Item: Binance
Rating: 4.4
Author: Siim

review
payments
kyc
fees
earn
support
Pros & Cons

ratings

clarity

93/100

simplicity

93/100

selection

86/100

payments

90/100

fees

96/100

features

88/100

trust

88/100

app

96/100

design

90/100

bonus

50/100

Overall

87/100

Details

Payment options

Fees

KYC

Trading options

Order types

Earn options

Countries

Bonuses

Exchange name
Binance

Launched
2017

Cryptos

500+

Accounts

13.5 million and growing

Cayman Islands, Seychelles

Phone
Not available

Website
https://www.binance.com

Licenses

Binance tries to follow the regulation of each country individually.

Number of employees
1300+

Exchange card

yes

Maximum leverage

50x

Payment options
Credit card, P2P, Advcash, Crypto wallets

Fiat deposit
yes

Fiat withdrawal
yes

Instant buy with fiat
yes

Card payment
yes

Paypal payment
no

SEPA payment
yes

SWIFT payment
yes

Apple Pay
yes

Google Pay
yes

Fees
Binance offers many options for payments depending on your location, includong bank transfer, credit and debit cards and Apple Pay.

Fiat deposit/withdrawal fees
1.8% / 1% (VISA)

Instant buy fees
0.50%

Transaction fees (maker/taker)
0.1% / 0.1 %

Fee discounts
If you pay with fees with BNB, you automatically get a 20% fee discount.

Crypto withdrawal fees

Bitcoin: 0.0005 BTC
Ethereum: 0.00625 ETH
Tether: 1 USDT
Binance Coin: 0 BNB
Cardano: 1 ADA
Solana: 0.01 SOL
Ripple: 0.25 XRP
Polkadot: 0.1 DOT
Dogecoin: 5 DOGE
Shiba Inu: 1200050 SHIB
Stellar: 0.02 XLM
Litecoin: 0.001 LTC

KYC info
KYC needed, three levels

KYC details
KYC is required in Binance to trade and definitely to withdraw money.

KYC requirement level
required

Users accepted without KYC?
yes

Spot Trading
yes

Margin Trading
yes

Futures Trading
yes

Trading bots offered
yes

Maximum offered leverage
50x

Other details
Binance offers a lot of different trading options as well as order types.

Market order
yes

Limit order
yes

Stop limit order
yes

Stop market order
yes

Trailing Stop order
yes

Post Only order
no

Strategy order
yes

Time-in-force order
yes

Iceberg order
yes

Conditional order
yes

Crypto staking
yes

Liquidity mining
yes

Learn to Earn
yes

Lotteries
no

Crypto lending
no

Launchpools
yes

Cloudmining
yes

US traders accepted
no

UK traders accepted
no

Japanese traders accepted
no

Aussie traders accepted
yes

Allowed countries
Most countries.

Restricted countries
US, UK

Bonus
10% off - Join through Cryptolorium and you get 10% off Binance fees for life.

Binance Review – the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange

Binance is the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange where it is possible to trade more than 500 different cryptocurrencies and crypto tokens.

Binance exchange also has its own cryptocurrency Binance Coin (BNB).

Binance was launched in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao and its headquarters are currently located in Cayman Islands and Seychelles.

Binance is a legit crypto exchange with more than 13 million active users.

Binance safety and regulation

Binance exchange or rather its holding company is registered in the Cayman Islands and as the company’s spokesperson put it – the company is decentralized and "works with a number of regulated entities around the world".

Binance exchange adheres to different rules and regulations in different countries.

Is Binance safe to use?

Binance could currently be considered one of the safest crypto exchanges out there. But even Binance has had their share of problems.

Two years after they launched there was a major security breach and hackers stole more than 7 000 Bitcoins with a total value of more than $40 million at the time. But the company promised to reimburse all their customers through its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU).

The chief executive of Binance said that all stolen coins will be reimbursed and as far as we know, that’s exactly what was done.

But because of that Binance has now set up even better safeguards than before. So to any one asking if Binance can be trusted – they definitely can be!

So Binance is trustworthy to deposit your money in. And it’s at least as trustworthy crypto exchange as other major exchanges, but just because of the hack we believe it’s now even safer.

Your money is safe in Binance.

Binance Account security options

Binance offers many different options its users to make your account as safe as possible, to protect your personal information as well as your assets.

Here are Binance’s main security measures one can set up on his or her Binance account:

Google authentication: Can be used for added security for withdrawals.
SMS authentication: Receive an SMS with Binance code to confirm the withdrawal.
Email authentication: Same as above, but with email.
YubiKey 2-Factor authentication: If you want to enhance your Binance account security even further, use Yubikey hardware device for 2FA.
Additionally you can also set devices that are allowed to access your account, set up anti-phishing code and see your account activity. Just in case.

You can find all the security settings under your profile area Security tab.

Binance Bug Bounty program

Binance exchange is actually inviting people to find vulnerabilities on their site and reward them with money if they manage to find something.

You can go check it here.

What about the wallet - is binance wallet safe?

While we recommend you not keep your cryptos in an exchange, but rather in a special crypto wallet, Binance crypto wallet can be considered as safe as any hot wallet can be.

Countries where Binance is banned

Is Binance legal in the US? In 2019 Binance was banned in the U.S. on regulatory reasons. But they created a separate entity, Binance U.S. that is registered with the United States Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and complies with all the US laws.

Is Binance legal in UK? In 2019 Binance was banned also in U.K., but this ban doesn’t really affect the users from United Kingdom.

Binance is also not permitted to operate in Ontario, Canada, and they have blocked all services to that juristiction.

Japan has also issued warnings to Binance, saying that “Binance is offering services in the country without authorization,” but users should still be able to use Binance site there.

Malaysia ordered Binance to halt its operations in August 2021.

In addition to aforementioned countries, also Italy, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Germany might have some issues.

However, Binance has a plan to establish regional headquarters in each of those countries and to become licensed in all jurisdictions. So while there is a crypto crackdown going on, the future looks bright for Binance.

Binance platform in numbers

Below you will find some interesting statistical data about Binance. The data is for 2020.

24-hour all-time-high spot trading volume: $15 billion
Binance average daily trading volume: $3.88 billion
Number of tokens listed on Binance: 184 tokens
Number of trading pairs on Binance: 591
Number of languages Binance is available in: 26
Number of languages Binance customer support speaks: 11
Number of daily active users in Binance Earn: 210,000+
Amount of crypto assets in Binance Earn: $2,900,000,000
Amount of rewards distributed in Binance Earn: $70,850,000
Number of Trust Wallet users: 5 million

Deposits & withdrawals on Binance platform

Binance offers its users multiple different deposit and withdrawal options.

You can make instant deposits using your credit card, you can deposit cryptos, you can use Binance P2P payment options.

We have put together a longer guide explaining everything about Binance deposit and withdrawal options and fees.

Binance tax reporting tool

In 2021 Binance launched their tax reporting tool to help Binance users declare their taxes from cryptos.

You don’t have to use it – it’s optional. But when you do need it, Binance tax reporting tool makes it easy to transfer your Binance transaction history to third parties and give a good overview of your potential tax liabilities.

How to use Binance tax reporting tool?

Log in to your Binance account
Click on your profile icon on top of the page
Choose “API management”
Click “Create Tax Report API”
After which will receive your API and Secret Key for your Tax Report.
Now you need to decide on which third-party online tax reporting tool you’ll use. Couple of names to search for, just to get started, are Koinly and BearTax.
After choosing the tool follow their specific instructions.

Trading on Binance platform

So you’ve got Binance account now, but are unsure about how to trade on Binance or want to know about Binance crypto trading options before creating an account?

The good thing is that trading on Binance is pretty simple.

And it’s simple independent of whether you use your computer or Binance app on your mobile. You can buy cryptos for fiat or trade cryptos on all devices.

We will assume for the time being you already have a Binance account and have deposited either crypto or fiat. And in this example we use Binance on our computer.

1. Click on “Trade” tab on top of the page

2. You will then see multiple options there.

Convert. The easiest way to make a trade in Binance platform is to use the “Convert” option, but this is somewhat limited. Choose the coin or fiat available on your account, choose the coin you’re interested in buying, choose the amount and you’re ready to go.
Classic user interface. If you want more options and are ready to trade using a slightly more complicated screen, then this option is for you.

On the top-right corner search for the crypto you’d like to buy. Below the search field there is also list of currencies you can buy the crypto for, such as BNB, BTC, ALTS (such as ETH), FIAT (such as EUR and USD).

Find the currency to buy and then scroll down. Here you see buying options. Main ones to watch are “Limit” and “Market”. Limit price means that you buy the crypto for exact price. Market price means you want to buy the crypto for the current price. Market price is simpler and faster for beginners. So choose this one and choose the total amount of your available money you are willing to spend on this crypto. Press buy and you are done. You just bought your first crypto.
Advanced user interface shows you all trading options. It looks very similar to the classic one and in all honesty, some people might actually prefer this screen to the classic one. As it’s not much more complicated, maybe vice versa, as at least to us it looks more intuitive.
Other options. In addition to the previous trading options you’ll also see margin trading link as well as P2P and Stock Token trading options, but we won’t dig deeper into those at this point.

It is also possible to trade on Binance using Binance app and the app has also two versions – basic and advanced. And it’s really easy to use Binance Basic app as well.

Binance platform overview – where do I find what I need?

We have already gone through a number of topic related to Binance platform and Binance account and it’s very self-explanatory. So instead we’ll answer a few more common questions that might make the platform easier to understand.

Binance - where to see profit

Unfortunately Binance has not made it too simple to find the page where you could see your exact profit or loss for each coin or even your entire wallet. Or actually, you can’t see your profit or loss for each individual coin anywhere.

But you see the Spot Profit & Loss Analysis for your entire Binance portfolio. Here’s where you find it (and no, they haven’t made it too easy).

Click “Wallet” link on top of the page
Click “Fiat and Spot”
Below Yesterday’s PNL you will see a very small arrow.
Click on it. It looks something like this:

But as mentioned, even this page just shows the change of your entire portfolio. If you have sold something in the past or bought something new during the period you don’t get the data you’re looking for. Neither do you get profit and loss information about any individual cryptos.

That’s why we actually created Cryptolorium account area where you could track your Binance spot portfolio value as well as the protfit and loss of all individual cryptos. It’s manual, but that makes it safe and customizable.

Where do I see all the Binance fees I have paid?

There are two ways of doing it. The second one is possibly a better way to see all the Binance fees you have paid.

Option 1

Go to Wallet → Spot & Fiat
Click „Transaction history”
Click „Generate all statements”
Wait up to couple of hours (sometimes it only takes a few seconds although they say it will take 3h)
Download the report

And of course, even then not all fees are included there (such as deposit fees) and you still need to manually find the fee lines.

One user can generate the report only 4 times a month.

Option 2

Better option to see all Binance fees paid is actually to do this:

Go to “Orders” → Spot orders
In the left menu you will find “Trade history”

And this page actually shows you all fees paid in Binance. Of course, the negative bit is that the fees are shown as individual currencies you have paid the fees in. Not in one and the same currency like EUR or BTC.

Where do I see all Binance deposit and withdrawal fees paid?

To see all those fees go to you “Wallet” overview page.
In the left menu choose transaction history
Choose Fiat
Choose timeframe
Choose deposit or withdrawal
Press “Export deposit history”

All deposit and withdrawal fees paid in Binance image

Binance and Trust Wallet

In 2021 Binance acquired Trust Wallet and while it is offered as an independent product, it is possible connect your Binance account to Trust Wallet.

Connecting your Binance account to your Trust Wallet account can be done using Binace’s Wallet Direct option.

We won’t go deeper into this topic, but we just wanted to make you aware of this option.

Binance Card – Binance Visa Crypto card

If you’re a verified Binance user, get yourself a Binance card.

Binance card can be used as a normal credit card, but instead of fiat, you spend crypto.

Your crypto will be held in your Binance Funding Wallet, but it will be used only when you make payments.

Using your Binance Card you earn up to 8% cashback on purchases.

The card is completely free and there are no fees on Binance’s side.

How to order Binance Visa card?

Go to “Finances” → Binance Visa Card and follow the instructions there.

Which countries are eligible for Binance card?

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, French Guiana, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Guadeloupe, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Martinique, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Reunion, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden.

How to open Binance account?

If you have decided to open Binance account, there are simple steps you need to go through.

Go to Binance website and press "Register" button or simply click here
Choose if you want to open Binance account using your email or your phone number. There might also be Apple ID option.
Enter your email/phone number and choose password
Your Binance password needs to be at least 8 characters long contain at least one uppercase letter and one number.
After pressing the Register button you will need to solve a litle puzzle. This will just take you a second.
Now you should have an email or SMS from Binance with a verification code which you need to need to enter.
And you're done. Your Binance sign up process has been completed. But before you continue...
It's now time to complete Binance identity verification process.

Binance KYC - verify your identity

Before it is possible to withdraw money or deposit FIAT money (i.e. USD or EUR) you need to go through personal verification process better known as KYC.

Binance platform has three levels for that: Basic, Intermediate and Advanced.

Basic verification

For basic verification you only need to submit your personal details.

Intermediate verification

Get your account verified to be able to deposit and withdraw fiat money and increase your limits.

Provide Binance your government issued ID (ID-card or Passport, in some cases also driver’s license will do) and go through facial recognition.

It is all automatic, so it goes really fast.

Binance advance verification (or Complete verification)

For complete verification you also need to provide Binance with your proof of address.
Verifying this might take up to 10 days.

How to verify your Binance account?

Verify your Binance account by clicking on the profile icon on top of the page. Obviously you need to be already logged in to do that.
Then click on “Identification”
Click on “Get verified”
Click “Verify Now”
And then just add all the information by following the instructions.

Watch the video below to get a better idea of Binance verification process:

Why and when should you verify your Binance account?

You should verify your account right after creating it. While you don’t necessarily have to do it right away, it’s very advisable.

Imagine sending lots of crypto to your account only to find out later on that for one reason or another you’re not able to verify your account or get your money out.

So go through the basic and intermediate level verification process right away to avoid problems in the future.

Personal verification also increases your Binance daily limits for both withdrawals and deposits.

If you want to have an account in Binance without KYC, it’s possible, but as you just read, this account would have lots of restrictions and by the end of the day, wouldn’t be that useful.

Binance news and updates

Binance announcements and news links can be found in the site footer.

It makes sense to keep an eye on Binance announcements category as they publish information about new coins there as well as news about the crypto coins they are delisting for one reason or another.

And these are important things to know.

Binance news section is sort of Binance blog talking about different crypto-related topics.

Binance app

Binance exchange has a very nice mobile app which is often even easier to use than their web based trading tools. The main thing you can’t do using the app are fiat deposits.

Binance app is available for all main operation systems – there’s binance for android, binance for mac and also version of binance for ipad.

Binance app has two different versions – Binance Lite and the normal version. Switch between the two whenever you want to.

Binance Lite is extremely straightforward for even the very beginners to use while the more advanced app is also still very easy to use.

Is Binance app good?

We don’t like to use mobile apps for much – normally everything is easier to do on bigger screen, so on your laptop or desktop computer. But in case of Binance the app might actually be easier to easier to use.

So we recommend you install Binance app on your phone and see for yourself. You don’t necessarily need to download Binance app to use Binance, but we feel it’s worth it.

And obviously the Binance app is free to use.

Binance Fees

Assuming your trading volume is less than 50 BTC per month, then the spot trading fee is 0.1%. And it’s the same when you buy and when you sell cryptos.

But if you use Binance Coin (BNB) to pay the fees, the fees are reduced by 25%, so in this case they are 0.075% both.

To get the discount all you need to do is have some BNB in your wallet.

Binance credit/debit card deposit/withdrawal fee is 1.8%.

While depositing crypto to your Binance account is free (well, except the general crypto transaction costs), there are fees for withdrawing cryptos from your account, sending them out of Binance.

The crypto withdrawal fees vary depending on the coin and network.

Are binance fees high? In general, no, Binance crypto trading fees are actually pretty much the lowest in the market.

Binance crypto withdrawal fees or fees for moving your cryptocurrencies out of Binance are not necessarily the lowest.

Find all the fees here.

Binance Earn - get free(ish) crypto

Who said there are no free lunches! Well, okay, there aren’t. If you want to earn free crypto with Binance, you need to buy crypto first. As they say – you need to have money to make money.

Binance offers multiple ways to earn free crypto - Binance Savings, Binance Staking, Binance Liquid Swap, Dual Investment. Additionally you’ll notice mining pools in Binance, but we won’t be talking about that.

So what is Binance Earn? In essence, using Binance Earn you put your cryptos to earn you interest. Or as Binance says on its website - “Binance Earn is a complete suite of financial products you can use to increase your crypto holdings. You can think of it as your crypto savings account.”

Before you start using Binance Earn, make sure you understand what APY is.

Binance Savings

Earn interest from your cryptos by using either flexible savings or locked savings option. With flexible savings you can redeem your crypto back at any time.

With locked savings you keep your crypto on the savings account for 7, 15, 30, 60 or 90 days.

The interest rate Binance is offering is between 0.5 and 6% APY usually.

Binance Staking - how Binance staking works?

Binance staking is very similar to savings, and you also have the flexible and locked staking option.

To stake your coins you simply need to have them on your account. If you withdraw the money from the locked staking account earlier, you lose all the accumulated interest. And it’s not always possible to withdraw the coins earlier.

Binance Staking rates vary, but based on what we have see, they can offer you 1% to 140% APY. Most commonly it’s between 4% and 12%.

Launchpool

Choose to lock your BNB holdings or other cryptocurrencies for the chance to earn new tokens that are being launched.

Binance Liquid Swap

Liquid Swap is another option to earn interest from your cryptos.

If youdecide to commit your coins here, the earning potential is generally higher than in case of the previous options.

That’s the good part.

The bad part is that you can also lose money if the market is very volatile.

That’s because how binance liquid swap works. You deposit supported stablecoins and/or cryptos in there and earn interest plus fees plus more.

And it works well.

It has potential.

But in our experience it can also lose you money if the prices of your cryptos change a lot.

In this case your initial sum you put into the liquid swap pools remains the same (calculated into fiat), but you lose money because of the crypto price changes.

So before you commit anything in liquid swap, make sure you understand how it works exactly.

Binance Earn calculator

The interest and other income you can earn with Binance earn is presented as APY. If you don’t know what APY is or how to calculate it, here’s some info for you:

APY stands for annual interest yield. If the APY of a product is 6%, then this doesn’t mean you will earn 6% interest from it.

The percentage is PER YEAR. So if you invest something for 30 days, your actual interest will be around 0.49%.

Because daily interest is 6/365, which is around 0.016%. Now you multiply it with the number of days you’re investing for and for 30 days you get around 0.49%.

Can you lose money with Binance Earn?

In theory you can’t lose money with Binance Savings or Binance Staking products and we haven’t heard of anyone who has. But with Liquid Swap losses are definitely possible.

Binance customer support

Binance has a very nice help center which answers most of your questions without having to get in touch with Binance customer support.

Find the link to it in Binance exchange footer.

But in case of an actual problem, the Binance support chat button is in the bottom-right corner of the site.

Chat is the only option to get in touch with Binance customer support.

DO NOT search the internet for possible phone number as then you will end up speaking to scammers.

Binance does not have an official customer phone number.

Binance is also active the the following social media channels:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/binance
Twitter: https://twitter.com/binance
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/binance
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/binanceyoutube
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Binance/
VK.com: https://vk.com/binance

Pros and cons of using Binance

Pros	Cons
Widest range of cryptos - More 500 cryptocurrencies	U.S. customers can’t use the Binance platform, and the Binance.US exchange is rather limited
Deposits and withdrawals possible with BOTH crypto AND fiat	At first glance, it can seem overwhelming
Possibly the cheapest exchange in terms of exchange fees	Has regulatory troubles in multiple countries
A good number of transaction types	Account overview (protit or loss) hard to find
Awesome mobile app	Total paid fees hard to find
Very simple and easy to understand interface	No bank transfer payment (SEPA) option in Europe (anymore)
Lots of tutorials to help users understand Binance platform better	A few high crypto withdrawal fees (such as BTC)
Binance could be considered very trustworthy
Loads of users and high trading volume
Offers option to earn interest from your cryptos
Offers different trading options for traders of different levels

Using Binance platform - is Binance simple to use?

Is Binance good for beginners? In our opinion Binance is one of the easiest platforms to use.

How to get started in Binance?

Open binance account
Login - binance login
Verify, go through Binance KYC process
Secure your Binance account
Download Binance app
Make a deposit
Start trading

Conclusion

Hopefully our Binance review helps you understand how to use Binance, how does Binance work in general, how to navigate in Binance accounts area and much more.

Based on our own experience and a number of other Binance reviews, Binance trading platform is one of the easiest for beginners to get their crypto legs.

If you feel Binance exchange is not for you, you can find alternatives to Binance here.

Author: Siim Einfeldt
I became interested in cryptocurrencies only a bit more than two years ago. Since then I have been in investing in cryptos using different exchanges. And I also launched Cryptolorium.com when I started trading, just to share my crypto journey and my results.