Poloniex

Poloniex Exchange Review – Introduction

Poloniex is a small exchange with a very long history. It was established in 2014, and has been providing reliable crypto trading services since then. With a solid selection of essential trading and financial features, Poloniex is a worthwhile consideration for basic crypto trading with a focus on privacy.

In our Poloniex review, we’ll take a closer look at all features, deposit and withdraw methods, fees, safety and other factors.

Who is Poloniex Best For?

• First time buyers: For first-time crypto purchases, Poloniex is not the best choice. You can deposit fiat (local currency) to the exchange only through 3rd party services, which usually charge high fees. Other notable but missing beginner-friendly features include quick convert, recurring buys, fiat withdrawals, and demo trading.
• Casual traders: For casual investors who wish to occasionally trade crypto, Poloniex can be a very good choice. Its spot market lists more than 750 altcoins, most with adequate volume and liquidity. As for features, beginner traders will appreciate copy trading, trading bots, margin trading, and staking.
• Professional traders: High-demanding crypto day traders can use Poloniex to trade Futures, but only a dozen altcoins are tradable on derivatives. Traders can also take out crypto loans and use high leverage to make the most our of their capital. Plus, features like subaccounts, dark themed UI and (relatively) optional KYC make the exchange suitable for all kinds of traders.

Pros and Cons

DEPOSITS – How to Deposit Money to Poloniex?

At the moment, there are no direct fiat (traditional currency) deposit methods. Instead, to deposit fiat onto Poloniex, you will need to use integrated 3rd party payment gateways, currently including Simplex and Mercuryo. Or, you can trade directly with other exchange users in the P2P marketplace.

1. Depositing via gateways

By using these 3rd party gateways, users can deposit through Visa or Mastercard, SEPA (Euro) bank transfers, ACH (US dollar) bank transfers, or alternative methods such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Revolut.

Downside to using third-party services are of course fees: these gateways will typically charge you 3.5% to 5% of your crypto purchase in fees. Considering there are many beginner-friendly exchanges out there with zero fees for bank transfers and cheaper card fees, using 3rd party gateways is rarely the most cost-efficient choice.

On the plus side, both of these gateways are fully integrated into Poloniex. Using them to buy crypto will ensure your funds arrive straight to your Poloniex wallet as soon as transactions clear (depends on payment method).

2. Depositing via P2P marketplace

Surprisingly, Poloniex has a very active peer-to-peer marketplace. You can use USD, SGD, INR, VND, CAD, AUD, TWD, RUB, GBP, HKD, EUR, NGN, IDR, PHP, KHR, BRL, AED, MYR, TRY, THB, UAH, GEL, KZT, PKR and MOP currencies.

Available payment methods are even more varied. You can purchase crypto with Alipay, WeChat, Payeer, Neteller, and many other global or local banks, e-wallets or payment services. For example, in Pakistan, you can use JazzCash and Easypaisa. Users using KZT can use Kapsi Bank, Eurasian Bank, Freedom bank or ForteBank, for instance.

Available payment methods will depend on selected currency. In most cases, you can expect fees around 1% or 2%, making the P2P market a very viable alternative for buying crypto.

3. Depositing cryptocurrency

In case you already own crypto, you can of course deposit crypto assets directly onto Poloniex. You can deposit any of the 750+ assets listed on Spot market, and none of them have any deposit fees.

WITHDRAWALS – How to Withdraw From Poloniex?

Unfortunately, Poloniex doesn’t have direct fiat withdrawals. Instead, you can use the integrated Mercuryo to receive funds. You can withdraw directly to your Visa or Mastercard with a 3.95% fee. Mercuryo currently doesn’t support any other withdrawal methods.

Once again, you can use Poloniex’s P2P marketplace to sell crypto directly to other users. When selling crypto through P2P the fees can be all over the place, so it’s important to really review the pricing to ensure a good deal.

Alternatively, you can of course withdraw crypto assets directly to your self-custody wallets and other crypto exchanges. And lastly, you can use the off-chain Internal transfer to send money to another Poloniex user instantly and without fees.

Cryptocurrency withdrawal fees are 1.20 USDT for TRC-20, 0.20 XRP for Ripple network, 3 ADA for Cardano, and 0.1 SUI for Sui blockchain. Overall, the fees are acceptably low and competitive with other exchanges. You can generally withdraw any amount of crypto for less than $1 in total fees.

TRADING – How to Trade Crypto on Poloniex?

On Poloniex, you can trade cryptocurrency assets on Spot, Margin, and Futures markets. Inexperienced users can also attempt Copy Trading as a beginner-friendly introduction to trading.

1. Spot Trading

Users who simply wish to own some Bitcoin, Ethereum, or some other alternative asset (altcoin) should just stick to the spot market. On spot, you can trade any of the listed 750 altcoins.

If the user interface (UI) looks scary at first, simply go through the quick tutorial by clicking the “User Guide” in top right corner. Next to this is also the customize button, which opens up a settings screen where experienced traders can enable deeper interface customization options.

Overall, the UI is very customizable. You can drag-and-drop, hide/show and resize all panels. Market Trades and Order Book can be fully hidden! We don’t have any UI complaints: it’s functional, familiar, and offers a good degree of customization.

In spot trading, you can use standard Limit, Market and TP/SL orders. Additionally, Stop-Limit, Stop-Market and Trailing Stop are also available.

2. Margin Trading

For better capital allocation, experienced traders can also engage in Margin trading. In Margin, you can use borrowed funds to essentially trade with leverage. It works very similar to Spot trading, but inexperienced users should likely steer clear of Margin trading until they get a better grasp of how crypto trading works.

3. Futures Trading

Day traders will likely use Futures market to bet long or short. Cross and Isolated margin modes are both available (with one-way or hedge trading modes), and maximum leverage is 100X.

Note: unlike most no-kyc crypto exchanges, Poloniex will require you to complete KYC to trade derivatives market (Futures).

Poloniex UI is not nearly as good for Futures trading as it is for Spot. On Futures, the user interface offers almost no customization. Only default layout is available, and none of the panels can be resized, moved or removed.

However, that’s not even the biggest downside. You can only trade a basic selection of dozen or so assets on Futures. Currently, these include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Pepe, Shiba Inu, Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, Binance Coin, Litecoin, Tron, Bitcoin Cash, Aptos, and Avalanche. This is a basic selection of popular assets, but will likely be insufficient for majority of experienced altcoin traders.

Nevertheless, traders who mainly wish to speculate on Bitcoin or other top-tier coins may find the selection satisfactory. Trading volume and liquidity is mostly low on this exchange, but will be adequate even when opening 6-figure position sizes.

4. Copy Trading

Verified Poloniex users can use Copy Trading, but we’re very disappointed with the offering. You will only find a couple dozen lead traders on Poloniex, and judging by their trading history none are truly worth following. In fact, during our review it seemed like most of them haven’t even been active recently.

Users who specifically wish to try copytrading can easily find many better platforms. Using copy trading on Poloniex is only available on Futures market, and will thus require completing identity verification.

Fees Comparison – Is Poloniex Cheap for Crypto Trading?

• On Spot, default trading fees are 0.20% per transaction. In short, buying or selling $1,000 worth of crypto will cost $2 in fees.
• On Futures, minimum fee (Maker order) is 0.015%, and maximum fee (Taker order) is 0.05%. For a $1,000 trade, you will pay either $0.15 or $0.5 in fees, depending on your order type.

When we compare the fees to other CEXs, Poloniex is average among 30+ other exchanges by default. However, this doesn’t account for any fee discounts you can receive.

How to reduce trading fees on Poloniex

Easiest way to reduce both Spot and Futures trading fees by another 10% is to use Cexfinder’s signup link for Poloniex – there’s absolutely no cost or downside to it. The link or our referral code “JNBF3WNU will apply a 10% fee discount to your account.

Furthermore, you can reduce Spot fees by another 30% if you pay them with TRX or HTX, Poloniex’s native tokens (HTX is technically HTX exchange‘s native token). On Futures, fee reductions are obtained via VIP levels. VIP levels require trading volume, or holding a certain amount in native tokens.

Even with fee discounts (10% referral + 30% native token), Spot fees are still ~50% higher compared to largest exchanges such as Binance, Bybit, OKX, KuCoin or Gate. However, first spot VIP level is relatively easy to get (10,000 USDT volume).

For a more comprehensive breakdown see our Poloniex Fees section above (“Trading Fees” tab). Alternatively, Poloniex fees page always displays fees transparently.

TOP FEATURES – What Else Does Poloniex Have?

1. Trading Bots

The only trading bots Poloniex has are Spot and Futures Grid Bots. The Spot Grid Bot will let you buy BTC, TRX or ETH, and sell at pre-defined parameters. On the other hand, the Futures Grid Bot will let you go long, short or neutral on all Futures-listed coins.

As mentioned, there are no additional trading bots. Users who wish to dabble with automated trading should find other exchanges with more trading bots. Our top recommendations include Bitget or Gate.io. Privacy-focused traders can consider Pionex as the best option.

2. Earn

In Earn section, you can on-chain stake a dozen assets such as ATOM, BNB, ADA, EOS, SOL, AVAX, and more. Compared to other exchanges, staking yields are competitive on some coins, and low on others.

Additionally, both Flexible and Fixed duration staking is available for over 50 other crypto coins. You can receive a 10% flexible APY (annual return) on USDT, and 6% on USDD. On Bitcoin, you can earn 3% per year, and 6% on Ethereum. Returns are always fluctuating, so it’s best to check Poloniex for live rates.

Overall, the Earn provides a safe way to earn passive income with your Spot holdings without effort or trading risks. You won’t find the greatest selection of assets on Poloniex, but the ones that are available include a good selection of blue chip assets, mid-market cap coins, and memecoins. A diverse selection of assets suitable for anyone’s portfolio.

3. Signup Rewards

By completing certain deposit or trading tasks, you can earn yourself fee rebates, spot coupons, and futures trial fund coupons. All these can be used to offset fees or margin interest, or in the case of futures trial fund vouchers, use the funds to trade with.

Additional new-user exclusive tasks are also available. For signup, KYC verification, first deposit and first spot trade, you can earn up to 600 USDT in crypto. In reality your rewards will be a lot less, but new users should definitely check out the Reward Center and claim some of these rewards.

Don’t miss that using Cexfinder’s referral link gives you a 10% trading fee discount. Plus if you trade at least 500 USDT within 7 days of signing up, you will receive an exclusive Mystery Box that has a chance to contain up to 100 USDT worth of crypto.

4. Subaccounts

By using subaccounts, high-risk traders can ensure their funds remain safe from any large liquidation events. Similarly, traders can use subaccounts to isolate assets and more easily track different trading strategies or manage multiple different portfolios in the same exchange account.

Strangely, using the subaccounts requires completing KYC process. For users who prefer trading without providing their identity, this can be a deal breaker.

5. Optional KYC

As previously mentioned, Poloniex has optional KYC. This means that you can trade on the exchange without necessarily verifying your identity. It’s important to note that users can only trade on Spot without verification. Verification will be required to access any kind of derivatives trading (Futures, trading bots, and some other features).

Unverified accounts are able to deposit unlimited crypto assets, but can only withdraw up to $10,000 worth of crypto each day. With verification, the daily withdrawals increase to $500,000.

SAFETY – Is Poloniex a Safe Exchange?

Poloniex has been operating since 2014, and has had its ups and downs over the years. When it comes to safety, Poloniex is certainly not considered the safest exchange in the market, but its long experience and perseverance has turned it into a well-known and mostly very reliable exchange.

Let’s take a look at some of the most important safety and security factors:

• History: Established in 2014 and operating for more than 10 years. Company is mostly linked to Justin Sun, a well-known figure in the crypto community. In 2018, Poloniex was acquired by another major crypto company Circle.
• Funds safety: Publishes Merkle Proof monthly Proof of Reserves reports. No customer assets have been missing in any previous reports. Over 90% of customer deposits are stored in cold (offline) wallets, ensuring no funds can get stolen in case of hacks.
• Previous hacks: Last known major hack was in November 2023, when more than $100 million was reportedly stolen from hot wallets. No customers lost funds as exchange reimbursed all victims with their own funds.
• Bug bounty: Active bug bounty program on Hackenproof helps ensure platform bugs and exploits get reported and fixed.
• Coin trackers: As per CoinMarketCap, Poloniex is typically within top 100 Spot and top 50 Futures by trading volume. CoinGecko rated the exchange with a 6/10 as the world’s #91 exchange.
• Security certifications: Cer.live (crypto exchange certification platform) rated Poloniex with CCC rating, or 52/100 score. Server security is 94 and user security at 82 out of 100. No platform penetration tests have been done.
• Funds insurance: In the event of abnormal platform activity and liquidations, a $4+ million insurance fund is available to reimburse users.
• Regulatory licenses: Poloniex has no known regulatory, governmental or institutional licenses or approvals. During the USA’s crypto crackdown in 2021, Poloniex settled with the SEC for a $10 million fine for operating an unlicensed exchange service to users from United States.
• User account security: 2FA is available via Passkeys, Google Authenticator, email and SMS. Withdrawal whitelist prevents funds from being withdrawn to newly added addresses. Device management and account activity will help you identity all logged in devices and locations. Email notifications are sent upon every login, and quick account freeze option can prevent any unauthorized actions.
• Customer support: Support center includes many helpful trading and getting started guides. These will answer most of the common questions about how to use the exchange. For any other issues, live chat with customer support is available 24/7.

Is Poloniex Safe or Scam?

There’s no evidence that Poloniex is s scam exchange. It mostly operates in the grey area, with very little oversight or regulatory approvals. The platform is unavailable in a few countries, mainly sanctioned regions, and of course the United States.

The platform uses most of the essential safety and security practices such as cold wallets and proof of reserves, adding confidence in asset security. User account security methods are sufficient to prevent most cases of unauthorized use, but could be further improved with anti-phishing codes, trading passwords, or similar methods.

Additional regulatory licensing and registrations would be a welcome sight in the future. Right now, there are no notable licenses or even partnerships that would provide additional peace of mind that Poloniex is safe to trade on.

If you hold a sizeable portfolio, it’s best to spread funds to multiple exchanges or decentralized wallets. This exchange has been operating for over 10 years, after all – and there’s no proof to suggest Poloniex might freeze or steal your funds. However, it’s always best to be cautious with smaller exchanges, and only keep a smaller portion of funds on the exchange required for trading.

Conclusion – Should You Use Poloniex For Trading?

Poloniex is a very old but still small exchange with mostly basic crypto trading features. It’s a pretty good platform for basic Spot trading, where you can enjoy an excellent user interface and relatively cheap trading fees. For advanced traders, it leaves a lot to be desired: average fees plus only a dozen assets on derivatives don’t make it a viable platform for most day traders.

One of Poloniex’s biggest selling points is their privacy-focused no-KYC policy. But unlike most platforms, you won’t be able to trade Futures without completing KYC.

In the end, Poloniex is still a fairly recognizable and trusted name in the crypto trading game due to its long history. But for vast majority of traders, better alternatives exist.