The question about the "best" crypto exchange comes up often, I wanted to give the answer here, then I can always link the post in the future.
tl;dr for those in a hurry
- You are a beginner and want to buy small amounts of common cryptocurrencies?
𝐁𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧 join.bisonapp.com/t926da
(Reflink will give 15€ in BTC to you and me, after the first trade >50€).
- Need more choice of coins or make trades >1000€? Then Kraken.
𝐊𝐫𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐧 kraken.com
Basically, unfortunately, there is no provider that is the best in every aspect. With 3 factors, however, significant differences can already be dealt with.
1. which cryptocurrency do you want to buy?
2. how much money do you want to invest?
3. do you want to transfer the cryptocurrency to your own wallet?
Bonus: 4. functionality beyond trading
1. which cryptocurrency do you want to buy?
Relatively self-explanatory, if the cryptocurrency is not offered you cannot buy it.
2. how much money do you want to invest?
If you want to invest more money, then you usually benefit from larger exchanges with better rates. If you invest less money, then this is less important.
3) Do you want to transfer the cryptocurrency to your own wallet?
First, there are providers where this is generally not possible, either because you do not buy real cryptos or because they are stored only for you. Secondly, a fee point depends on this question. If you move your cryptos to your own wallet, some providers will charge you a fee. These fees are not variable, which means that the lower your investment, the higher the percentage of these fees. There are also minimum amounts below which you cannot withdraw.
𝐁𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧 and 𝐁𝐒𝐃𝐄𝐗 offer only a few cryptocurrencies and the provider earns with Bison via the spreads, but there are no fees for the transfer to the own wallet. Furthermore, the offers are in German, the support is German and the provider is regulated in Germany. Additionally, your euro deposits (and only those) are protected by the Deposit Protection Fund up to 100k. BSDEX has lower fees, but offers fewer coins than Bison.
𝐊𝐫𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐧 and 𝐂𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐞 are trustworthy platforms from my point of view and both are trying to meet regulatory requirements. Both platforms have been active for a very long time and are among the largest in the market. The number of offered coins and trading pairs is good on both platforms, if you don't find something there it is often trash or even newer and more speculative. Trading on both via Pro, lower fees. If you use the platforms be prepared to need English at some point. Both offer German support, but that has limits. By the way, there is nothing against accounts with several exchanges, on the contrary, the accounts cost nothing.
𝐂𝐫𝐲𝐩𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐨𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐦 (CDC) is not worth it for trading in my view. The fees are too high in my opinion.
𝐁𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 and 𝐅𝐓𝐗 offer again more cryptos and more trading pairs and many more features. English is a must on both. For beginners, both are not suitable from my point of view. Otherwise, I can still recommend to compare the largest Exchanges themselves if necessary, for example, via CMC. [1]
Overviews for trading / payout costs at Kraken [2,3], Binance [4,5] and CDC [6] are attached. Alternatively, there is also an aggregator that does this for all major Exchanges. [7]
► Other from the German-speaking world.
𝐍𝐮𝐫𝐢 more expensive than Bison / BSDEX, no web trading only app, app only works if biometrics enabled.
𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭 / 𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐞 / 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜 no delivery of cryptos
𝐕𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐝 only certificates no real cryptos
bitcoin.de low liquidity since P2P exchange
𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚 unfortunately increased fees, but offers savings plans
𝐁𝐨𝐧𝐮𝐬: 4. Functionality beyond trading.
I actually hope that anyone interested in more than normal trading has the expertise to do their own research. If not, then don't do the stuff unless you are clear on what the risks are or how it works. Therefore I will keep this short. Keywords to search for: Leaverage, Lending, Staking, Launchpools, Liquidity Pools, Vaults. This is all available through DeFi as well. Also, a note that not every provider offers the same thing under the same term. Binance, Coinbase and Nuri, for example, use the term Vault for different offers.
The 1000€ in tldr are set relatively arbitrarily, is just an approximation ... duh is just tl;dr.
Addendum: If you are interested in comparing crypto exchanges in more detail, you should also have a look at these articles:
https://app.getquin.com/activity/AWIfMnuORw
https://app.getquin.com/activity/eZGxMCwArT
[1] https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/
[3] https://www.kraken.com/en-us/features/fee-schedule/#kraken-pro
[4] https://www.binance.com/en/fee/cryptoFee
[5] https://www.binance.com/en/fee/schedule
[6] https://crypto.com/exchange/document/fees-limits
