Binance.com exchange (don't confuse it with other Binance brands like Binance US or Binance Jersey) is one of the biggest bitcoin exchanges in the world. It was established in 2017 and according to their 2019 Blog recap they had more than 15 million users worldwide. Signing up for a new account is easy and does not require much information.

Basic information

Many people do believe that Binance headquarter is in Malta but there was an interesting discussion going on Twitter some time ago about not granting / renewing a license to Binance by Malta's authorities. Binance CEO admitted that as cryptocurrencies are decentralized, so are this exchange headquarter(s). To quote him on this: 

"Binance.com is not headquartered or operated in Malta"

"Binance.com has always operated in a decentralized manner as we reach out to our users across more than 180 nations worldwide. As well as pushing the envelope in experimenting how to become a true DAO (decentralized autonomous organization)" .

Source of information: Twitter of cz_binance

Creating a new account

Signing up as a new client is quite easy. You need an email address and confirm it later with a code that is sent to your inbox. You also have to accept the Terms and confirm that you are not from the USA (US customers can use Binance US, instead). This is how it looks like:

Source of information: Binance

The requirements for password are: at least 8 characters long, at least 1 UPPER CASE and at least 1 number.

Last field is the "referral ID" - the person / entity you learned about Binance from. If you put in our referral code "ONRA37JB" or if you create the account through this referral link, you will get a kickback rate of 10%. That is a nice way how to get back some of the fees you pay to Binance. If you create the account without a code, your kickback rate will be 0% - so the decision is up to you.

After creating the account you are supposed to download the Google 2FA authentificator. Don't forget to make a back up of your security code (that is very useful if you ever lose your phone). The 2FA authentification is required to log into your account (plus your email, password and a solving a captcha).

All the communication with Binance (e.g. support ticket) is done either via chat or email. Our recommendation is to think twice about the email address you insert when you are creating the account. Changing your email later would mean not being able to withdraw coins for 5 days. That is one of the basic measures how to protect your funds.

As a cryptocurrencies trader you are surely interested in the basic features of the exchange. What it can and cannot do. Here is the overview.

As we have above mentioned creating a new account is easy but for depositing some fiat currencies you need to pass the KYC verification. If you already own some portion of bitcoin or altcoins and want to trade them on Binance in exchange for others - in such case there is no problem. Crypto deposits are without identity verification. Also crypto withdrawals are without verification - if you are withdrawing up to 2 BTC per day.

Coins and trading

There are around 200 various cryptocoins and 611 pairs available for trading as of now (official information from Coinmarketcap). Besides Bitcoin, you can buy and sell altcoins against a couple of other major coins:

The most coins are tradable against Bitcoin, followed by Ethereum and Tether. Binance coin took the 4^th place. Official daily volume reached by Binance is in the amount of 2.3 billion USD. 

Here is a screenshot of the Web trading platform interface - in its simplified mode.

Source of information: Binance Web trading platform

We have highlighted the most interesting information.

Blue arrow should point your attention to the fact that you can select some favorite coins. This is very useful feature, as working with almost 200 cryptocoins would become otherwise very difficult task. 

Green arrow points to the area where you place your Buy and Sell orders. You can choose between Limit, Market, Stop-limit orders (plus One Cancels the Other). There is also an option to immediately buy or sell 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% of your holdings.

White arrow points to the active orders, waiting there to reach certain limit price. How far are your open orders from getting filled is indicated by small yellow arrows on the left side of the screen. 

Besides trading crypto coins, Binance is doing voting competitions and airdrops on regular basis. Anyway, participation in such contests requires having at least 50 BNB coins in your account. On the other side, owing some BNB also means that you can pay fees for trading on Binance DEX (decentralized exchange e.g. in Trust wallet application). There is also a regular coinburn going on, which should theoretically increase the value of the BNB coins you hold.

Except the coinburn there are also some other interesting features. One of them being the margin trading (you can trade BTC with 5x leverage), second one the staking program - you are earning interest on buying certain coins and holding them in your account (Algorand, Komodo, Vechain - just to name some). 

Source of information: Binance.com blog

The interest earned on holding coins in your Binance account depends on the tokenomics of a particular coin but mostly moves around 8% per year.

Binance does also offer "savings". That is a feature quite similar to staking coins but is available also for more known coins - like BTC or BNB. By entering the sum you want to reserve for your savings you can earn some interest on it. As the rules say: "Binance.com launched Binance Savings service for Binance.com users to gain proceeds through idle cryptocurrency assets. Binance Savings assets will be used in cryptocurrency leveraged borrowing business on Binance.com." Nice feature, anyway the interest is quite low. Here is a short overview of the current estimated annual yields:

Advantages and disadvantages

Here comes a summary of what pluses and minuses you could expect if you decide to sign up with Binance.

One of the biggest advantages is the low trading fee. It is just 0.1% of the traded volume. If you hold some BNB coin (up to 50 BNB) you can use BNB as your preferred fees payment method. In such case you pay just  0.075%. If you own more BNBs then the fee is even lower. On the other side, Binance charges some withdrawal fees which are really high. For example withdrawing Doge would cost you 50 coins. Well, that is not too much when converting to BTC sats, but the point is that there are other exchanges that do charge just 20, 10 or even 3 Doge coins for withdrawals. So, in comparison to other exchanges, some of the fees are really high. Anyway, most of the withdrawal fees are acceptable.

We see the biggest obstacle for using this exchange in the KYC requirements (KYC = Know Your Customer). Depositing fiat currencies like EUR or USD to be able to buy some cryptocoins is quite complicated as you need to scan your ID, make a video-call where they can see your face and compare it with the ID etc. Despite the fact that Binance already has millions of customers, are reliable exchange and try to make this process as easy as possible, there are many people who don't want to scan their IDs and sent them out to third parties. 

Binance is safe but hack can happen anyway. One of the successful hacks took place in May 2019. At that time 7000 BTC worth around 40 million US dollars were stolen in a single transaction. The losses were covered by a Binance fund and none of their customers lost anything in this hack, but this only proves that it can happen even to the biggest ones. If you are interested in reading more about the hack, here is a Bloomberg article. 

Should you encounter any problem you can contact their support and create a ticket. We have tried it and our conclusion is that there is a big room for improvements. First, when the chat takes some minutes it can log you off. It happened to us and getting to the same agent was impossible. Fortunately we didn't have to explain the problem once again as the new agent was able to find the previous communication. Anyway, the logging off (after maybe 2-3 minutes of communication on hold) is very annoying. Some weeks later we have found a bug in a certain coin withdrawals - Binance system did not accept our valid address. It took several days of communication. Eventually, instead of solving the bug which was on Binance side, it ended up with their general recommendation - that we should use another address for withdrawals. That's not how such a fine exchange should solve problems, plus the bug on their site keeps remaining. 

Conclusion

Binance.com is one of the largest and most reliable exchanges. They offer trading bitcoin and almost 200 altcoins. If you already own some crypto coins, sending and trading them on Binance.com is without any problems. Anyway, depositing fiat does require some KYC and AML precautions (linking your bank account, sending ID scan and making video-call). Trading fees are low, withdrawal fees somehow worse. They do offer many benefits like staking program or affiliate program. If you are thinking about creating an account with Binance.com, please, consider using our referral link. Binance will pay us from their own earnings for helping them grow and you will get a 10 % kickback rate as a benefit.

Are you interested in reviews of other exchanges? Here is the list of our articles: Crypto exchange reviews

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