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Best cryptocurrency exchanges in Singapore
Find the best crypto exchange for beginners, low fees and more.
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About our promoted picks
The platforms shown above are promoted picks, which means they’ve been chosen from among the partners we work with and are based on factors that include special features or offers and the commission we receive. Keep in mind that we do not compare all products in the market and our promoted picks may not always be the best fit for you – it’s important to compare for yourself and find a platform that works for you.
You can use a cryptocurrency exchange to buy, sell and trade cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). We’ve compared some popular Bitcoin exchanges by different categories to make it easier to find the best for you.
Disclaimer: This information should not be interpreted as an endorsement of cryptocurrency or any specific
provider, service or offering. It is not a recommendation to trade.
Compare cryptocurrency exchanges available in Singapore
How to choose a cryptocurrency exchange
It’s important to research a wide range of platforms and compare the pros and cons of each option. The best Bitcoin exchange for you depends on what you’re looking for.
Consider the following factors when comparing crypto exchanges.
How to use a cryptocurrency exchange
For the sake of our example, let’s assume that you have SGD$500 that you want to use to buy Bitcoin.
- Compare cryptocurrency exchanges to find one that offers the right service for you.
- Register for an account on the platform, including providing any personal details and proof of ID required.
- Navigate your way to the “Buy” screen.
- Select Bitcoin as the cryptocurrency you want to buy.
- Select your payment currency, which in this case is SGD, and specify the amount you want to spend as $500.
- Select your payment method, such as a credit card payment or bank transfer.
- Enter your payment details, such as your account number (if sending a bank transfer) or your card number and CVV (if paying by credit card).
- Review the full details of your transaction, including the fees that will apply and the amount of BTC you are purchasing.
- If you’re happy to proceed, click “Buy BTC”.
- Once the transaction has been processed, the BTC will be deposited into your exchange wallet. However, please note that some brokers will automatically send your purchased BTC to an external wallet address nominated by you.
How to pay for your cryptocurrency
You’ll need to deposit funds on your cryptocurrency exchange, or otherwise make a transfer. Bitcoin exchanges accept all sorts of deposit methods, including the following:
- Bank transfers
- Credit and debit cards
- Prepaid cards
- Cash deposits
- PayPal, Neteller, Skrill and other online payment services
- Cryptocurrency transfers
The payment types accepted will vary between exchanges though, so it’s worth checking to ensure your preferred payment method is supported before signing up.
The different types of cryptocurrency exchanges
The term “exchange” can be used to refer to a variety of cryptocurrency brokers, trading platforms and other services. Different types of exchange are often more geared towards beginners or experienced users.
- For beginners – cryptocurrency brokers. Buy directly from cryptocurrency dealers for simple, quick and easy purchases. Many beginners use brokers for their first purchase. Examples of cryptocurrency brokers include Binance and eToro.
- For intermediates – cryptocurrency trading platforms. Buy and sell cryptocurrency on an open market for competitive fees, a wide selection of cryptocurrencies and optional extra features like margin trading. While a bit trickier than brokers, these platforms can still be quite beginner-friendly. Binance is an example of a cryptocurrency trading platform.
- For advanced users – cryptocurrency derivatives platform. These trading platforms don’t sell cryptocurrency outright. Instead, they let you trade cryptocurrency derivatives. They’re for advanced traders who want high speed, high leverage, deeply liquid platforms with a full range of features.
Is it safe to store your cryptocurrency on an exchange?
Cryptocurrency is held in digital wallets. Some exchanges will give you your own wallet, which lets you hold cryptocurrency in your exchange account and then transfer it anywhere as desired, while others will require you to have your own wallet at the time of purchase.
However, using an exchange for long-term storage is not recommended. As the exchange controls the private key to your wallet, you don’t have total control of your funds. And with exchanges regularly (and sometimes successfully) targeted by hackers, storing crypto on an exchange long-term is very risky.
Next steps: How to get started
Not all crypto exchanges are created equal, and not all crypto buyers and sellers have the same trading needs. The best exchange for one person might not necessarily be the right choice for someone else, so it’s essential that you do your own research.
Check out our reviews on a range of leading cryptocurrency exchanges in Singapore and around the world. Compare the features, fees and pros and cons of each Bitcoin exchange and consider how they align with your trading requirements.
This will help you find the best crypto exchange for your needs.
Best cryptocurrency exchanges list
The best Bitcoin exchanges
The best Bitcoin exchange is cheap, easy and fast, with a wide range of payment options. It doesn’t need to have a wide selection or any advanced trading features. It’s for people who just want to buy Bitcoin. Generally, the most important factor is whether you’re using a local exchange, as this typically means you can pay with the local currency, and enjoy faster, cheaper transactions.
By this measure, the best Bitcoin exchanges in Singapore might be Binance and Coinhako. Both exchanges offer simple brokerage service, competitive rates and fees, as well a wide selection of cryptocurrencies. Their flexibility and Bitcoin-related features also go above and beyond, setting them apart from other Bitcoin exchanges.
The best altcoin exchanges
The best altcoin exchange has a wide selection first and foremost, ideally with good liquidity across all pairs. Low fees, extra features, fiat payment options and other extras are nice, but sheer selection is more important.
There are two altcoin exchanges that may be considered to be the best, and between them, you can find hundreds upon hundreds of different coins.
The first is CoinSwitch. It’s actually an aggregator that lets you trade across several different partner exchanges at once. Between those partners, CoinSwitch lets you access about 400 different cryptocurrencies all in one place, with trading fees usually ranging from 0% to 0.5%, although there may be other costs in the spread. If you’re looking for a wide selection and low fees, CoinSwitch could be a good place to start.
KuCoin could be a good place to look second. It offers several hundred cryptocurrencies by itself, and it’s not one of CoinSwitch’s partners, which means you can find things on KuCoin that you won’t find on CoinSwitch. KuCoin’s trading fees are 0.1%, and as a proper exchange, it has some features that CoinSwitch doesn’t, such as margin trading.
The cheapest cryptocurrency exchanges
The cheapest cryptocurrency exchange isn’t always the one with the lowest trading fees. It’s also important to look for good spreads, to get good exchange rates and to make sure the deposit or withdrawal fees are reasonable.
The cheapest exchange may depend on whether you’re looking for a place to buy cryptocurrency, or if you want to trade cryptocurrencies instead. It can also depend on whether you’re buying Bitcoin, or a more obscure altcoin.
If you want to actively trade cryptocurrencies for each other, or purchase Bitcoin with SGD, Binance could be the cheapest choice. Its trading fees start at 0.1%, with easy avenues to additional discounts. It also offers zero fee deposit and withdrawal options via Xfers, good rates and low fees. Simply by paying fees with BNB, it’s possible to get an easy 25% discount on trading fees. Importantly, it’s also one of the world’s most liquid cryptocurrency exchanges, which can be key to saving money by avoiding slippage.
The largest cryptocurrency exchanges
There are different ways of measuring “largest”, but the most common is trading volume. More volume is good because it can indicate more popular, responsive and liquid exchanges. Unfortunately, you can’t just take the exchange’s word for it or trust exchange volume rankings from sites like CoinMarketCap. Fake volume and wash trading are common in cryptocurrency.
There are some exchanges which, after heavy scrutiny, are believed to show entirely genuine volume though.
The world’s highest real-volume exchange is consistently Binance, according to reports from the Blockchain Transparency Institute, Bitwise and others.
The most popular cryptocurrency exchanges
If someone wants to find a reliable and all-around good cryptocurrency exchange without spending too much time sifting through the options, it can be helpful to beeline right for the most popular.
Popularity can be tricky to measure though, and many exchanges don’t disclose their total number of user accounts, and this figure will often be very different to the number of active users.
However, according to Similarweb, the most-visited cryptocurrency exchange website in the world between November 2019 and January 2020 was Coinbase, with over 57 million website visits worldwide. The second most-visited cryptocurrency exchange was Binance, with 53 million visits.
This echoes findings from the Blockchain Transparency Institute, which reported in December 2018 that Coinbase was the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchange.
The best cryptocurrency trading platforms
The best cryptocurrency trading platforms are very liquid, very fast and offer a full range of features such as margin trading with up to 100x leverage, cryptocurrency derivatives such as futures and options, and good integration with third-party trading tools such as cryptocurrency trading bots. Ideally, they will also be well-regulated, popular and have a good reputation.
There are no exchanges which fit all of the above criteria, so the best cryptocurrency trading platform for you may depend on which of these criteria is most important to you. There are a number of options to consider.
Binance offers the highest leverage of any exchange (125x) and a wide selection of crypto derivatives, but it’s been known to experience technical issues.
Kraken only offers up to 5x leverage on a comparatively small range of coins, but it’s got a good reputation and offers both futures and options contracts. eToro allows trading of a wide range of assets beyond cryptocurrency, and has unique features such as Copy Trade, but it’s primarily a CFD platform which means you’re only betting on the prices rather than actually taking possession of the underlying cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrency exchanges that don’t require ID
As a general rule of thumb, crypto-to-crypto trading doesn’t always require user verification, and people can do it without ID. Exchanging fiat currency for cryptocurrency typically does require ID.
Many of the exceptions to the rule are peer-to-peer exchanges, such as Paxful, where users can arrange fiat-to-crypto trades directly with each other that don’t always require ID.
However, there are often strict purchase limits and other downsides when using exchanges that don’t require ID.
Read the full guide to buying cryptocurrency with no ID for more information and a list of exchanges that don’t require ID.
Cryptocurrency exchanges that let you pay with cash
Bitcoin ATMs and few exchanges allow you to pay for cryptocurrency with cash.
You can check the map of Bitcoin ATM locations in Singapore to see if there’s a Bitcoin ATM near you. Alternatively, peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchanges such as Paxful connects traders with sellers who are willing to accept cash.
The safest cryptocurrency exchange
Most exchanges will claim to be perfectly safe and secure right up until they get hacked, so you can’t just take their word for it. Instead, you can find the safest exchanges by looking at their security history, their security policies and any additional measures they take to protect their exchanges.
Internationally, the safest cryptocurrency exchange might be Gemini. It was founded in 2014, it’s never been hacked, it was one of the world’s first exchanges to get ISO27001 certified and it’s also created its own captive insurance company specifically to ensure coverage for digital assets.
As safe as Gemini is, non-custodial or decentralised cryptocurrency exchanges are arguably even safer. Non-custodial exchanges send funds directly to your personal wallet when you make a purchase, while decentralised exchanges allow direct peer-to-peer cryptocurrency swaps. These exchanges put you in personal control of your security.
In the case of Gemini, the exchange also don’t hold user funds. This means there’s no risk of losing your money to an exchange hack.
If you have a secure hardware wallet and know how to use it, non-custodial exchanges are arguably as safe as cryptocurrency exchanges can ever get. Decentralised exchanges are theoretically just as safe, but they’re also more experimental so bugs and unforeseen vulnerabilities may pose problems.
The best non-custodial cryptocurrency exchange
Non-custodial cryptocurrency exchanges send your cryptocurrency directly to your personal wallet after you make a purchase. This can be convenient, and it’s also perceived to be safer than entrusting funds to centralised exchanges.
The best non-custodial exchanges are characterised by variety, a wide range of payment options and fast delivery.
Coinmama is a well-known non-custodial exchange. It doesn’t hold your funds or cryptocurrency. Instead, it simply takes payment and then sends cryptocurrency directly to your wallet address as soon as payment is received and your wallet address is confirmed.
The best decentralised cryptocurrency exchange
All decentralised exchanges (DEXs) struggle to a certain extent with liquidity problems, complex user interfaces and slow trading, and you can expect to find combinations of these issues on any DEX.
No decentralised exchanges are without problems, and the best might depend on which ecosystem you’re trying to access.
The Waves platform is a relatively well-known general-purpose DEX, while more Ethereum-specific DEX protocols include 0x and Kyber Network. Elsewhere, DEXs such as Stellarport offer access to the Stellar Lumens ecosystem, while the Binance DEX serves as a token swap system in the Binance Chain ecosystem.
FAQs
A-Z of cryptocurrency exchanges
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Disclaimer: Cryptocurrencies are speculative, complex and involve significant risks – they are highly
volatile and sensitive to secondary activity. Performance is unpredictable and past performance is no guarantee of
future performance. Consider your own circumstances, and obtain your own advice, before relying on this information.
You should also verify the nature of any product or service (including its legal status and relevant regulatory
requirements) and consult the relevant Regulators' websites before making any decision. Finder, or the author, may
have holdings in the cryptocurrencies discussed.
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