Poloniex Review for Canada 2024
Making Crypto Simple
There are so many crypto exchange platforms that it’s challenging not to stumble into a bunch of them while researching or browsing anything even remotely connected to cryptocurrency and Bitcoin trading.
Crypto exchanges are, for the most part, centralized platforms that facilitate Bitcoin and altcoin trades.
If ten years ago the problem was finding a platform where you could acquire crypto assets, a decade later, we’re faced with option paralysis. Nowadays, there are so many choices that it’s borderline impossible to go through every one of them and figure out which one suits you best.
Poloniex is one of the most reliable and popular crypto platforms on the market. It rose to prominence by being one of the very first crypto exchanges that offered Ethereum as a crypto trading asset. Poloniex is the premier exchange platform to have trading volumes of over $1 billion.
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About the Trading Platform
Founded in 2014 by Tristan D’Agosta, Poloniex is situated in Wilmington, Delaware. Four years after its launch, the platform was bought by Circle. Circle is one of the world’s leading peer-to-peer payment providers which swiftly regulated Poloniex across the US and allowed it to move quicker and attract new customers on a global scale.
Poloniex doesn’t support fiat currency trades or conversions, however, it supports over 60 cryptocurrency assets such as Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), EOS (EOS), Monero (XMR), Ripple (XRP), Tron (TRX), Litecoin (LTC), and Tether (USDT), in over 100 trading pairs. Trading fees are quite affordable and tied to the monthly trading volumes. The low-fees threshold is set at 600 BTC, for which there is a 0.15% maker fee and a 0.25% taker fee. The ceiling on withdrawals is $2,000, or $25,000 should you provide further documentation and verification for your profile (high-tier account).
Security
Poloniex is certified by FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) as an Automated Trading System (ATS). It employs AML and KYC tests that verify new users before granting them access to its services.
Unfortunately, the platform was breached in 2019, which caused the CLAM cryptocurrency to freeze and provide a huge margin gap on pairs, especially on the CLAM/BTC pair. This caused severe losses in a very short period of time, so much so that the cryptocurrency exchange decided to use customer funds in order to stop the bleeding. This move was the equivalent of putting out a fire with gasoline as those funds also went to ashes, resulting in a $13.5 million loss.
However, Poloniex reimbursed its users during the following years. The breach stained the trading platform’s reputation and a lot of their clientele left the platform for its competitors. Nevertheless, Poloniex has pushed forward by offering full transparency and taking action to prevent such breaches from ever occurring again.
The platform urges all users to activate the two-factor authentication (2FA) feature as relying on usernames and passwords doesn’t seem to cut it anymore. 2FA is activated upon registration and notifies you by SMS or a third-party authenticator app when a login attempt has been made on your profile. Hardware security keys, such as YubiKey, are more reliable than SMS codes. Should the platform register an unauthorized login attempt on a user account, Poloniex automatically sends out a freeze email confirmation so that the user can freeze their Poloniex account if it has been compromised.
Enabling the API key feature allows users to bypass the login and two-factor authentication process. So, it’s not a feature that should be left on and it should be disabled immediately after the use of the platform. The API key should also be erased so that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
Trading Fees and Fees on Margin Trading
Poloniex offers some of the lowest fees in the crypto industry deposits and withdrawals. It also employs low trading fees on advanced trading features such as margin and futures trading.
The fee protocol is very simple: the fees are based on monthly user trading volumes. Should users have a volume lower than 50,000 USD within a month, then both the taker and maker fees are 0.090%. Users who are part of the Poloniex Plus Gold tier enjoy low fees of 0.000% as makers and 0.030% as takers. Their numbers are ridiculously low and beat all of the platform’s main competitors. The only exchange platform that has fees that are in the same ballpark is Binance, as Kraken, Coinbase, Coinbase Pro, Bitfinex, and Bittrex all employ higher fees.
On advanced trades, such as margin and futures trading, users are subject to a 0.09% fee per trade. The platform doesn’t have fees on deposits, apart from the blockchain fees. There is no option for direct fiat deposits, so users have to rely on pegged currencies and stablecoins. Although Poloniex has the lowest of the low fees when it comes to margin trades, users still need to pay interest fees to the third party that is lending them the assets.
Withdrawal fees entirely depend on the currency and the currency’s blockchain network. Bitcoin withdrawals come at a very low 0.0005 BTC flat fee.
Deposit and Withdrawal Methods
Poloniex does not support fiat currencies, which means that all deposits and withdrawals are made in cryptocurrencies. The trading platform provides a dedicated page where users can buy Bitcoin or any other altcoin via credit card, debit card, or Simplex.
Simplex purchases are limited to 50 – 20,000 USD on a daily basis, and up to 50,000 USD on a monthly basis. The Simplex fees are either a fixed $10 or a 3.5% of the trade – whichever calculation comes out with a higher fee is applied to a transaction.
Poloniex Support
Poloniex offers customer support in the form of a vast FAQ library. Their support team can be reached via their toolbox and social media platforms, however, the magnitude and stature of the company call for a more advanced customer support infrastructure.
The platform would greatly benefit from a direct phone number, as trollbox replies aren’t timely and rely on the community. Users have complained that they have experienced prolonged trollbox replies even from moderators.
A Few Words Before You Go…
Even though Poloniex has seen its fair share of troubles in the past, it has managed to land back on its feet. It offers ample liquidity with some of the lowest trading fees in the industry. The advanced Poloniex trading features, such as an IEO launchpad, spot trading, stop-limit, futures, and margin trading, make it ideal for trading pros.
On the other hand, novice Poloniex users will have no trouble navigating through the interface and won’t get lost on multiple intertwined register processes, because the API is very user-friendly. The platform does not employ a KYC verification process which is a welcome sight for everyone who is concerned about their privacy.
The fact that Poloniex has chosen not to go through and qualify for regulations is a two-edged sword though, so make sure that you use it wisely.
Frequently Asked Questions
Poloniex is available almost everywhere in the world except for Sudan, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Syria and the United States. This is largely due to the platform’s lack of regulations and KYC or AML tests on new users.
Yes, Poloniex offers a mobile app for both Android or iOS systems, however the app does not offer the full range of features of the platform. The options for margin and futures trading and buying cryptocurrency are unavailable. Nevertheless, users can still view their balance and receive notifications.
Poloniex does provide a native web wallet. However, users should not rely on this wallet and store their digital currency in it for long periods of time. It’s always safer to keep larger amounts of crypto in a dedicated hardware wallet.
Users can start trading up to $2,000 on a daily basis on Poloniex by providing an email address. However, the full features of the exchange aren’t available until the users provide the exchange with their legal name, date of birth, and a government-issued ID card or biometric passport.
Poloniex prioritizes security. It keeps most funds in cold storage and continuously improves their already implemented features. The platform also urges users to keep a close eye on their assets by activating two-factor authentication (2FA) and the API key features.