The three Bitcoin exchanges I recommend are all advanced platforms that are best-in-class and provide unique exposure for amplifying your trades. Coinbase is just for comparison, don't use it for trading. You should create accounts on all 3 sites.
| - | Flagship Product | Difficulty | Risk Level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coinbase | Basic Spot Gateway, Not Designed For Active Trading | Baseline, 5 seconds | Baseline |
| BitFinex | Low Leverage Spot Margin and P2P Lending | 1 Hour of Practice | Medium |
| OkCoin | High Leverage Inverse Non-Linear Futures | 1 Week to Learn | High |
| BitMEX | High Leverage Inverse Non-Linear Perpetual Swaps | The Tutorial Reads Like a College Math Textbook | High |
Introductory Guides:
I personally do most of my trading on BitMEX, a bit on OkCoin and basically none on BitFinex. If you're new to crypto trading you should learn them in this order:
BitFinex Guide (Beginner)
OkCoin Guide (Intermediate)
BitMEX Guide (Advanced)
But ActualAdvice, What About 2nd-Tier Exchange X? EconoForbeStreet Said Its Future!
Lets do a rundown of why these guys are benchwarmers.
Spot Margin/BitFinex Competitors:
Bitfinex was once the most trusted and liquid exchange until a string of unfortunate management decisions culminated in a near fatal hack. Most traders fled after that and volume died out. However, thanks to the Chinese government they are suddenly the only liquid exchange offering spot margin (as opposed to futures). Might as well tinker with them until you're ready for futures.
Kraken: The best place for EUR/BTC, which doesn't mean much since USD and CNY have all the volume. Good security and competent staff, but ridiculously high fees, clunky layout, overzealous KYC, low volume and poor liquidity.
Btc-e: The best place for trading rubles and laundering! Super competent admins and my favorite exchange in 2013. One of the most trustworthy and reliable outfits despite having anonymous owners. The liquidity is terrible, margin trading requires routing MetaTrader 4, and wiring money there will probably put you on a bank's naughty list.
Chinese Exchanges: Pretty good minus the fact that China banned all Bitcoin margin trading in January 2017.
Futures/OkCoin Competitors:
There are three Chinese exchanges that are in roughly the same league: OkCoin, Huobi, and BTCC. These guys each run an offshore subsidiary offering leveraged futures (Okcoin.com, BitVC and BTCCPro). Bitcoin derivatives are basically illegal in China, so they get around this by registering a holding company in BVI (really lax regulation) and Seychelles (no auditing requirements), setting up shop in Hong Kong (Semi-Autonomous... from PBOC) and routing funds through a network of companies using Taiwanese bank accounts.
They've all taken turns being top dog: BTCC in 2014, Huobi in 2015 and now Okcoin. OkCoin has the best interface, highest volume, sweet phone app, and CEO Star Xu has the best relationship with the government. Huobi didn't put enough effort into translating their site to English and half-assed their futures platform. BTCC offers 25x leverage vs. the 20x offered by its rivals, but they also hired the lamest volume manipulator and CEO Bobby Lee is American, making him the Chinese government's least favorite.
Perpetual Swaps/BitMEX Competitors:
No one else offers perpetual swaps. BitMEX is completely disconnected from fiat regulations, has basically no KYC requirements, very low fees, ridiculously high leverage, instantly consolidated futures, and the only place with altcoin futures. This is all possible because BitMEX doesn't touch fiat money at all. You deposit Bitcoins, bet on price with Bitcoins and withdraw Bitcoins. BitMEX's 2 disadvantages are withdrawals being sent out once a day and it's steep learning curve.