Note about FTX: The FTX platform has recently collapsed due to huge liquidity issues and alleged fraud. Therefore, this review compares Binance’s features with the now-defunct FTX trading platform.
Click to sign-up with Binance (US Customers use Binance.US)
About the Exchanges
Binance
The Binance cryptocurrency exchange platform is the largest name on the market. The platform has the largest trading volume among crypto exchanges and one of the largest selections of digital currencies.
The platform was launched in 2017, and thanks to its high-quality services and broad range of features, Binance quickly became the leading exchange on the market.
For beginners, Binance has practical instant trading and quick swap options, while experienced traders have an advanced trading interface, spot trading, margin trading, crypto derivatives, and much more at their disposal.
FTX
FTX was one of the largest crypto trading platforms on the market. The platform was launched in 2019, but it managed to become extremely popular in just a few years. FTX was an international crypto exchange that covered a wide range of features, from spot trading, margin trading, and crypto derivatives all the way to NFTs and their own prepaid Visa debit card.
FTX was mainly geared toward experienced users looking for advanced trading features. The exchange had a detailed trading interface with various technical analysis tools and order types.
Pros and Cons
Binance Pros
- Huge selection of over 600 cryptocurrencies.
- Recently acquired FTX.
- A wide range of advanced trading features.
- A simple instant trading feature for beginners.
- Various derivatives options.
- NFT marketplace.
- Great choice of staking options.
- Low fees.
Binance Cons
- Non-regulated platform.
- Advanced trading features are too complex for the average user.
- Unresponsive support team.
FTX Pros
- A strong selection of more than 300 cryptos.
- High-quality advanced trading features.
- Crypto derivatives trading options.
- NFT market.
- Quite low fees.
FTX Cons
- Lack of instant trading features.
- Collapsed due to huge liquidity issues.
- Not very beginner-friendly.
- Recent platform hack.
Binance vs FTX: The Crypto Exchange Comparison
Opening an Account
Follow these steps to open an account on Binance:
- Go to the Binance website and navigate to the Register section.
- There are four registration options. You can register with an email address, phone number, Google account, or Apple account.
- The email or phone number option will require you to provide an active email address or personal phone number.
- Set up a strong password to protect your account.
- In case you have a referral code, now is the time to use it and receive a referral bonus from Binance.
- Go through the terms of service and the privacy policy before accepting it, and select the Create Account option.
- Depending on the account creation option you chose, Binance will send you a verification email or SMS message with a code. Just enter that code on the Binance platform to verify your account.
- That’s it, you can fund your account and start trading on Binance.
This is how the account creation process looks on FTX:
- Go to FTX and click on the Create free account button.
- Provide an email address and create an account password.
- Accept the terms of service.
- Choose the Create account option.
- You’ve created an FTX account, but before you can fund it and start trading, you need to complete the Know Your Customer (KYC) procedure.
- Go to the FTX platform and choose the Level 1 Identity Verification option.
- Provide your full name and address, along with your phone number.
- Enter the 6-digit code you’ve received from FTX via text message to your phone.
- You can now fund your account and trade, however, you have a daily withdrawal limit of 2,000 USD. To remove this limit, move on to the Tier 2 KYC verification.
- Click on the Secure Identity Verification option.
- You just need to provide a photo of your passport, ID card, or driver’s license, along with a selfie photo.
- Choose which document you want to provide, along with 3 selfie photos.
- Once you’ve uploaded the photos and finished the process, it usually takes around 10 minutes to get verified.
- You’ll receive an email confirmation that your identity has been verified, and you can start trading on FTX without any limits.
Main Features
Binance really has everything you need from a crypto exchange platform and much more. You can buy crypto through the instant purchase option, the peer-to-peer trading option, a bank account transfer, or even a third-party payment service.
Once you’ve bought some crypto, you can start using all of the various Binance trading features. The platform supports hundreds of spot trading pairs, along with margin trading.
Pro traders with a high-risk appetite have different crypto derivatives options at their disposal, such as leveraged tokens, COIN-M Futures, USD-M Futures, and Futures Battles. For quick token conversions, Binance has a handy Convert option.
The platform has a bunch of crypto staking and yield farming options. You can stake dozens of coins and tokens, lend them to third– parties for an interest rate, or participate in liquidity pools. Binance even has its NFT marketplace with numerous trending NFT collections, plus it allows users to spend their crypto at millions of retail spots with the Binance Visa card.
FTX is built for advanced traders looking to implement complex trading strategies. The platform doesn’t have an instant trading option. Instead, users need to buy crypto by depositing fiat currency to the platform and investing on the FTX trading interface.
You can find hundreds of trading pairs across the spot, margin, and futures trading sections. FTX is unique for its huge choice of over 250 perpetual and quarterly futures markets. Also, the platform has a great choice of crypto derivatives options, such as the FTX native MOVE contracts and volatility tokens.
FTX’s native FTT token allows users to unlock various bonuses, fee discounts, and cashback rewards when using the FTX Visa card. Unfortunately, FTX lacks staking features, as you can only stake the platform’s native token. Just like Binance, FTX also has a native NFT trading platform.
Supported Cryptocurrencies
Binance has one of the best selections of cryptocurrencies on the market. The platform serves as a launchpad for numerous tokens built on the platform’s native BNB chain, which is one of the reasons why the exchange supports more than 600 cryptos.
Besides loads of BEP-20 and Ethereum-compatible ERC-20 tokens, Binance also supports most market-leading coins.
You can find cryptocurrencies like Binance Coin (BNB), Binance USD (BUSD), Bitcoin (BTC), Ripple (XRP), Dogecoin (DOGE), Cardano (ADA), Cosmos (ATOM), VeChain (VET), Ethereum (ETH), ApeCoin (APE), Axie Infinity (AXS), Zec (ZCASH), and numerous additional coins.
FTX supports around half as many cryptocurrencies as Binance, at around 300 coins and tokens. The platform supports most of the top 100 coins from CoinMarketCap, and a bunch of low-cap altcoins. However, when it comes to stablecoins, FTX only supports Tether (USDT), while Binance supports both Tether and its native BUSD stablecoin.
Payment Methods
Binance supports more than 20 fiat currencies, including USD, EUR, AUD, and many more. The platform allows users to deposit fiat currency through various methods. You can purchase crypto directly with a bank card and pay in your native currency. Binance also supports bank account transfers as a method for funding your account.
Once you’ve deposited some fiat currency, you can spend it later on crypto. The peer-to-peer trading option covers a broad range of payment methods, depending on your region. There’s also a third-party payment provider option that utilizes payment gateways such as Banxa and Simplex to convert your fiat currency to crypto.
FTX supports more than 10 fiat currencies and requires users to deposit cash into their platform accounts before spending it on crypto. You have the option to fund your account with a bank card or with a bank account transaction. FTX has rather limited payment options compared to Binance.
Trading Fees and Limits
Binance has very low trading fees, which is another reason why it’s so popular, apart from the fact that it offers top-quality services. If your 30-day trading volume is below 1 million USD, you’ll incur a 0.1% fee on all of your trades.
However, if you have between 1 and 25 BNB tokens in your account, you’ll receive a fee discount, and your fee will be 0.075% per transaction. The fee can drop even further for trading volumes above 1 million USD per month.
FTX fees are also very low, and they are a key selling point of the platform. Market makers with a monthly trading volume below 2 million USD incur a 0.02% fee, while market takers with the same trading volume incur a 0.07% transaction fee.
FTT holders get discounts on their fees. If you have at least 100 USD worth of FTT in your account, you’ll get a 3% discount, which increases to a maximum of 60% for traders with at least 5 million USD worth of FTT in their accounts.
How Safe Are Binance and FTX?
Binance has strong security measures in place to protect platform users and ensure all of the funds are safe. The website uses advanced encryption methods to protect all of the data, along with passwords that protect user accounts.
Users also have the recommended option of setting up two-factor authentication (2FA) on their accounts to make sure no one can initiate an unauthorized transaction. The platform also stores most of the assets in cold storage devices. Binance isn’t regulated by reputable regulatory bodies, but its US subsidiary is subject to local regulations.
Binance doesn’t have any platform hack history, however, the Binance Chain, which is connected to the Binance platform, was subject to a major hack in October of 2022. The hackers managed to steal around 570 million USD worth of assets. Although this wasn’t a hack of the Binance crypto exchange, it’s worth noting because of the Binance Chain’s connection with the platform.
FTX uses similar security measures to Binance. User accounts are encrypted and protected with passwords, while the largest portion of assets is kept offline in cold wallets. FTX is regulated by various regulatory bodies in the regions where it operates.
It’s registered to operate by authorities such as AUSTRAC in Australia, as well as several regulatory bodies in Cyprus and Switzerland. In the US, FTX has a subsidiary called FTX US, which is licensed to provide crypto services.
The platform had a clean security record until October 2022, when it suffered a hack. The cyber attackers managed to steal around 100,000 USD worth of crypto. Allegedly, the hackers exploited an FTX platform loophole that allowed them to mint a huge amount of XEN tokens and transfer them out of the platform to convert them into Ethereum.
Customer Support
Customer support is a rare aspect of Binance and FTX that can use some major improvements. Users can contact the support team through email and support tickets, but it can take quite some time for the support teams to answer their inquiries. This might be because the platforms receive high numbers of support tickets, but it could definitely be improved to stay in line with the high quality of other services on these exchanges.
Mobile Trading
Binance has a top-quality mobile trading app for Android and iOS mobile devices. You can access all of the platform’s features through the app, including spot trading, margin trading, crypto derivatives, staking options, the NFT marketplace, and more.
The app does a great job of condensing all of the Binance features in one place, however, using the trading interface might be a bit complicated on the mobile app. Apart from this, the Binance app is really great for using the platform.
FTX also has a high-quality mobile app for trading crypto, but it’s more suitable for experienced users than it is for beginners. This is in line with the general focus of FTX on advanced users.
The trading interface might be a bit better compared to the Binance app because users have a clearer overview of the price chart and other interface tools. It’s also worth noting that the app has integrated crypto portfolio tracking features because it took over the famous Blockfolio crypto tracking app and integrated it within the FTX app.
How Do Binance and FTX Compare to Other Crypto Exchanges
Binance offers numerous features to users, from trading crypto, high-risk margin trading, futures contracts all the way to crypto staking and NFTs. It’s hard for other platforms to compete with such a broad range of features, but several platforms offer a similar scope of services.
ByBit and KuCoin are some of the competitors that offer high-quality services like Binance, but thanks to its much higher trading volume and higher number of satisfied users, Binance seems like a more trustworthy option. However, both of these Binance alternatives are also very reliable crypto exchanges.
FTX, on the other hand, is also similar to ByBit and KuCoin in terms of offered services, but the lack of beginner-friendly crypto trading features makes both of the mentioned platforms a better choice for beginners.
Conclusion
In our Binance vs FTX review, it’s clear that Binance wins the battle as one of the best crypto exchanges the market has to offer. Beginners can find easy-to-use features such as instant purchase options and the quick convert feature. On the other hand, experienced traders have all they need to implement advanced trading strategies, whether they’re focused on spot trading, margin trading, or crypto derivatives.
FTX was a high-quality exchange platform. Unfortunately, the platform stopped operating due to massive liquidity issues, and its former users had to shift to other crypto exchanges. Binance is an excellent choice for ex-FTX users to move to.