 0.02%/0.06%
Ascendex is one of the leading altcoin trading platforms, expecially since they offer margin trading with 2x to 10x leverage, depending on the coin. BTC, ETH, EOS, XRP, LTC, BNB and HT can be traded with 1:10 leverage, all other altcoins with 1:5 maximum.
86
up to 3x leverage
up to 100x leverage
(bank transfer, credit/debit cards, FinTech services)
- Spot markets: Maker/Taker 0.02%/0.02%%
Bittrex is listing many altcoins in the high and middle range concerning market cap and popularity. USD / Fiat money is not supported, however, the major altcoins can be traded against USDT. So you have to own BTC or the cryptocurrency you want to trade to start on Bittrex. Deposits and withdrawals are possible for all listed coins. Note that margin trading is not supported in Bittrex so far.
81
up to 10x leverage
up to 100x leverage
(bank transfer, credit/debit cards)
- Spot markets: 0.0 to 0.2% (dep. on trading volume)
- Margin borrow interest: depends on coin
- Futures: Maker/Taker up to 0.02%/0.065%
Bitfinex is also one of world's largest crypto brokers and one of the best known names. They list a hoge amount of altcoins, even more than 160, with focus on the most important ones, higher market cap and most promising projects.
Leverage: The brokers offers derivatives trading with up to 1:100 leverage, but this leverage doesn't apply to altcoin trading. Here we only have up to 1:3.3.
USD is supported, so you don't have to possess BTC yet to start trading on Bitfinex. However, for fait money transfers, you have to go through the ID verification. Also you can deposit and withdraw all listed cryptos as well as USD. So a big benefit is that you are more flexible concerning currency transfers.
90
No leverage
- Spot markets: 0.2%
Yobit again is a trading giant especially in terms of middle to low marketcap coins, somewhat comparable to Cryptopia. If you are searching for specific low cap altcoins you're likely to find them on Yobit.
Leverage is not supported and order types are as basic as can be, even no stop loss order, just limit buy and sell - but that suits well for beginners. Many altcoins can be traded against ETH, DOGE and even WAVES, besides BTC of course.
Fiat currencies are supported (USD, RUR) for deposits and cashouts. And you can trade many Altcoins against USD or RUR.
Geographical Restrictions for Altcoin Brokers
In recent years, a lot has happened in the crypto sector in many countries in terms of regulation. Whether and to what extent the acquisition and trading of cryptocurrencies is permitted depends on the individual countries.
In the majority of countries worldwide, to our knowledge, the acquisition and possession of cryptocurrencies is permitted. This usually includes trading as long as it is simple spot market trades.
However, the legal situation becomes more complicated or restrictive with regard to leveraged trading, especially when it comes to CFDs or derivatives. The latter is prohibited for retail traders e.g. in the USA and a number of other countries.
Whether and to what extent the platforms listed above may be used therefore depends on the country in which a user is located and/or on his citizenship.
Altcoin Trading – Fundamentals and Considerations
What makes an Altcoin / Blockchain Project useful?
At the moment there are several thousands of altcoins on the cryptocurrency market – but to be honest, the big majority of them will likely not survive long-term.
The reason is simple: Many of those altcoins don't really solve a problem in their specific field.
Blockchain projects only make sense, in cases where a decentralization of data and the characteristics of a shared system would be highly beneficial for the users of an application.
The characteristics or special benefits of an open blockchain system are, that it is a peer-to-peer, borderless (worldwide, ignoring country borders made by man), neutral (not asking for background information of any user), non-stop operating system, that doesn’t require permission of authorities, and which is securing data immutably. Money is an excellent field where all those characteristics make sense and solve problems of the prevailing traditional money system.
Other Examples of useful Blockchain Projects:
Anonymous payments, decentralized VPN, Smart contracts, trading platforms, webhosting or filesharing – think of each of those applications as an open, borderless, neutral and immutable blockchain without single companies having power over the system or without the possibility for authorities to claim certain behaviours like prohibitions, restrictions or surveillance.
But there are altcoins where an open blockchain system simply doesn't make any sense compared to just using a traditional database system.
Examples: An adult movie video blockchain system isn't beneficial for anybody and doesn't solve problems of existing database-based video platforms (people can use thousends of websites for free already, and who cares if the files get safed in an immutable blockchain?).
Healthcare is also a field, where it is questionable if immutable data storage forever might really be beneficial. In cases of misdiagnosis, the incorrect data about a patient shouldn't be stored immutably. If health insurances would take the patient data on the blockchain to decide if someone gets an insurance or not, incorrect data, which cannot be changed anymore, could be a big problem for people. Blockchain would simply not solve any problems of currents data systems in that area.
What also often happens, is that existing altcoins just get a little modified and then launched as new coins. Who, for instance, needs dozens of anonymous payment coins?
Some people even think that no other coin than Bitcoin is going to last, especially if all the benefits of other innovative crypto projects should get implemented in Bitcoin as well.
Conclusion on Altcoin Trading
The truth is that the vast majority of altcoins are rather useless and often even just scams made to enrich the creators. That’s why you should always be aware that altcoin trading is nothing but gambling. You should never see an altcoin as a long-term investment.
There is likely no such thing as a serious investment in one of those projects, apart from Bitcoin and - maybe - Ethereum. Bitcoin itself is risky as well, no doubt about that, but it’s the only crypto project so far that can be taken for serious, rather than all the others, which are just tired attempts to create the “next big thing”.
But the one big innovation has already happened: Bitcoin. Everything else is kind of a weary copy. People create blockchain projects similar to Bitcoin, but with new fancy features on top, hoping that their new coin will be seens as another big innovation..
So if you want to trade altcoins for profit, only do it short-term, like with day trades or swing trades. It’s not recommended to hold altcoins for months or even years. If you want to understand how you can profit from altcoin trading, read the crypto trading book for beginners:
