Poloniex Review – Is poloniex.com a Secure Trading Platform?

Poloniex Review

If you are a crypto-trader or a cryptocurrency enthusiast, you must have heard about a really famous crypto-exchange known as Poloniex. However, if you are not sure if it is the right one for you, do not worry. We are going to provide you a comprehensive review of Poloniex and everything you must know about it.

First, we are going to dig into some of the background knowledge, including who Poloniex is, and where this crypto-exchange is based. We will then move on to give you details on a complete list of advantages as well as the disadvantages of Poloniex, which will be followed by explaining their fee schedule.

We will also get you an answer for the most critical questions, i.e., is it safe you use Poloniex as your primary crypto-exchange. Finally, we will give you a complete step-to-step guide for how you can get yourself a Poloniex account as in how to set it up. Additionally, you will also learn how you can use Poloniex.

So let us not keep you waiting any longer, dive right into it. So let us first find out what Poloniex does?

Foundation of Poloniex

It was 2014 when Poloniex appeared on the horizon of a cryptocurrency exchange for the first time. It was launched by Tristan D’Agosta with the head office in Delaware, United States of America. It means this crypto-exchange operates in a highly regulated environment.

Poloniex allows its users to purchase, sell, and trade a lot of different types of cryptocurrencies. It includes the world’s famous coins such as Bitcoin and Ethereum; however, you will also be able to find some of the less popular ones on this extraordinary exchange.

Poloniex is a cryptocurrency exchange that is probably one of the most used. It has daily trading volumes that yield more than a hundred million USD. Poloniex makes its money through charging a fee from its customers while they indulge in everyday trade on the Poloniex platform. The fee is payable by both the sellers as well we the buyers.

For more experienced crypto-traders, Poloniex also provides additional services. These services include Poloniex lending and even margin trading. You even get an option to use Poloniex’s lending bot for the automation of your Poloniex lending. This bot is known as Aivren.

However, you must note here that Poloniex lending is a mechanism when an investor borrows money in order to buy larger amounts. When investors use this technique through Poloniex, they are actually borrowing funds from other crypto-users on the exchange. Of course, these users earn interests on top of whatever they lend to the investors.

This was a brief history of Poloniex cryptocurrency exchange. Now let us have a look at what are the pros and cons of using Poloniex.

Pros and Cons of Using a Cryptocurrency Exchange Platform

Just like anything in life (especially in the world of trading), every cryptocurrency exchange has its advantages and disadvantages. They may excel in some departments and fall short in other aspects. Some people prefer to trade with cryptocurrency exchanges offering the lowest fees; whereas, others may prefer using an exchange that facilitates the option of fiat deposits.

It is the main reason why it is so essential to consider everything and weigh all your options before you decide to open up and account with a cryptocurrency exchange. So let us first have a look at the list of pros and cons for Using Poloniex as your choice for your cryptocurrency exchange.

Advantages

One of the most important advantages for you to use Poloniex is something we mentioned earlier, i.e., the massive variety of cryptocurrencies it offers on the platform.

Apart from the top two leading crypto-coins, i.e., Bitcoin and Ethereum, Poloniex also offers services for major coins, including Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Monero, and Steem. Not only that, but Poloniex also has smaller lesser-known cryptocurrencies such as Bela, Blackcoin, and Bursts on its lists.

Apart from the exchange, Poloniex also offers an impressive selection of tools that are essential as well as effective when it comes to crypto-trading. These tools include candlestick charts with a duration of five minutes to a maximum of four hours.

Other tools include stop-limit orders as well as the ability for you to zoom in or out of any of the charts you wish to view. However, it does not mean that Poloniex as a crypto-exchange is not suitable for the novices. It may sound complicated but trust us; it has a very user-friendly and simple to use interface for all crypto-traders from beginners to experts.

Another advantage of using Poloniex is the fact that this cryptocurrency exchange is based within the United States of America. It means the exchange has to abide by certain strict regulations that are set in place by the government of the US.

It also means that Poloniex, as an exchange, must always make that it makes every effort in its power to keep the funds of its customers safe.

Additionally, Poloniex must also take precautions and measures to keep the crime away from its exchange platform as well as from its user base. Or else, if anything goes sideways, Poloniex is very well aware that the United States regulators will slap Poloniex with a massive fine.

So, is Poloniex a safe cryptocurrency exchange platform? We would guess the answer is certainly yes!

While talking more about the advantages of Poloniex, another huge benefit of using this amazing crypto-exchange is it has a large and extensive amount of liquidity. This is especially worth checking when it comes to altcoins pairings.

This is extremely important to crypto-traders, as it means and guarantees that there will always be someone available on Poloniex exchange for you to trade with. This factor also reduces the overall risks of volatility that is part and parcel of cryptocurrency trading.

Talking about the fee for using the exchange, Poloniex is undoubtedly one of the best and the most popular in the cryptocurrency universe for making withdrawals and deposits. It is only because all you will ever need to pay is the blockchain transaction fee.

There are a lot of competitor cryptocurrency exchanges in the market, who make their profits by even charging you when you make withdrawals of your funds. We believe this is really not fair for the customers. It is because these cryptocurrency exchanges make money from the customers every time they trade and then even charge them for withdrawing the money the customers earned.

Trading fees charged by Poloniex exchange is also very reasonable. As a crypto-trader, you will only ever have to pay a maximum fee limit of 0.25 percent. More promisingly, this fee reduces as and when your trading volume gets bigger.

Another additional advantage of using Poloniex as your choice of cryptocurrencies exchange is that you will never have to verify your identity unless it is a very large sum of money you are trading in.

In fact, unless you are looking to indulge in crypto-trading with an amount higher than $2000, you will be able to trade anonymously on Poloniex.  One of the main reasons Poloniex allows you to do this is because they do not have any links or connections with the traditional real-world money.

Now last but not the least, if you are facing any issues or you need assistance, Poloniex offers all its users an excellent range of services that you can choose from. It includes live chat, email, and ticket support. We would personally always prefer a crypto-exchange that can offer us a live chat option.

This way, you can always get support right away while you are struggling with any aspect of conducting your business on Poloniex.

Now that you have a good understanding of all the pros of Poloniex let us move on the cons of the exchange.

Disadvantages

To begin with, one of the major disadvantages when using Poloniex exchange is, it does not allow its users to use any of the traditional payment methods. These include bank accounts as well as credit and debit card payments.

Yes, we know it can come as a bit of shock as well as disappointment, plus it can get quite annoying at times. This is a bit of a pickle of a situation for the first time users; you are trying to make a deposit to get on with the crypto-trading. So you will have to fund your Poloniex account by using a cryptocurrency instead of conventional money transfers.

There are other cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase that allow its users to withdraw and deposit funds using real-world currencies. However, these platforms also lack in the variety of cryptocurrencies and offer only four types of cryptocurrencies. Poloniex on the other hand provides a range of coins from high to low end.

If you do not hold any type of cryptocurrencies right now, then the best way will be first to buy Ethereum or Bitcoin from platforms such a Coinbase. You can then transfers these coins directly to your Poloniex account.

The second disadvantage of using Poloniex cryptocurrency exchange is, there are still concerns and questions prevailing in the market regarding Poloniex’s security. The reason for this trend is a huge hack that the platform faced back in 2014. The perpetrators got away with stealing 12.3 percent of Poloniex’s entire Bitcoin supply.

However, the owner of Poloniex exchange Tristan D’Agosta paid all the users back the money they lost a few months later. He did that managing to increase Poloniex’s trading fees temporarily and he contributes from his own pocket as well.

Luckily for Poloniex owner in 2014, when the hacking incident happened, Bitcoin was only worth $500. If the same incident had happened later in December the same year, Bitcoin was worth $20,000, and the hack would have cost him just under $2 million.

Poloniex Fees

Although we briefly mentioned Poloniex’s trading fees earlier in the review. We think it would be better to give you additional details about the fee structure.

As you know by now that as a crypto-trader, you only pay a fee at 0.25 percent, which is the maximum limit. In case your volume trade grows bigger, your fee will reduce. You must also note that this trade volume is calculated every 30 days by Poloniex.

However, in order to get there to start saving even a 0.01 percent on your fee charges, you will be required to trade a minimum of 600 Bitcoins in 30 days time period, and we think that is a lot of trading.

Binance, which is a rival crypto-exchange to Poloniex, only charges its traders/users merely 0.1 percent to advance to this level. If Binance starts charging 0.01 like Poloniex, you will need 24,000 Bitcoin trading per month.

How Do You Create A Poloniex Account?

If you have read our article this far and want to continue after knowing all the pros and cons. Chances are you have almost made up your mind that Poloniex is the right crypto-exchange for you. If your answer is nodding yes, then it is time for you to learn how to go ahead and create your Poloniex account.

 Let us show you how you can do it, and simply follow the below-mentioned steps.

1. The first thing that you will need to do is get online and go to Poloniex’s website.
2. The next step will be to click on the option saying, “Create Your Account.”
3. You will now be asked to enter your country you are residing in currently, your email address, and in the last, you will have to think of a strong password.
4. Once you are done with that, it is not time to go and check your email inbox as Poloniex will send you a confirmation email. Open that email and click on the link given inside.
5. Click on this link, and I will redirect you back to the Poloniex website, where you can log in to your account.

Poloniex’s Account Verification Levels

You now know that Poloniex offers a lower fee for crypto-traders with higher trading volumes of BTC. However, if you stick with the first level of verification, you will not be allowed to withdraw more than $2,000 in a day from Poloniex.

Therefore, you will have to opt for two-level verification for flexibility in how much you can withdraw. This level will require your postal address, your physical address, and passport, date of birth, and phone number. You will have to upload the photos of your passport and government-issued ID.

Once these are verified and approved, you will be able to get an increased withdrawal and deposit limits of up to $25,000 per day.

How to Deposit Funds on Poloniex?

First of all, you will need an account to deposits the funds on Poloniex. And you also know now that you can neither use conventional money, not your credit or debit card, or your bank account to transfer the money. You will have to buy cryptocurrency first and then transfer it to your Poloniex account.

For example, here I am going to deposit some Bitcoin cash into my Poloniex account. Just follow these simple steps.

1. At the top of your screen, you will see an option for “Balances,” hover your mouse over and click on “deposits and withdrawals.”
2. Now you will see a list of cryptocurrencies you can purchase. Towards the right side of the web page, search for the crypto-coins you wish to deposit with.
3. Select the coins and click on “Deposit” on the right side of your screen.
4. Now you will be presented with a unique deposit address for the crypto-coins you wish to transfer into your Poloniex account’s fund. Always remember, there is a different address for each cryptocurrency, so do not send Litecoin to Bitcoin Cash address.

And voila! You have successfully deposited the funds into your newly created Poloniex account.

How Can You Trade on Poloniex?

In order to begin trading on Poloniex, just follow these steps.

1. Trading on Poloniex is a simple and straight forward affair. You can begin by making sure that you have enough funds in your Poloniex account. Please note that certain cryptocurrencies require a minimum deposit; you can check this before you start trading.
2. Once you are all set for trading, select an appropriate tab on the available markets.
3. Now select the cryptocurrency that you want to trade in and select your trading pair.
4. From here, you can now choose to purchase or sell via entering your desired price as well as coins’ quantity. You will get the choice to either manually enter the amount, or you can select the option for the lower asking price. Another option is to choose an order from an order book.
5. Now click on “Buy,” and the Poloniex system will get searching for counter-party automatically.
6. Your order will get filled if a matching request is found. If not, then it will go into the order book and wait there for a similar order to be entered by another user at some point. Once it is filled, you will be able to view your order in the “Trade History.”

Does Poloniex Offer You Margin Trading?

Poloniex is a market leader when it comes to margin trading. This feature on Poloniex exchange is efficient as well as quick to use, offering peer-to-peer functionality both for borrowing funds as well as starting to margin trade.

You can use Poloniex’s platform to secure your trading funds as well as work with fellow traders through the lending features.

Poloniex Volume

The volume of Poloniex is calculated every 24-hours. So you can keep checking the volume of this crypto-exchange platform every 24-hours to see the trading prices of each cryptocurrency such as BTC, ETH, XMR, and more.

Poloniex Customer Support

One of the very few areas where Poloniex crypto-exchange has earned less than a stellar reputation is their customer services. There are mixed reviews; some find it exceptional, whereas others have tales of long waiting times etc.

Do not blame Poloniex for it. Their team is fantastic at customer services once you get hold of them. However, the wait and delay in everyone getting the customer services immediately is the popularity and high demand of Poloniex as a crypto-exchange.

We would say it can be expected in a dynamic and ever-evolving industry, such as the cryptocurrencies trading arena. To tackle and avoid the delays and to make for their slow response or support time, Poloniex has adequate documentation on their website, especially the support center.

Here you can find answers to any of the most commonly asked questions, such as questions about the basics, guidance on trading, adding coins, fees, the APIs, and much more. You will even find specific sections on their FAQs section to get you started.

You can also get full details about two-factor authentication, withdrawals, deposits, and how to get support. With all these resources at your disposal, you are highly unlikely to need contacting Poloniex customer support team, unless you are facing a technical problem.

Overall, the customers are satisfied with the services provided by Poloniex exchange. Some customers do complain about the restriction of having to transfer or deposit funds in the form of cryptocurrency.

They believe it would be a fantastic idea and give them a sense of freedom if Poloniex could allow them to transfer funds using their bank account and credit or debit card. However, we know that is not an option because Poloniex does not have any relationship with the conventional real-world currency or money.

Conclusion

Now that you have fully read our review for Poloniex and how it ranks as a leading and one of the most efficient crypto-exchange platform, you have all the information you need. You know how to create an account, deposit funds, the pros and cons, and related charges or fees.

With all this knowledge in hand, you just have to ask yourself a simple question. Is Poloniex a crypto-exchange platform for me? If the answer is yes, then all you need is to set your affairs and get on with creating an account and buying crypto-coins so you can transfer cryptocurrency into your newly created Poloniex account.