Poloniex Broker Review – What Makes This Broker Different

About Poloniex

Poloniex is an American based cryptocurrency exchange. Based in the U.S. state of Delaware, Poloniex is a prominent name in the cryptocurrency exchange sector. This has been the case since the company was founded in early 2014.

Poloniex was acquired by financial group Circle in February 2018. The backing of this well-respected and established parent company increases both the reach and trust of Poloniex by proxy. Elements of the parent company are regulated by the FCA in the UK and have been awarded a much sought after Bitlicense by the New York Department of Financial Services.  

Poloniex Account Opening

Poloniex offers the same type of standard account to all users upon initial signup. As you progress with trading, however, your trading tier status improves dependent upon volume. As this status increases beyond certain volume benchmarks, such as $500,000 trade volume, you become eligible for discounted fees.

Minimum Deposit

There is no minimum deposit required in order to open an account with Poloniex. There are a few currencies, however, which will require a minimum deposit. Foremost among these is Ethereum. The minimum Ethereum deposit required is 0.5 ETH.

Availability And Ease Of Opening

Aside from being unavailable to residents of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria, accounts can be freely and easily opened with Poloniex. This can be completed by a simple registration process, although you must also upload your identity documents at the time of registration to verify your account. The entire process can take no more than 10-minutes, provided you have the required documents to hand.

Poloniex Product Offerings

Poloniex offers trading in as many as 120 cryptocurrency pairs at the time of writing (Bitcoin Cash pairs are currently suspended). These can be broken down into the following markets:

Bitcoin Pairs (BTC): 60
US Dollar Coin (USDC): 12
Ethereum (ETH): 18
Monero (XMR): 6
Tether (USDT): 24

You will notice that Poloniex only offers trading on a crypto to crypto basis. Those wishing to deposit fiat currency for trading must register an account with Circle Pay from the exchange parent company, deposit their chosen fiat currency there, exchange it for US Dollar Coin, and then transfer the balance to their Poloniex account.

Poloniex Commissions And Fees

The broker features trading fees in two categories; these are maker fees and taker fees. The maker fee applies to those traders whose trades are not immediately filled and thus exist on the order book to be taken or filled by other traders. These traders are known as “makers,” whilst those who fill their request are known as “takers,” with each having to pay a variable trading fee depending upon their trading volume, as displayed above.

Margin trading is also available with Poloniex. If you are trading on margin, you must pay interest to the lending trader once you have closed your position. This interest fee will be noted prior to your acceptance of a loan to trade on margin.

Non-Trading Fees

Deposit and withdrawal fees are variable depending upon which cryptocurrency you choose to trade with. Typically, there are no deposit fees and a small withdrawal fee. This is also the case if you are transferring fiat currency to US Dollar Coin through the Circle Pay app for transfer to Poloniex.

Since Poloniex offers margin trading on a P2P basis, interest earned through money loaned by other traders is charged a fee of 15% by the broker.

Poloniex Platforms And Tools

Poloniex offers a web-based trading platform and trading through their recently launched mobile application, which is available on both iOS and Android devices.

Web Trading Platform

The Poloniex web-trader is very easily accessible and contains all of the basic information and functions necessary to carry out trades quickly and conveniently. Users are greeted by a platform interface that appears user-friendly, though a little cluttered with the Twitter live feed from Poloniex, no other news or research sources displayed.

Markets can be selected from the market watch window on the right-side. This takes a handy tab-form, based upon which currency pair you wish to display, and also features a fast and intuitive search function.

The chosen pair will display on the centrally located chart, which can be selected to feature EMA, SMA, Fibonacci, or Bollinger Band tools. This is quite a limited selection for many traders who may be more accustomed to operating with traditional forex trading platforms such as Metatrader 4 or cTrader. Charts can be viewed in 6 timeframes and at multiple zoom levels, though there is a lack of drawing tools available.

Orders can be easily and quickly executed using the order windows just below the main chart, and beneath this, traders can view full order books and volumes for their chosen pair.

Ultimately, the Poloniex web-trading platform is fast, secure, and user-friendly, though it lacks the depth which may be desired by some more experienced or high-volume traders.

Mobile Platform

The recently launched Poloniex mobile app is again very user-friendly, attractive in terms of visual appearance, and quick in executing any required trades. It can also be set to send push notifications to your mobile device when certain price-levels are reached; however, it again lacks a certain depth in terms of technical indicators and professional charting tools, which many more advanced traders would be seeking. For basic monitoring and intuitive, fast ordering, however, the Poloniex mobile trading platform performs in a stellar fashion.

Poloniex Differentiators

Being a cryptocurrency exchange, Poloniex is predominantly different from many of the broker platforms you will see reviewed elsewhere. The first major difference is the lack of fiat currency pairs offered by Poloniex. Although there are also no fiat/crypto pairs offered directly, a work-around of this is possible using the Circle Pay app.

As cryptocurrency exchange brokers go, Poloniex is one of the most established in the industry. They are also one of the leading brokers when it comes to bridging the crypto economy with the traditional sector. This is brought to the fore by the presence of Circle and their high-level financial backing from the likes of Goldman Sachs.

With its P2P lending and margin trading offering to those based outside the United States, Poloniex also manages to go beyond the offering of its competitors in the cryptocurrency exchange sector.

Customer Service

Poloniex has an online support center to deal with questions and queries from traders. This support center features a wide array of the most commonly asked questions. If you cannot find the answer you are looking for here, you can open a digital support ticket to detail your question. This will typically be responded to by email within a few hours.

Poloniex Trustworthiness

Trust will always be a key issue when dealing with cryptocurrency exchanges and brokers. This is often due to public perception of a lack of security. Poloniex, though, features two-factor authentication on all accounts, has been involved as a major player in the sector for almost 5 years, and now has the backing of a globally recognized and respected financial payments firm in Circle.

These factors, and the positive steps which they have taken at Circle, including regulation by the FCA, having FDIC insured deposits up to $250,000 through Circle Pay, and being one of the first startups to hold a Bitlicense, should all bode well for the trusting sentiment of Poloniex users.  

Is Poloniex Worth It?

Overall, as a cryptocurrency exchange, Poloniex provides a strong range of trading options and functions for its users. The variety of cryptocurrency trading pairs, together with the ability to trade on margin and engage in P2P lending, makes the broker an innovator in the cryptocurrency broker industry.

With a strong security record and multiple methods of deposit available through the backing of well-known and trusted sources, it is safe to surmise that Poloniex will remain in its position as one of the most popular and trusted cryptocurrency exchanges worldwide. The relatively recent acquisition from Circle also provides the exchange with new levels of liquidity and potential for future development in both the crypto exchange sector and beyond.