Poloniex Review

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Bottom line:

While creating our Poloniex review, we carefully tested all essential aspects of the platform. After doing so, we determined that while the exchange provides excellent charting capabilities and a good range of supported assets, Poloniex does a lot well but nothing great. While the platform offers a reasonable number of assets and up to 100x leverage, the expensive fiat on-ramp, relatively high trading fees, and past security issues hinder its usability. While good for a no-KYC platform, better options are available to users who don't mind verifying their identity.

How We Rated Poloniex

Review Criteria	HWC Score
Features	4 / 5
Supported Fiat and Deposit Methods	3 / 5
Supported Crypto & Trading Pairs	3.5 / 5
Fees	3.5 / 5
Ease of Use	4 / 5
Customer support	3.5 / 5
Security Measures	2.5 / 5
Mobile App	4 / 5

Pros Explained

• Grid trading robot. Trading robots enable users to utilize high-frequency trading strategies with minimal effort. Poloniex's grid trading bot is a valuable feature that appeals to advanced users familiar with bots.
• Good range of assets. With over 300 cryptocurrencies and even more trading pairs available on Poloniex, it is a reasonable exchange offering plenty of opportunities for traders to take advantage of.
• Up to 100:1 leverage. Poloniex offers 100x leverage to boost the performance of those who use advanced trading strategies like scalping.

Cons Explained

• Past security issues. Unfortunately, one reason to be wary of Poloniex is its past security issues. In 2014, the exchange suffered a hack that resulted in the loss of 12.6% of its Bitcoin holdings. While things have improved since then, the SEC recently sued the business for $10 million, which is not ideal for customers.
• Expensive fiat on-ramp. There is no propriety support for fiat currencies built into Poloniex. Instead, users must purchase through Simplex, which charges a 3.5% fee.
• Poor customer support. The exchange has been known for its slow response times and terrible customer support. Poloniex has been rated 1.6/5 stars on Trustpilot, and investors should proceed with caution.

Poloniex Compared & Alternatives

EXCHANGE	CRYPTO ASSETS	TRADING FEES	RATING	PROMOTION	WEBSITE	REVIEW
Binance	385	0.1% (spot) and 0.02% / 0.04% (Futures)	Rating We provide an overall weighted average rating out of 5 stars. Our ratings are based on objective criteria like the ease of use, fees, deposit methods, customer support and availability. Our reviews are not influenced by 3rd parties. Click here for further information about our rating methodology and a full list of categories we review against. 4.8 / 5	Up to $100 welcome bonus	Visit Binance	Binance Review
KuCoin	806	0.1%	Rating We provide an overall weighted average rating out of 5 stars. Our ratings are based on objective criteria like the ease of use, fees, deposit methods, customer support and availability. Our reviews are not influenced by 3rd parties. Click here for further information about our rating methodology and a full list of categories we review against. 4.6 / 5	Up to 500 USDT in bonuses	Visit KuCoin	KuCoin Review
Kraken	222	0.16% (maker) and 0.26% (taker)	Rating We provide an overall weighted average rating out of 5 stars. Our ratings are based on objective criteria like the ease of use, fees, deposit methods, customer support and availability. Our reviews are not influenced by 3rd parties. Click here for further information about our rating methodology and a full list of categories we review against. 4.8 / 5	None available at this time	Visit Kraken	Kraken Review

Poloniex At A Glance

Poloniex is a popular exchange founded in 2014 and headquartered in Seychelles. Since its inception in the market, Poloniex has become a reliable platform for traders to speculate on the spot, margin, and futures markets. While unregulated, Poloniex is available worldwide. In 2019, The Tron Foundation, owned by Justin Sun, invested $100 Million into Poloniex 2019 to further develop the platform. As a result, Poloniex now offers a few Tron-centric features, including reduced trading fees for holders.

Related: What are the best ways to reduce your crypto trading fees?

Exchange Name	Poloniex
Features	Futures Trading, Grid Trading Robot, Polo Earn
Accepted Fiat Currencies	USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, CAD, and 43 Others
Supported Cryptocurrencies	BTC, ETH, TRX, and 287 Others
Number of Trading Pairs	460
Trading Fees	0.1450% (Maker) / 0.1550% (Taker)
Customer Support	AI Chatbot, Help Center Ticket System
Security Measures	2FA, Device Management, Activity Logs
Mobile App	Yes (Android & IOS)

Review of the Top Features on Poloniex

Futures trading

Poloniex has expanded its product offering to include a margin exchange and futures contracts for those that want a platform to leverage trade crypto. The margin feature allows traders to borrow funds to increase the size of the trading position.

For higher leverage of up to 100x, Poloniex has introduced Futures trading on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tron, and 35 other crypto assets with 0.01% maker and 0.04% taker fees. With leverage, traders can take a long or short position on a crypto asset to hedge against volatility or a downtrend without using a specialized derivatives platform.

Grid trading

Crypto trading bots have rapidly grown in popularity as a way to trade without manually staring at charts and placing trades. While writing our Poloniex review, we noticed that the exchange platform offers its grid trading bot.

Grid trading enables users to set up parameters that will cause trades to execute automatically. First, the user must set upper and lower price bands for the bot to buy and sell within, and then the robot will automatically create buy and sell orders at the predetermined prices.

While the grid trading bot Poloniex offers recommended strategies and shows an estimated profit, losing money with the bot is possible. As such, the service is typically used by more experienced traders who strongly understand how the market and trading bots work. To see how Poloniex's bots compete with the most popular trading bots for crypto, read this comparison.

Poloniex Earn

Poloniex Earn enables gives the option for users to passively earn crypto rewards by staking their holdings. While it's limited to only USDD, Tron, BitTorrent, and WINK for staking, the assets yield between 4% and 8% APY which is reasonable and in line with other top staking platforms we've reviewed.

A benefit of staking cryptocurrencies on Poloniex is the no lock-up period and the ability to withdraw funds at any time to use on the exchange. However, while Poloniex staking is well-designed and a nice addition to the platform, the lack of supported proof-of-stake assets hinders its usability.

Poloniex TrollBox

The infamous Trollbox on Poloniex allows traders on the platform to participate in a community to share trade ideas and thoughts. Often misused in the past for shilling altcoins, the Trollbox can be a great source of information.

Creating and Verifying a Poloniex Account

Creating an account with Poloniex is free and takes only a few minutes to complete. The only information required to register with Poloniex is an email address and password. However, completing the Know-Your-Customer (KYC) process is a must to access the higher withdrawal limit from $10,000 daily to $500,000. To complete the verification process, the user must provide a photo ID (passport, utility bill) and enter a few personal details like address and phone number.

The Poloniex verification process depends on the user's tier level. KYC can be completed in a few minutes to half an hour for Level 1 and 2 accounts, the latter of which requires facial recognition. If there is a mismatch between personal information and uploaded documents, the time frame can be extended to three business days.

Supported Cryptocurrencies and Trading Pairs

Altcoin traders can browse and select a wide variety of pairs to trade. There are 290 supported coins with pairings against BTC, TRX, ETH, BNB, and several stablecoins like USDT and USDC. In total, there are 485 tradable markets on Poloniex that can be viewed with live and historical prices.

While Poloniex supports the most popular cryptocurrencies, its list of assets cannot compare to quality altcoins platforms like Binance, KuCoin, and Gate.io, which all boast thousands of trading pairs. As such, while Poloniex will likely be suitable for most people, anyone wishing to trade an extensive number of pairs could be better of with another platform.

Poloniex Fees

Poloniex has low trading fees starting at just 0.1450% (maker) and 0.1550% (taker). However, Poloniex utilizes a volume-based fee schedule, meaning that costs are progressively reduced in line with transaction volume. Furthermore, users with a TRX balance higher than $49 can get a slight discount. Additionally, users can pay their fees using Tron (TRX) for a 30% discount.

For margin and leveraged traders using the Futures platform, Poloniex has a flat trading fee of 0.01% (maker) and 0.04% (taker). Considering that the taker fee for leverage orders used to be 0.075%, the exchange tried to reduce user costs.

Trading Volume (30 day)	Trading Fee (Maker / Taker)
< $50K	0.1450% / 0.1550%
< $50K + ≥$49 TRX	0.1150% / 0.1250%
$50K – $1M	0.1050% / 0.1200%

Deposit and Withdrawal Fees

While some cryptocurrency exchanges charge abhorrent fees for deposits and withdrawals, Poloniex only charges the standard blockchain transaction fee, although costs can vary based on network congestion,

Poloniex Fees Compared

The fees offered by Poloniex are competitive, but based on our reviews, there are crypto exchanges that offer better rates, such as Crypto.com and ByBit. Below, we've compared the spot fees between Poloniex and a few other leading trading platforms.

Exchange Name	Trading Fee
Crypto.com	0.075%
ByBit	0.1%
Poloniex	0.1450% (Maker) and 0.1550% (Taker)
Gemini	0.4% – 1.99%

Poloniex Ease of Use

The user interface on Poloniex has been significantly overhauled within the last 24 months to improve the trading experience. The new layout is user-friendly, visually appealing, and responsive on all devices, including tablets and mobile. In short, the modern user interface is suitable for beginners and advanced traders.

While researching for our Poloniex review, we found the exchange's trading interface easy to use and feature-rich. Poloniex has integrated TradingView, one of the most popular online charting platform for crypto. As a result, Poloniex users plot complex strategies and perform in-depth analyses without leaving the exchange.

Placing a trade on Poloniex will feel familiar for anyone who has previously used another crypto exchange. It uses an order book interface, meaning users can view existing buy and sell orders to gauge buyer sentiment. Furthermore, users can easily select their designed order type and leverage, making it excellent for people trading Bitcoin or other crypto assets.

One feature that sets Poloniex apart from other exchanges is that the charts don't refresh when switching assets, making it far easier to compare charts to find the best opportunity. Overall, Poloniex offers a well-designed trading interface with many useful tools. While the order book interface could confuse new users, it's easy to grasp.

Poloniex Mobile App

Poloniex has a mobile trading app available on IOS and Android devices. Based on customer feedback, the app has an average rating of 4.8/5 based on over 2000 reviews. After logging into the Poloniex app, the user is shown quick links to crucial features and a selection of trending assets.

Most features available on the desktop version have been carried across to the app, allowing users to deposit funds, trade crypto, monitor positions, withdraw funds, and access Polo Earn at any time. As such, the app is suitable for beginners and advanced traders alike.

Performing technical analysis is tricky as only six basic indicators are present, including key tools like the Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Exponential Moving Average (EMA). However, the mobile app offers no drawing capabilities, and although this is the case with most crypto exchange apps, it makes cryptocurrency trading much harder.

Users can select from six order five order types and engage in futures and spot trading. While the range of technical tools the Poloniex mobile app offers is limited, the trading interface is intuitive and similar to other cryptocurrency exchanges.

Customer Support

The Poloniex exchange offers several ways for its users to receive prompt support. The platform provides support via Twitter and Telegram, but its help center is a good source of information with articles on account security, getting started, and more. There is an AI chatbot, which isn't the best. Alternatively, the customer support team can be reached by submitting a ticket.

Although the Poloniex team aims to respond to users as quickly as possible, there have been reports that the exchange's response time is closer to a few days. This is evident with online reviews on TrustPilot, which have rated Poloniex 1.6/5 with a staggering 1-star rating from 80% of the total votes. Therefore, it might be worth looking into a few other exchanges for investors who prioritize speedy support.

Poloniex Security: Is It Safe?

Since the Poloniex exchange hack in 2014, which resulted in the Poloniex exchange losing about 12.3% of its total Bitcoin holdings, the exchange has not been involved in any security incidents. To make matters worse, there isn't clear information on its protection measures, so it's challenging to trust Poloniex again.

Another issue for Poloniex was that on August 9, 2019, the exchange was fined $10 million in a lawsuit by the SEC for operating an unregistered digital asset exchange. US customers have since been banned from using the platform.