For everybody who’s still relatively new in crypto, usually, they will go to fiat-to-crypto exchange to trade their US dollars or other fiat currencies to Bitcoin. The problem is, these exchanges usually don’t provide many options besides Bitcoin, Ethereum, and some other top altcoins. More often than not, there isn’t much liquidity outside Bitcoin/local-fiat trading pair itself.
The problem with this type of exchanges is that you might be tempted to trade crypto-to-crypto at a more rapid pace and with deeper liquidity. For example, Coinbase is an excellent gateway to exchange your fiat to Bitcoin. But, when you want to trade Bitcoin against top 100 altcoins, you might want to seek elsewhere.
So, where are the best crypto exchanges to trade Bitcoin against altcoins? Let’s get straight to it!
Binance
The most famous crypto exchange, Binance, is also the best place to trade your Bitcoin against altcoins. They have a wide range of altcoins you can choose from, even the less popular crypto like Chiliz, Populous, Kava, Tael, and many others. Apart from that, Binance also has deep liquidity for these altcoins. Most other exchanges have much worse liquidity, although it depends on which altcoin, though.
What I like the most from Binance is the fact that they keep changing the withdrawal fee, and they set the industry’s standard. For example, withdrawing USDT used to be expensive, but nowadays, you can withdraw it for just a fee of 0.98 USDT.
Binance also has what they call as Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), which is basically an insurance fund to protect and replace users’ lost money in case of a hacking incident. Overall, I put Binance on top of the list simply because they keep expanding, and they have enough liquidity to support different types of altcoin trading pairs.
Huobi Global
Huobi is one of the older players in the cryptocurrency exchange space. It’s been here since many years ago, and they are still relevant, even until today. Although they have been continuously accused of wash trading, but overall, they still have decent liquidity. People with personal experience trading in Huobi would agree that they actually have a good number of real traders.
CoinMarketCap’s new liquidity metrics also help us to filter inflated trading volume numbers. And as expected, Huobi is still one of the top 5 rankings using this same metric. Just like Binance, you can also find hundreds of different trading pairs here, involving less-known tokens and coins. The withdrawal process is also quite easy and not complicated.
Kraken
Kraken is one of the most trusted crypto exchanges with three different licenses in the US and the UK. According to CoinMarketCap’s liquidity calculation, Kraken is also one of the highest, above even Coinbase and some other top exchanges. And yes, you can also find good amount of altcoins here, like Chainlink, BAT, Waves, OmiseGo, ICON, and others.
Kraken also has top-notch customer support dedicated service. The trading process is also pretty straightforward, although the interface can be a bit complicated for new traders. If you decide to try Kraken, you might also want to try their margin trading feature.
ZB.com
Relatively unknown to casual crypto traders until the recent years, ZB.com has decent volume as well for crypto-to-crypto trading pairs. You can find over 100 trading pairs here and some lower cap cryptocurrencies can have decent trading volume here, several of them even above Binance and Huobi.
Unfortunately, the platform is not really optimized for the global audience. When you go to the website, for a brief second, you will see the header written in Chinese. When the page finally finishes loading, it will automatically “translate” to English. The homepage layout also looks quite similar to many other Chinese crypto exchanges.
That being said, ZB still worth to be mentioned here due to their decent liquidity for many altcoin trading pairs. It’s not perfect, and they are not trying to invent a new formula, but at least they have what the crypto traders are looking for, liquidity for smaller altcoins.
OKEx
OKEx used to be sitting comfortably on the first spot of CoinMarketcap’s crypto exchange ranking. However, many users accused them of wash trading, something that they have denied continuously. Nowadays, CoinMarketCap has introduced a new mechanism to judge how busy a crypto exchange is, and it’s called “Liquidity.” Surprisingly, OKEx still has a decent level of liquidity, although it’s still far under Binance or Huobi.
And yes, OKEx still deserves to be here, because you can trade plenty of different altcoins with the platform. Just like typical other Chinese exchanges, OKEx provides an easy opportunity for smaller cap coins to get listed here.
Personally, I do not really recommend OKEx, unless you cannot find the altcoin you are looking for on Binance, Huobi, and Kraken.
KuCoin
KuCoin is also one of the decent crypto-to-crypto exchanges with a good selection of altcoins. If you cannot find specific altcoin on Binance or Huobi, you might be able to find it on KuCoin. Alts like V System, Trias, Kambria, or Electroneum are all available on KuCoin. They also have a good alt that is not available elsewhere, Kucoin Shares (KCS).
Based in Hong Kong, KuCoin continues the tradition of Asia-based crypto exchange that likes to list plenty of altcoins with a good level of liquidity. The User Interface can be confusing to some, but you will get used to it after some time.
Bitfinex
The most controversial crypto exchange in the world, Bitfinex, actually has a good amount of trading volume and a good number of altcoins. On Bitfinex, you can find lesser-known alts like FunFair, WOLLO, FTX, Aragon, Aventus, and many other alts you might haven’t even heard of. In terms of liquidity, they are actually competing quite closely against other top exchanges, like Binance and Huobi.
The only reason why I put them here (instead of the 1st or 2nd ranking) is simply because of their controversial past. For your information, Bitfinex has been accused over and over again for mistreating Tether’s funds as well as manipulating Bitcoin market.
Bitmax
Not to be confused with the most popular crypto derivatives exchange called BitMex, this exchange is more popular for spot trading. BitMax first became famous for its BTMX token’s trans-mining, but now it has decent trading volume for plenty of other alts. The deposit and withdrawal processes are also very straightforward, and BitMax always process them instantly.
BitMax themselves got their capital from big companies, such as BitMain, Matrix Partners China, FBG Capital, and others. They might have much less liquidity than Huobi or Binance. Still, though, they are good enough to be on the list.
You can find the likes of Lambda, Wanchain, FTX, UltrAlpha, and plenty of other alts here on BitMax.
Conclusion
There are some famous crypto exchanges that I do not mention here but generally because they don’t have many selections of altcoins. Also, I do not recommend HitBTC, because they are too controversial compared to some of the names above.
If you are looking to trade Bitcoin against top altcoins like Ethereum or Bitcoin Cash, most likely, Coinbase can easily do the job for you. But again, Coinbase is more known as fiat-to-crypto exchange, and you might want to look at the top selections above if you are looking for a wide range of altcoin selections.