In this article we compare multiple Crypto Derivatives Exchanges and see who comes out to be the winner.
Derivatives have evolved over centuries to become one of the most popular financial tools for traders. Crypto derivatives, specifically futures, have changed the way people trade cryptocurrencies. Combined with the volatility of the market, it’s the best way to earn higher profit with limited capital. Of course, only the people or bots that time it well can profit well. For others, it’s a learning exercise and the incurred losses are the fees they pay to become better traders.
Trading crypto derivatives is not recommended for all, though it is becoming more mainstream. Those who want to should know which platform to choose. That’s why, we will compare some of the most popular Crypto Derivatives Exchanges in this article to see which one comes out best.
For simplifying the comparison, we will consider only one product, futures, more specifically perpetual futures contracts on Bybit, Binance, Bitmex, Delta Exchange, FTX and Deribit.
Contents
User Interface, Layout and availability
The first and foremost comparison of any derivatives exchange should be how easy or difficult it is to use or play around with. Bybit, FTX, Binance and Bitmex provide a customizable UI, where most sections can be moved around to any corner of the screen for ease of use, albeit a couple things like the order form which cannot be moved from its original location.. Deribit and Delta offer a good but immovable UI.
Bybit, Binance, Bitmex and FTX all offer mobile apps for trading derivative products. The order forms on all of these are significantly different and intuitive. However, I would prefer Bybit’s interface as all the tools required are nicely stacked within the top half of the app
Verdict – Four Way Tie – Bybit, FTX, Binance, Bitmex
Leverage & Trading Pairs Available Comparison
On BitMEX, you can trade perpetual swaps on XBT, ETH, and XRP. It also offers eight different traditional futures contracts on XBT, BCH, ADA, EOS, LTC, ETH, XRP, and TRX. Bitmex offers 100X leverage for BTC, and upto 50X for ETH and XRP. However for the other coins, the leverage is less than 50X.
FTX offers a whole lot more, so does Binance and Delta. Deribit offers perpetual contracts for BTC and ETH only. Binance offers upto 125X leverage on BTC, and upto 50 or 75x leverage on other coins. FTX offers 101x leverage for most of the perpetual pairs.
Bybit offers four different perpetual swaps that include BTCUSD, ETHUSD, XRPUSD, and EOSUSD. It also offers a BTCUSDT futures contract. The highest leverage that can be applied is up to 100x on BTCUSD and BTCUSDT futures contracts, and up to 50X on the other three trading pairs.
Trading Experience
Few factors that traders may care about while trading on exchanges is
- Access to Orderbook and charts
- Types of orders
- Having a robust calculator
- Isolated Margin and Cross Margin
- Trading Fees
Access to Orderbook and Charts
Delta and Deribit Exchange offer Tradingview charts and a fixed number of rows are visible on the orderbooks.
FTX, Binance, Bitmex and Bybit all have highly effective charts of their own. Orderbooks are customizable on these four exchanges to see the depth of liquidity on any contract.
Bitmex orderbook flashes the entry every time a quantity is added or removed, it can feel jittery at times and also pauses to process for a few seconds quite often. Binance on the other hand doesn’t flash every entry or exit from the orderbook, while Bybit’s flashes are easy on the eye. It’s a good feature to have so making it subtle is the way to go.
Delta follows the same principle as Bybit:- it looks clean. FTX has single colour flashes for change in quantity instead of indicative red for removal, green for addition. Deribit has no indication whatsoever.
On the mobile UI, Bybit wins for clarity of orderbook with visibility of open positions/orders, all without the need for scrolling. Additionally the ability to drag a bar to decide how much quantity you wish to trade, is a cool feature missing on other apps. Only Binance offers something similar.
Verdict – Bybit Wins for being easy-on-the eye animation on PC and a volume bar that can be dragged.
Types of Orders
Traders are used to multiple types of orders on various platforms. Some key tyoes of orders are, of course Limit, Market, Stop orders, Trailing Stop Losses and more.
BitMEX offers seven different order types, market, limit, stop-limit, stop-market, trailing stop, take-profit-limit, take-profit-market. Bybit supports three order types, limit, market, and conditional, and these orders can then be clubbed with Stop Loss and Take Profit targets, so as to create a Bracket order.
Deribit do not offer Bracket orders yet, however they do offer stop orders separately. Binance, Delta, FTX offer bracket orders.
Conditional orders on Bybit allows users to place Limit or Market orders when a certain market condition has been met. The functionality and usability is pretty straight forward on Bybit. Placing Limit or Market orders can also be done on other exchanges, though it would require some know-how in terms of navigating without having the dedicated function.
Verdict – Bybit
Robust Calculator
Every derivatives exchange must have a good calculator for users to determine basic values before they trade. For example, users should be able to calculate the profit, loss or liquidation prices.
All platforms have robust calculators. For this round, there is no clear winner!
Isolated Margin and Cross Margin
Cross margin is using all of the user’s margin as Available Balance in the trading platform. That is to say, the margin is shared among all the user’s positions.
Isolated Margin is the margin assigned to a position that is restricted to a certain amount. When the allocated margin drops below the unrealized PnL, the position will be liquidated, but other funds will not be affected.
Depending on a user’s own requirement, having both Isolated and Cross margin ability definitely takes a slight edge for those exchanges. Binance, Bybit, Bitmex offer both options to users. Deribit and FTX by default have cross margin only. On FTX users can create multiple sub accounts to segregate margins if needed. Delta Exchange provides isolated margin for each position.
Verdict – Can’t decide one winner. Depends on the user’s preference.
Trading Fees
The trading fees are the best on Bybit and Bitmex for order creators. All Maker Orders receive a 0.025% rebate on both exchanges.
At the same time Binance does offer the cheapest Taker Fees – 0.04%.
Overall Binance has a total per trade fee of 0.055-0.06% (Maker + Taker), however the overall fee on Bybit and Bitmex is 0.05%.
Deribit and FTX both offer 0 Maker Fees and 0.05% and 0.075% Taker fees respectively. Delta Exchange has variable fee, though it also gives a 0.025% rebate for Maker orders on few contracts.
Verdict – Bybit and Bitmex for Maker Fee Rebates
Identity Verification
While I personally believe that KYC is a good mechanism to avoid illicit money flowing in and out of the platform, I truly support non-KYC exchanges simply for respecting the privacy of the user.
Centralized exchanges that mandate KYC, also run a risk of falling victim to a hack, where the hacker may steal such data and sell it on the dark web.
Bybit and Delta are the only two Derivatives exchanges that offer crypto trading without the need for KYC and have no limits in place. FTX, Binance, Deribit offer no KYC with limits. Bitmex has recently mandated identity verification on their platform.
Verdict – Bybit, Delta
Withdrawal Options
Bitmex and Delta processes Crypto Withdrawal only once a day to secure user funds. Bybit also ensures security of funds in the same way, but processes withdrawals thrice a day.
Deribit, FTX and Binance complete withdrawals immediately.
Bitmex has a very high fee for withdrawal at press time. FTX has zero fees for withdrawal.
Verdict – FTX wins for quick withdrawals and zero fee
Bottom Line
It is never easy to compare more than two platforms. Here we tried to compare six. It truly depends on the user which exchange they wish to trade with depending on the features available to them. Some may prefer “exchange A” for a certain feature, while others may want to avoid that exchange for that very feature.
From the general comparison above, Bybit is on top very closely followed by Binance and Bitmex who are current market leaders in terms of volume and contracts.
Bybit takes the edge in terms of Trading Fee rebate, Advanced Orders and of course joining bonus of upto $90, along with other promotions.
In terms of security, Bitmex, Binance and Bybit are all battle tested. Not to mention all these exchanges take extreme care in storing their user funds in multi-sig wallets, exposing only a small percentage of tokens in hot wallet.
Links to these Exchanges:
Binance – Review Coming Soon
Delta – Review Coming Soon
Bitmex – Review Coming Soon
Have you tried these Derivatives exchanges? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Note: This article contains affiliate links. Coin Crunch writers and authors earn various commission when our readers register and use the products using links on our articles.
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