HitBTC Review 2024

If you’re already part of the crypto game, you know that this industry has you in for everything but a steady ride. This is true for investors and crypto businesses alike, as they both need to operate carefully and strategically in order to stay afloat when the next volatile wave hits the market.

Therefore, when you come across a cryptocurrency exchange that started working back in 2013 and keeps providing services with the same level of dedication, you can’t help but think, is this platform really good or is there something fishy going on instead?

In this exchange review, we’ll talk about the controversies around the HitBTC exchange, a successful crypto platform yet one that’s frequently criticized for its lack of transparency. Is it worth giving HitBTC a go, or should traders stay away from it?

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About the HitBTC Exchange

Frankly speaking, little is known about HitBTC and its whereabouts. The crypto exchange was founded back in 2013 as the crypto industry was steadily picking up steam. The company decided not to disclose any details as far as the founding team was concerned, but instead only boasted that the team featured some of the best software engineers and finance experts in the world.

What we do know is that the exchange was located in Hong Kong but registered in Chile under the name Hit Solution Limited. You can find the exact address on their website (hitbtc.com). There are also reports that the platform came to be thanks to a $3 million venture capital investment from angel investors.

The lack of transparency has made HitBTC a scapegoat for the crypto community, causing a lot of (possibly ungrounded) red flags for investors. The company wrote an official blog post claiming that they’re doing their best to improve their Personal Communication department and that the rumors going around are not based on facts but are instead spread out of spite by their competitors.

However, although there have been many positive user experiences as the exchange really provides great altcoin spot trading features, the platform has been faced with problems regarding withdrawal times and poor customer support for quite a while.

Bitcoin and Other Supported Cryptocurrencies

One of the upsides of HitBTC is the sheer volume of digital currencies on offer. Here, you’ll find the usual prominent cryptos like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ripple (XRP), and Litecoin (LTC), various altcoins and DeFi tokens like DASH, EOS, DogeCoin (DOGE), Monero (XMR), Stellar (XLM), etc., and stablecoins like Tether (USDT).

You should keep in mind that HitBTC is a crypto-to-crypto exchange only, meaning that in order to buy cryptocurrency, users need to deposit other cryptos in their HitBTC wallet balance.

For beginners who lack the digital coins necessary to start trading, HitBTC offers an option for fiat currency deposits (in USD or EUR) via Changelly, a reputable crypto platform that accepts both bank transfers and credit/debit card payments. The catch is that you’ll still have to buy crypto for fiat on Changelly, and then transfer your newly-purchased crypto assets to HitBTC to buy the crypto you were after all along. As you can see, this is time-consuming and not at all practical.

On the bright side, HitBTC lets you create a demo account and trade with fake crypto until you feel confident enough to invest your own.

Trading Fees and Limits

The exchange uses a scalable fee schedule that rewards users with higher trading volume. The fees are actually lower for unverified users – 0.1% for makers and 0.25% for takers – but they don’t scale as much as the fees for verified users.

Unverified users don’t get to enjoy the numerous benefits that come with having a verified account, such as two-factor authentication, account recovery in case you lose your credentials, and no limits on both deposits and withdrawals.

For verified users, the fee starts at 0.09% for both makers and takers, which is quite expensive for small-scale investors. In comparison, popular exchanges like Binance would charge you 0.1% per transaction. Here’s the complete schedule:

As you can see, using HitBTC really pays off if you plan on trading large amounts of crypto as the cryptocurrency exchange actually pays a rebate of -0.01% as an incentive to market makers whose volume exceeds 50,000 BTC per month in order to keep boosting the platform’s liquidity levels.

HitBTC has a trading minimum amount for every currency pair. The limit is calculated on the target currency you want to purchase. For instance, Bitcoin has a minimum amount of 0.01 BTC per order.

Is HitBTC Safe or a Scam?

To this day, HitBTC has never been hacked, although there have been several accusations with no evidence. User accounts are protected with two-factor authentication, cold storage for your funds, the option to look into all login addresses and spot an unauthorized one, and automatic logouts after 30 minutes of inactivity.

As part of the verification process, users are asked to complete a KYC check (in line with AML policies) and provide the following details: full name, birth date, addressed, scanned copy of a legitimate ID, and a selfie holding that same document.

Customer Support

If you want to contact HitBTC, you can either send a support ticket via email or visit their social media profiles on Facebook and Twitter. There’s also their support page with several sections that answer the most common user questions.

It’s important to note that the exchange’s customer support team has been called out in the past for being both slow to respond and unhelpful when you finally reach them. The problem is that a lot of customers have had withdrawal issues that took weeks (sometimes months!) to get resolved. This has cost them significant money losses, as in crypto time, the value of your target asset can plummet as fast as it climbed up.

A Few Words Before You Go…

So, let’s briefly sum up what we’ve said on HitBTC so far.

If you’re an institutional investor, you’ll find the HitBTC platform and its scalable fee schedule to be a good fit. However, if you’re a retail trader, whose monthly trading volume would probably be no more than 10 BTC, you definitely need an exchange with a better fee schedule and lower fees.

Similarly, while crypto-to-crypto traders will get excited by the hundreds of trading pairs available on HitBTC, beginners won’t be crazy about having to use a second platform (Changelly) to link their bank account to or purchase crypto with a credit card and then transfer them to their HitBTC account. Why not use Changelly altogether instead, then?

Plus, we can’t neglect that unsatisfactory customer support and bad reputation. Even if it proves to be ungrounded, we still advise traders to be careful with HitBTC and stay on the lookout for alternatives.

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