In the modern world, the number of cryptocurrency exchanges is growing every day, and sometimes it is difficult for traders to decide which of the platforms to use for their activities. Poloniex Exchange is one of the cryptocurrency market old-timers.
And yet, is Poloniex a scam, a dubious resource or a reliable cryptocurrency exchange that guarantees safe trading with the opportunity to get a decent income and withdraw it without any problems? Is Poloniex legit? Today we offer to find out whether there are pitfalls and how much Poloniex surpasses other sites.
- What Is Poloniex?
- Poloniex Features
- Poloniex Fees
- Poloniex API
- How to Use Poloniex Exchange
- Customer Service
- Is Poloniex Safe?
- Conclusion
What Is Poloniex?
The Poloniex exchange has been operating in the field of cryptocurrency pair trading since 2014. Today it has become one of the largest sites with similar specialization. The system was founded in San Francisco, California, and was initially targeted at US citizens. But, rapidly increasing trading volumes, wide functionality, numerous advantages attracted the attention of users from around the world. The founder of the exchange is Tristan D'agosta, whose biography is practically unknown.
The number of participants in the Poloniex exchange continues to increase today. Easy to learn, opens up a wide range of opportunities for traders.
Initially, the service was created to carry out trading activities only in the American financial market, but after the exchange became popular, it was decided to expand the geography and make it accessible to users from all over the world.
In 2018, Tristan sold Poloniex to Circle. The deal amounted to $ 400 million. Rumor has it that the sale avoided the Poloniex Exchange prosecution by the Exchange and Securities Commission (SEC) for non-compliance. In exchange for Poloniex becoming law-abiding and registering its activities under all US laws, the SEC agreed not to take any measures for the site’s past activities.
According to the statement of the new owners of the Poloniex exchange, they plan to work towards scaling this business, adding new tokens to the listing and integrating support for fiat currencies. At the moment, Poloniex does not yet support the work with fiat.
Poloniex, Inc. has legal registration in the USA (Wilmington, DE) and is subject to the laws of that state. The exchange is obliged to collect personal data, as well as information about system passwords, computers, IP-address, user cookies, in order to improve the service; track the correctness of customer actions; to help customers with problems; to prevent fraudulent or suspicious activities that are contrary to the laws of the country in which the company is registered. The organization undertakes to transfer data about its customers to third parties (partners, subcontractors, law enforcement agencies). More information is provided in the "Privacy Policy" section of the Poloniex exchange website.
Poloniex is a US-based cryptocurrency exchange offering cryptocurrency trading globally.
Poloniex does not offer service to residents of China, Germany, Pakistan, Vietnam. If you are a citizen of these countries residing in an approved country, you can proceed with the registration process. Also, Poloniex does not offer service to residents of Washington state (WA), New York (NY) and New Hampshire (NH).
Poloniex daily volume varies within 1500 BTC or $15.000.000. Daily about 3500 visitors are online to trade.
Different from most exchanges, Poloniex accepts fiat currency deposits through both bank transfers and credit cards.
Poloniex has long been the most famous altcoin exchange. It offers a large number of cryptocurrency pairs, which allows experienced traders to create an excellent portfolio of their choice in a short time. Today, the Poloniex exchange supports about 62 cryptocurrencies, including the Tether (USDT) and USD Coin stablecoins and about 120 currency pairs. Among them: ARDR, ATOM, BAT, BCH, BCHABC, BCHSV, BCN, BNT, BTS, BURST, CLAM, CVC, DASH, DCR, DGB, DOGE, EOS, ETC, ETH, FCT, FOAM, GAME, GAS, GNT, GRIN, HUC, KNC, LBC, LOOM, LPT, LSK, LTC, MAID, MANA, NAV, NMC, NMR, NXT, OMG, OMNI, PASC, POLY, PPC, QTUM, REP, SBD, SC, SNT, STEEM, STORJ, STR, STRAT, SYS, VIA, VTC, XCP, XEM, XMR, XPM, XRP, ZEC, ZRX.
The site interface is available only in English and Chinese.
Poloniex Features
One of the reasons for the success of the platform is the expanded opportunities for cryptocurrency trading, safe and profitable cryptocurrency exchange, and lending. At the same time, the largest percentage of the audience, about 90% of the exchange participants, are interested in trading and currency exchange options.
For comfortable trading in cryptocurrencies, the Polonix website offers a convenient functional terminal. In the work, you can use the graphs of exchange rates with the ability to change the period of their display, add your own markers, use a lot of settings, oscillators, indicators (detailed reviews of indicators here) and filters, convenient forms for applications for buying and selling currencies (SELL, BY, STOP LIMIT ), by displaying orders of traded pairs. Advanced analytics (cryptocurrency price for the last day, trading history) will make trading effective.
The platform is also interesting because traders are offered an impressive amount of digital currencies: more than 120, a lot of rare virtual coins participate in the turnover. Cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, Bitcoin, Zcash, Dash, Ripple, Litecoin, MaidSafeCoin, Factom, Clams, Dogecoin, Monero, etc. are available on the exchange. When registering on the exchange, each user automatically opens a personal multi-currency wallet.
The main advantages of Poloniex:
- High level of reliability. This feature is important for each participant in the system; it plays a special role for experienced traders conducting large financial transactions leading successful trading;
- Intuitive interface. The Poloniex cryptocurrency exchange is available only in English and Chinese, but everyone can understand the features of the work, even if they do not know English well. Everything is clear and transparent, and the windows on the main screen are located as on most other trading floors;
- A huge selection of types of cryptocurrencies, and accordingly, cryptocurrency pairs;
- Wide platform functionality. In addition to margin trading on Poloniex, you can take and give out loans, exchange digital coins for another, more convenient or profitable type;
- Informative charts that help to create a complete picture of the situation on the cryptocurrency market, make a forecast regarding the future movement of the value of the selected asset;
- Low fees for operations. The difference with other systems is especially felt for traders who are active here. This point will be confirmed by numerous reviews of the Poloniex exchange.
Poloniex is an exchange that provides optimal conditions for cryptocurrency trading, and not only experienced trading participants but also beginners can prove themselves here.
Poloniex does not work with fiat currencies. The US dollar is tied to the Tether altcoin (USDT), which costs exactly 1 dollar, but in times of crisis (for example, after closing the withdrawal of dollars on Bitfinex) its exchange rate does not always correspond to the dollar.
Also, Poloniex exchange provides a convenient way to trade for the users via the mobile apps for Android and IOS.
Poloniex Fees
The amount of fees varies from 0 to 0.09%, depending on the trader’s trading volume over the past 30 days and the role in which he acts - a maker or a taker. This value corresponds to the average market.
You can find more detailed information on Poloniex Fees here.
Poloniex API
Poloniex provides both HTTP and WebSocket APIs for interacting with the exchange. Both allow read access to public market data and private read access to your account. Private write access to your account is available via the private HTTP API. You can find more information on Poloniex API here.
How to use Poloniex exchange
Poloniex Sign Up
To start working with the Poloniex exchange, you need to create a personal account. This process will take you no more than 5 minutes.
First you need to open the official Poloniex website and click on the “Sign up” button in the upper left corner or in the middle of the start page.
A registration form will open before you, in which you need to specify an active email address and come up with a password. It is also necessary to put a checkmark in the checkbox and confirm your age, user agreement and privacy policy. After that press the “Sign up” button.
Within a few seconds, an email will be sent to your mail indicating the link by which you must go to activate the account. If you cannot find the incoming message from Poloniex, check the Spam folder.
Once you confirm your email, you will be redirected to the Login page where you need to indicate the email and password again.
Poloniex Verification
Recently Poloniex platform required its users to pass the verification to start trading. However, if you click on the “My Profile” button in the upper right corner after registration, you will see that your account is assigned “level 1 verified”. It follows that for 1 level you have access to Deposit assets, Withdraw assets (10.000$/day) and Card purchases.
If you want higher limits and get increased limits and advanced features like margin trading and lending, you can get it in case of providing a bit more profile information. Press on the “Upgrade” button under the “Level 2” line.
You will be provided the form where you have to fill with your personal information like Country/Region/ First Name, Date of Birth, Street Address, City, Postal Code, and Phone Number. Once you finish press “Submit”.
The next step in the verification process is to verify your identity. To start identification, click the "Start" button.
You will be asked to select a country and one of the documents that you will use for identification. It could be Passport, Identity card or Driver’s license.
Then you need to upload a photo of the selected document. It is important to know that the photo of the document must be color, clear, and also saved in JPG or PNG format.
After downloading the photo of the document, you should also send a selfie with a text note in your hands, on which should be indicated the current date and the inscription "Poloniex".
Further, all data will be sent for verification. Usually, this process takes several minutes but may take several days. Upon the completion of verification at Poloniex, you will be sent a letter to the email specified during registration, you can also see the status of the verification on the page of your profile.
Poloniex Deposit
In order to deposit funds to your exchange wallet, you need to go to the menu “Balances” → “Deposits & Withdrawals”.
Next, a window opens with a list of cryptocurrencies, select the necessary one and click on the “Deposit” button in front of it.
The system will generate a unique wallet number (public key), which must be used to make a deposit. In addition, you can use the system QR code.
It should be noted that replenishment with some cryptocurrencies has individual requirements, for example, a minimum deposit. If such conditions exist, the system will notify you of this by issuing an appropriate message indicating the smallest amount that can be deposited into the account.
Poloniex Withdrawal
How to withdraw money from Poloniex? Everything is very simple. The process of withdrawing funds from the Poloniex exchange account is similar to the process of replenishing your wallet.
Go to the menu “Balances” → “Deposits & Withdrawals” and click on the “Withdraw” button opposite the currency of interest. A window will open in front of you, in which you need to specify the address of the recipient and the number of coins to be withdrawn.
It takes some time to complete the transaction, from a few minutes to 24 hours. For security reasons, withdrawals sometimes require certain confirmations, namely direct review and approval by members of the Poloniex operating team. This is necessary in some cases, depending on how secure your account is.
Then a link will be sent to your email to confirm the transaction. Clients with two-factor authentication do not confirm the withdrawal of funds by email.
Trading at Poloniex
Trading functionality on the Poloniex exchange includes many different tools. So, for example, this service provides the ability to use three types of financial transactions - Exchange, Margin training and Landing.
The trading screen supports a smart interface. It can be divided into several time intervals, it has different backlight modes, and also supports Fibonacci levels and Bollinger Bands. All these settings apply to each of the pairs on the exchange.
Also available on the exchange is a lending function, where users can take or offer a loan with a certain interest rate.
How to buy at Poloniex
To carry out standard exchange activities, you must select the Exchange section in the upper left corner.
To select the required currency pair, use the Market tool. From the top, select the base cryptocurrency, and from the opened list - the quoted one.
Also on the same page is a graph of the changes in the selected currency pair.
Under the chart, you can see three application forms for creating a buy, sell, and stop-limit orders.
In order to buy or sell cryptocurrency on Poloniex, use the Buy or Sell application forms, respectively. Indicate the required amount of currency, as well as the purchase/sale price. Then the system will automatically calculate your total transaction amount. Pay attention to the commission, the size of which is indicated in the line "Fee". To confirm the transaction, click the “Buy” or “Sell” button, depending on the type of transaction.
As for the stop-limit order, its use will help you to some extent protect the profit and minimize losses. Such an order is executed in a certain price range, for example, you want to buy a cryptocurrency when the market price reaches 200, but you do not want to pay more than 210.
Then you need to specify the value in the “Stop” field - 200, and “Limit” - 210. As soon as the market value reaches 200, the order will be executed at the best of the offered prices.
Let's look at what happens next with your application using the example of a purchase order. After the application is placed, Polonix will look for a counterparty, ready to sell the desired cryptocurrency at the price you need. If the exchange does not find a sales order in which there will be a corresponding price, then the order will be placed in the order book (block “Open order”) until a suitable sales order appears.
As soon as your order is executed, it will automatically be displayed in the history of transactions (block "Trade history").
The platform’s functionality also includes order glasses (“Sell orders” and “Buy orders” blocks) and a graph of sales and purchases (“Market Depth” block).
Customer service
Technical support is available by email, feedback form on the website or via chat. Recently, the exchange closed the chat, citing a lack of employees to support it. You can contact support via the support form on the website. Also, on the same page, you can use the search line in the case to find the answer to the question you have on mind.
Both positive and negative reviews of traders about the resource are presented on the Internet, but it cannot be said if there are more positive or negative reviews. Among the positive aspects, first of all, reliability and reputation, profitable trade, functionality, and convenience of the platform are noted. A correct reaction to the hacking of the exchange in 2014 and reimbursement of funds to users prove that this is not a fraudster, but a serious organization. However, users have often complained about the company. Poloniex support is very slow. The same can be said about the withdrawal process. You can find more reviews on Trustpilot.
Nevertheless, Poloniex continues to attract users with a large set of cryptocurrencies and its functionality.
Poloniex is quite active on social media, you can find the latest news and updates on the Twitter and Facebook pages.
Is Poloniex Safe?
There is no use in depositing money to the crypto exchange that doesn't offer strong protection features. If you cannot secure your account with something different than a strong password you might end up robbed. Let's figure out if Poloniex provides a safe service.
Poloniex is a US exchange regulated by FinCEN. As a regulated platform by no means Poloniex can be regarded as a scam company. It complies to the laws requiring Poloniex to provide a serious level of security to accounts of customers. The Information Commissioner's Office is another organization controlling the exchange's security standards.
Currently, Poloniex supports a lot of security features both on the exchange and the user sides. For instance, the platform uses anti-DDoS attacks protection which is important to prevent downtime and platform shut downs. Anti-spam and anti-bot protection measures are also in place. The exchange cache is protected with encryption of signatures. Most of the users' money is stored offline. So in case if hackers manage to break the company's servers they won't be able to steal a serious amount of the users' funds. The website cannot be changed by strangers as it is protected with the registry lock. The activity on the exchange is monitored. In case if some transaction seems to be suspicious, Poloniex blocks it.
As for the security measures available on the user side, on Poloniex you can safeguard your funds and data via 2-factor authentication (or simply 2fa). This protection measure seriously decreases the probability of successful access to your account by unwanted guests. When 2fa is enabled, no one can enter the account, withdraw money, or do critical changes to the account settings without entering a one-time password first. This password is generated locally on your mobile device so most probably you can be rest assured that your data and funds will be kept safe.
To make sure, your account wasn't visited by thieves you may check the session log history. If you detect unauthorized activity you can quickly terminate all sessions in one click. More than that, you might add another authorization level via enabling email confirmations. If you do this, some actions on your account will require your approval via the emails with confirmation links. The IP blacklist and whitelist can be used to limit the IPs that can access your account. This can dramatically increase the security of the account.
While today we consider Poloniex to be a safe platform, in March 2014, the exchange suffered from a major hacker attack. About 12% of bitcoins stored on the platform were stolen. After that, the company raised commissions to be able to compensate for the loss of affected users.
A decent solution to security and reliability issues on the Poloniex website is one of the company's strengths. The good thing is that now the lesson is learned. The exchange is popular, with colossal volumes of transactions and incomes — all this cannot but attract the attention of fraudsters who would like to cash in on the carelessness of users to the resource. However, Polonix is developing, improving the level of trading security. Traders are advised to go through two-factor registration, as well as managers can request documents proving the identity of the user.
Conclusion
Poloniex is an exchange that is currently not a scam since honorably and honestly fulfills its obligations to traders by consistently paying them funds, monitoring the correct operation of payment systems, ensuring work security to prevent hacking. Traders positively evaluate the company after hacking, when the exchange paid users funds from its budget.
And yet, is Poloniex a scam? The answer is no since the resource rightfully occupies the leading positions in the ratings of such companies, leads in the number of regular customers and the turnover of funds, and has opportunities for comfortable and profitable trading. Anyone will be able to understand how to trade on Poloniex if the person is a little bit acquainted with crypto. The exchange is aimed at both beginners and experienced traders. Favorable trading conditions are offered to each user. Due to the high level of protection, you don’t need to worry about your own funds, paying more attention to the bidding itself. And here the platform offers assistants - informative charts, which show minimal price fluctuations. You just need to customize them for yourself, setting the criteria of interest.
Poloniex opens up the widest possible opportunities for its participants, which is why it is very popular. This is confirmed by systematically increasing trading volumes, regularly increasing the number of active users.
It’s not necessary to think long about how to get money for Poloniex. There are also plenty of options here.
Of course, we can also highlight the moments that can confuse some users, for example, the lack of support for fiat currencies and poor technical support. But, these nuances can not be called cons, rather, these are the characteristic features of a particular site, because in many systems working in this direction, things are the same.