Poloniex Reviews 2025: Fees, Features, Safety, Pros & Cons

Poloniex has a long, convoluted history. The platform is rife with scams and scammers, and the owner, Justin Sun, famously invested in Malta citizenship to evade the long arms of authorities in the US and other places. 

At first glance, the list of problematic issues at Poloniex isn’t very striking: terrible customer support, frozen withdrawals, and lax security are pretty much industry standard when it comes to crypto, and the rare exchange that manages to rise above the scum may reveal itself a fraud the next day ala FTX. 

But as users, fraud victims, journalists, and former employees can tell you, the issues with Poloniex don’t end there: the company is blatantly predatory towards customers. If you put your funds in here, you may never get them back.

In this Poloniex review, we’ll look into all aspects of the exchange, including the fees, features, and the platform’s various controversies, so you can decide if it’s the right platform for you.

Pros & Cons of Poloniex Exchange

Pros

• Over 350 cryptocurrencies for trading
• Competitive fees
• High yields from staking
• Offers many derivatives products, including margin and futures trading

Cons

• Not available to US-based customers
• Not regulated by financial authorities
• One of the founders was arrested for fraud
• There are complaints of fraudulent user activity on the platform
• A significant portion of the exchange’s trading volume might be due to wash-trading

About Poloniex

Poloniex was launched in  2013 and has been sold twice. It was first launched as a US-based cryptocurrency trading platform in Delaware, US. Like many other crypto exchanges, the platform listed several worthless coin projects, allowing traders to invest in scams and drawing the attention of US authorities, mainly the SEC. At the time, anyone could trade on the platform without identity verification.

In 2018, Circle, the blockchain company behind USDC, bought the platform and started enforcing KYC verification. However, the brief period didn’t last long, and Poloniex was sold in 2019 to Tron’s Justin Sun. 

Polonoiex already had a bad reputation as a hotbed of pump and dump activity, and Sun initially denied he bought the exchange. He moved the company to Seychelles, a popular location for crypto ventures, thanks to, as BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes put it, cheap bribes government officials would accept to turn a blind eye to illegal financial activities.

The platform dropped enforced verification after moving to Seychelles to drive up user numbers. KYC verification remains but only as a formality: the system is automated to approve all submissions.

Other controversies included Sun seizing 300 Bitcoins from old wallets (worth around 20 million at the time) and changing the company policies for personal gain. After the CLAM token flash crash in 2019, the platform took 1,800 BTC from the margin pool to socialize 13 million USD worth of debt. 

In 2021, Poloniex was accused of seizing 2 million USD worth of ETC from customer funds to trade on Binance for profit. The platform’s ETC wallet stayed “under maintenance” for about four months while ETC prices soared on other exchanges.

As of 2022, fake Poloniex copy apps are often used for scams. Unsuspecting users are contacted on social media and drawn to the exchange with promises of profit, but they can’t withdraw funds. 

In the meantime, Justin Sun became an advisor to HTX, another unregulated global crypto platform. It seems like, Poloniex’s convoluted trajectory into a pool of scams is about to get even more complicated with the exchange’s plans to “cooperate” or plainly merge with the cryptocurrency exchange HTX.

Crypto Coins Available on Poloniex

Poloniex supports over 350 different cryptocurrencies, including several low-cap altcoins. The wide variety is a boon and curse: Poloniex has been criticized (and sued) for listing obvious pump-and-dump schemes. 

It would be difficult to list all 350+ coins, so here’s a brief overview of some of the well-known crypto coins:

• Bitcoin (BTC)
• Ethereum (ETH)
• Litecoin (LTC)
• Monero (XMR)
• Ripple (XRP)
• BitShares (BTS)
• NEM (XEM)
• Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
• Stellar (XLM)

Fiat Currencies Supported on Poloniex

Poloniex is mainly known as a crypto-to-crypto. As an unregulated crypto trading platform, it doesn’t directly deal with fiat currency but allows traders to buy certain digital assets through Simplex banking.

Simplex supports around 40 fiat currencies, including USD, EUR, AUD, CAD, and GBP.  Users can purchase select digital assets (BTC, ETH, BUSD, ATOM, XRP, AVA, BCH, BNB, XLM, BSV, LTC, DASH, TRX, DAI, and QTUM) with credit and debit cards.

What about fiat withdrawals? Well, technically, you can sell your BTC and USDT for euros and transfer your funds to a bank account via Simplex. In practice, many users report being slapped with exorbitant fees or frozen and suspended withdrawals. Overall, withdrawing from the exchange can be problematic.

Countries Supported on Poloniex

Poloniex isn’t available to US and Canada-based customers. The exchange is supported in most European countries, at least for now.

Poloniex Trading Fees

Spot Trading and Futures Fees

Poloniex has a maker/taker fee model. Spot trading fees start at 0.14% for makers and 0.15% for takers. If you pay with TRX, the fees go down to 0.10%. You can receive further discounts by increasing your 30-day trading volume.

You can check out cross-margin and USDT-M Perpetual futures fees on the Poloniex website.

Deposit and Withdrawal Fees

You pay three or four separate fees when you buy or sell crypto with Simplex. First, the third-party liquidity provider charges a spread that ranges from %1-5. Then, Simplex charges a 3.5-5% or $10 flat fee per transaction. Poloniex also charges a 0.75% fee on top of Simplex fees.

Finally, your bank or card issuer may charge you extra for the service.

Actual Fees

The fees we report above are the fees Poloniex advertises, but many users discover that actual fees are higher when you’re on the exchange. Particularly, the exchange charges you an arm and a leg to convert an altcoin to coins you can withdraw. 

Main Features of the Poloniex Platform

Poloniex offers several features, including a spot market, margin trading, futures trading, and staking. However, there are some downsides to these services.

Poloniex exchange: You can exchange many supported cryptocurrencies for other types of coins on the Poloniex exchange platform; the fees are highly competitive. However, most currencies are not liquid at all, and you won’t be able to trade your assets or withdraw them.

Margin lending: You can lend your crypto in exchange for interest rates. 

Margin trading: Borrow crypto to trade with leverage.

Poloni DEX and IEO launchpad: Raise capital for your crypto projects or invest in other people’s projects. Of course, this feature allows pump and dumpers to list coins on the platform easily.

NFT marketplace: Trade crypto for unique art pieces. Users can also mint and sell their own NFTs.

Poloniex has several reward offerings, including staking rewards, a futures trial fund, and a referral program.

Does Poloniex Offer Rewards?

Staking Rewards

Poloniex allows users to earn passive income from cryptocurrency, like many crypto exchange sites. This means you can earn interest on your crypto while Poloniex puts it to other uses.

Poloniex will return it to you upon request. The longer you leave your crypto in the staking pool, the more interest you will accrue.

One benefit of staking with Poloniex is that there is no minimum lock-up time. On other crypto trading platforms, you’re often required to lock up your crypto for a month or more – sometimes a whole year.

The percentage of what you earn from staking rewards depends on the type of crypto you stake, and the crypto coin also determines your staking fee. For example, Cosmos (ATOM) has a 25% staking fee, while TRON (TRX) doesn’t have a staking fee.

However, high APY doesn’t mean anything if you can’t withdraw your rewards from the platform, which is mostly the case.

Futures Trial Fund

The platform offers a futures trial fund to any user completing a future task. The value of the futures trial fund cannot be withdrawn, but you can use it to trade futures. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to withdraw any earnings you make.

You can either earn a trial fund by depositing money in your futures account or by making a futures trade. The size of your fund depends on your trading volume.

You will make $5 when you complete your first transfer to your Futures Account (as long as this deposit is $500 or more). You will make $50 when you make your first transfer trade (as long as this trade is $50,000 or more).

Users have complained that Poloniex doesn’t allow them to withdraw the funds they made using the trial fund.

Poloniex Referral Program

Poloniex offers a referral program that allows Poloniex users to earn by referring friends (or, in this case, enemies) to the platform. Inviters are given referral codes that they can pass on to their peers. Users can find this referral code in account settings.

The invitation is rewarded when a friend signs up using this referral code. You earn 20% of your referral fees.

Once a referral is set up, they can become the inviter and pass their referral codes to other people.

How Easy Is It to Open a Poloniex Account?

Creating a Poloniex account is very easy. All you have to do is register with your email and password. Once you register, you automatically become level 1 verified without doing anything, and you can use almost all exchange functions except for margin trading.

If you provide an ID, you can become level 2 and take advantage of margin trading and custom withdrawal limits. Simply submit a government-issued ID and a selfie.

Since account verification is automatic, it can be completed within minutes. If there are issues,  check out the FAQs on the website.

How Secure Is Poloniex?

The public doesn’t know much about Poloniex security as the platform isn’t very transparent. The advertised security features include a bug bounty, two-factor authentication (2FA), and new login notifications.

Poloniex was hacked several times, but that’s not the only reason you should be wary of using this exchange. 

The exchange uses the terms and services to seize funds from users, delist coins without foreword, freeze accounts, and withdrawals. The many financial and legal exploits of Justin Sun, owner, have been covered in the media extensively.

According to investigative journalist Harland-Dunaway, Sun instructed employees to fast-track KYCs and seize Bitcoin dust from unused wallets. Sun was also heavily involved in the Hinge/Steemit Saga.

Sun also has the distinction of being the recipient of 200 million USDT from Tether, the highest amount any individual received. Tether, in exchange, uses Sun’s blockchain to issue more USDT than any other.

Has Poloniex Ever Been Hacked?

Poloniex has been hacked a few times.

First, in 2014, when a hacker found a massive gap in the platform’s security measures and was able to hack via the site’s code. They discovered that Poloniex’s software wasn’t checking negative balances immediately and that multiple withdrawals were taking place simultaneously.

The attacker stole $50,000 worth of Bitcoin. Given that the platform was still in its infancy, it could not reimburse all the account holders who lost money. Instead, it reduced the balances of all accounts by 12.3%. This controversial move caused many to lose faith in the site early on.

In 2019, a list of users’ passwords and emails was posted on social media. Poloniex claimed only 5% of the list had accounts on Poloniex.

Hackers also successfully stole $4 million worth of cryptocurrency in late 2020 via the Poloniex exchange platform.

Is Poloniex a Regulated Exchange?

No. Poloniex isn’t a regulated exchange. It’s unavailable to users from Canada and the United States.

How Does Poloniex Compare to Other Crypto Exchanges?

Poloniex looks like your typical global exchange at first glance. It has poor customer reviews but offers many coins, derivatives, and margin trading. The same can be said of its principal rivals like Binance or KuCoin.

Let’s see how it compares to Binance, another global crypto platform.

Fees

Poloniex fees start at 0.14% for makers and 0.15% for takers. If you pay with TRX, the fees go down to 0.10%. Binance spot market fees start at 0.10% for both makers and takers, but there are also several zero-fee trading pairs.

It’s also important to note that buying and selling crypto on Poloniex can be quite costly. You have to pay 3 to 4 different fees for buying crypto on the platform, and it’s uncertain whether you can withdraw your funds from the exchange.

Features

Poloniex and Binance are very similar when it comes to features. Both platforms offer around 350 cryptocurrencies for trading and support margin trading, derivatives, professional trading tools, complex order types, and APIs.

Of course, Binance also has a higher trading volume than Poloniex and offers even more features. Both exchanges have been accused of wash trading, but overall you are far more likely to find liquidity for altcoins on Binance.

Security

Both Binance and Poloniex are hotbeds of criminal activity, money laundering, tax evasion, scams, and fraud. Binance tries its best to play it down (Poloniex no longer can and perhaps doesn’t care as much), as the exchange is in the process of regaining regulator approvals to enter into local markets again.

However, the issue is too big to hide: drug cartels, human traffickers, and various other criminals have used the exchange to launder millions of dollars. Binance is under investigation by the US Justice Department and other regulators.

Poloniex is another story. Exploits of Sun and his exchange has made news, but the exchange doesn’t have the reach of Binance and, thus, has been able to avoid regulators’ attention. But the security is no better: Poloniex is full of scams and operates as a crypto pump-and-dump environment to steal retail investors’ funds. The exchange 

Both exchanges have been hacked several times and had security breaches, regulatory issues, suspicious withdrawal suspensions, and so on. However, Binance is at least usable and, for the most part, functional.

Don’t leave large sums of crypto in centralized crypto exchanges, whether Poloniex or Binance. If the exchange is bankrupt or closed due to regulatory issues, you may lose access to your funds. 

Does Poloniex Have an App?

Yes, Poloniex does have a mobile app. The app is available on both the App Store and Google Play stores. You can trade, deposit and withdraw funds on the mobile app. 

However, you must make sure you download the official app, as there are unofficial scam apps that can use your information to access your funds. Don’t download the app from links sent to you by other people, even if the app looks legit. This is a common scam.

Poloniex Review: Final Thoughts

Most crypto exchanges are problematic: they enable money laundering and fraud, overcharge customers, lie about security and use customer funds to make profits. Yet, they remain functional for the most part until they are bankrupt. 

Poloniex is an exception: it hasn’t gone bankrupt and continues to operate, but it doesn’t function as it should. It’s pretty much become a scam itself. 

Poloniex often delists coins without forewarning, prevents customers from moving their funds, charges exorbitant fees for necessary operations, and freezes user accounts.

Overall, you’re probably better off at another exchange.

If you want to learn more about other cryptocurrency exchange platforms, check out our post on the Best 22 Crypto Exchanges.

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