Day trading isn’t for the faint of heart, but it can be a good way to earn a quick profit if you know what you’re doing.
The trick if you plan to day trade crypto is to find the best crypto exchange for day trading to make sure you’ve got the tools you need to maximize your profits.
If you’re not familiar with the term, day trading involves intraday trades, meaning a trade where you buy a cryptocurrency and sell it later in the same day. It’s a type of trading that uses cryptocurrency’s volatility as a tool.
Because day trading is inherently risky, we don’t recommend it for beginners. It’s important to have a handle on basic crypto trading before you try your hand at day trading.
In this article, we’ll reveal our picks for the best crypto day trading platform and the best advanced trading features in the crypto market for different types of investors, so you can choose the one that’s right for you.
Quick Look: Best Exchanges for Day Trading
Before we get into the details, here’s our list of the top 6 best exchanges for day trading crypto.
- Robinhood
- Coinbase
- Crypto.com
- Kraken
- Binance
- Bybit
Features of the Best Crypto Day Trading Platforms
Here are three areas where we think a platform needs to shine for it to be a good choice for day traders.
Low Trading Fees
Any time you execute a day trade, you should expect to pay a fee. Day trading fees are charged on both sides of a trade, so you’ll pay when you buy a crypto coin and when you sell it.
In most cases, the fee will range from 2% to 3% of the total trade, so if you executed a $500 trade, you might pay between $10 and $15. That might not sound like very much, but those fees will reduce the amount of crypto you can buy with your $500 and they add up over time.
Ideally, you’ll want to choose a crypto exchange with day trading fees that feel reasonable and affordable to you.
Pro Tip:
Sign up today and get $50 of BTC after making your first trade on Coinbase, or receive up to $1500 of stock per year by referring friends on Robinhood!
Liquidity and Trade Volume
When you’re day trading crypto, you should be thinking about liquidity and trade volume, because both can impact the profitability of your trades and day trading strategies.
Liquidity is something you should look for in the coins you plan to day trade. It refers to the accessibility of cryptocurrency. When liquidity is low, you may not be able to execute an intraday trade. You’ll want to choose a platform that allows you to trade popular crypto coins with high liquidity.
Trade volume is driven by liquidity and again, it’s something that makes day trading possible because it reassures traders that coins are readily available and will be easy to buy and sell. You should always look at liquidity and trade volume when choosing a crypto exchange.
Advanced Trading Tools
Trading tools can be simple or advanced. Day trading isn’t something we recommend for beginners, so you’ll want to choose an exchange that has the advanced tools you need to be successful.
Here are a few tools that you’ll need:
- Market and price tracking tools
- Order types that help with day trading, including stop-loss and limit orders
- Custom alerts
- Analysis tools
It’s important to have tools to help you analyze trends. Once you decide on a coin to day trade, you’ll want to set up orders to limit the amount you might lose and maximize profits if the price goes up. It’s essential to have alerts to notify you of price changes. It’s also important to note that you should probably look up crypto day trading taxed articles for reference.
Top 6 Crypto Exchanges for Day Trading
Now, let’s look at each of our top 6 crypto exchanges for day trading to help you decide which one is right for you.
Robinhood
Robinhood is a mobile-first trading platform that is a licensed broker and member of FINRA. Here’s why we like it for day trading.
- Coins available: 20, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Solana, and more
- Fee structure: Maker/taker plus spread
- Trading volume: $35 billion in November, 2024
- User experience: User-friendly, intuitive interface. Easy for beginners.
- Features: Live market trackers for market movements, stop-loss and stop-limit orders, day trade counter, day trade alerts, FDIC insurance for uninvested USD deposits.
- Restrictions: Just the usual pattern day trader restrictions, which apply only if you’re using a margin account.
- Security: Passwords, two-factor authentication, end-to-end encryption, crime insurance.
Robinhood offers a limited number of coins, but it’s a place where you can also buy stocks and ETFs, which makes it our top pick for investors who are building a portfolio and still want to try their hand at day trading crypto, without automated trading.
Coinbase
Coinbase is one of the most popular crypto exchanges and one of the best for investors to practice trading strategies.
- Coins available: 260+
- Fee structure: Maker/taker based on 30-day trade volume plus spread
- Trading volume: $172.9 billion in November, 2024
- User experience: More advanced interface is best for intermediate to experienced traders; top-notch customer service.
- Features: Advanced charting, stop-loss, stop-limit, and other orders, custom alerts, research tools.
- Restrictions: Pattern day trader restrictions.
- Security: Passwords, 2FA, cold storage, encryption, and private crime insurance.
Coinbase is an excellent choice for people who are serious about crypto day trading and want to take advantage of advanced tools.
Crypto.com
Crypto.com has some features that set it apart from other crypto exchanges, including a grid trading bot.
- Coins available: 350+
- Fee structure: Fee structure is complex, view the full schedule here.
- Trading volume: $286.1 billion in November, 2024
- User experience: Streamlined mobile experience; user-friendly.
- Features: Grid trading bot, price tracking, alerts, wide variety of trades including stop-loss and stop-limit orders.
- Restrictions: Pattern day trader restrictions.
- Security: Zero Trust Policy includes passwords, 2FA, encryption; insurance for cold storage.
Crypto.com is ideal for mobile-first users who want to take advantage of the exchange’s fees and market trends, which are lower than most of the others on our list.
Kraken
Kraken is a crypto exchange that’s mostly intended for experienced crypto traders.
- Coins available: 318
- Fee structure: Maker/taker based on 30-day volume plus spread.
- $959 million/24 hours
- User experience: May be too complex for beginners.
- Features: Crypto pricing benchmarks, wide array of trade options, custom alerts for day traders.
- Restrictions: Pattern day trading restrictions.
- Security: Passwords, 2FA, encryption, 24-hour surveillance, SPDI banking license.
Kraken is not designed for beginners, so if you’re just getting started with crypto day trading, we wouldn’t recommend it. If you’ve got plenty of experience, you’ll love Kraken’s advanced tools.
Binance
Binance offers more crypto coins than any other exchange on our list.
- Coins available: 500+
- Fee structure: Trading fees based on 30-day volume.
- Trading volume: $979.1 billion in November, 2024.
- User experience: Complex interface may be too much for beginners.
- Features: Spot and futures trading for day traders, multiple trade types, alerts.
- Restrictions: Pattern day trading restrictions. US users must use Binance.US.
- Security: Passwords, 2FA, encryption, IP and wallet whitelisting, API access control, USD cash deposits are FDIC insured.
Binance has the largest selection of crypto coins available for trading and it’s a good choice for people who want to maximize their choices.
Bybit
Like Binance, Bybit is a choice for serious investors who are already experienced in trading cryptocurrency.
- Coins available: 400+
- Fee structure: Maker/taker plus spread.
- Trading volume: $33 billion daily average for November, 2024
- User experience: Geared toward advanced traders.
- Features: Matching engine, alerts, wide array of trading options, price tracking.
- Restrictions: Pattern day trading restrictions.
- Security: 2FA, Cold Storage of Assets, Multi-Sig wallets, Insurance Fund.
Bybit offers a large selection of coins, but is not a good choice for beginners, who may be overwhelmed by the complex interface.
Pro Tip:
Sign up today and get $50 of BTC after making your first trade on Coinbase, or receive up to $1500 of stock per year by referring friends on Robinhood!
Factors to Consider When Choosing a Crypto Day Trading Platform
Here are some of the main factors you should consider when evaluating a crypto day trading platform.
- Reputation and reviews. Both professional and user reviews can help you wrap your head around what it will be like to use a crypto day trading platform. Some of the sites to check out include Trustpilot, Capterra, Nerd Wallet, Reddit, and CoinDesk.
- Supported trading pairs. Some crypto exchanges offer just a few cryptocurrency trading pairs, while others offer hundreds. Your choice will depend on your trading preferences and whether you’ve got a specific coin in mind for day trading.
- Customer support. Regardless of which platform you choose, you may need direct customer support. Look for a platform that has readily-available support in a format that suits your needs.
- Ease of deposit and withdrawal. It’s essential to be able to get your account funded quickly and withdraw funds when you need them. Make sure to check reviews to learn how easy it is to do these things and, just as importantly, how much it costs.
- Regulatory compliance. Compliance is a looming issue for cryptocurrency exchanges. In many countries, including the US, regulation is an evolving topic. Most crypto exchanges have had some challenges in this area, but make sure the one you choose isn’t scoffing at the law.
- Security. Security should always be a top concern when your money is involved. Look for platforms that have 2FA, cold storage, end-to-end encryption, and private insurance to protect traders in case their security fails. Keep in mind that crypto holdings are not insured by government entities.
Heeding these factors can help you choose the best crypto day trading platform for your needs and preferences.
Tips for Successful Day Trading
Here are some tips for successful day trading.
Master Technical Analysis
Our first tip is to be a student of crypto technical analysis. It may take you a while to get up to speed, but you can’t expect to earn a profit day trading if you don’t know how to analyze trends and make predictions. The good news is that you can find tons of educational material on the platforms we’ve included here, and more on YouTube, Reddit, and other sites.
Manage Your Risk
When you’re just getting started as a day trader, it’s important not to trade more than you can afford to lose. You may want to use a paper trading platform to execute some practice trades and understand how it works. Of course, managing your risk also involves setting strong passwords, enabling 2FA, using a cold wallet to store your crypto assets, and never sharing your password or recovery phrase with anybody.
Pro Tip:
Sign up today and get $50 of BTC after making your first trade on Coinbase, or receive up to $1500 of stock per year by referring friends on Robinhood!
Stay Informed
Finally, we strongly recommend that you stay on top of the latest crypto news. You can do this by reading articles in financial publications, both traditional and crypto-specific websites like CoinDesk. The more you learn, the better able you’ll be to execute successful crypto day trades.
FAQs
While there are plenty of options, we choose Coinbase. It’s got a large selection of coins to trade, an interface that’s accessible even for beginners, and a nice selection of day trading tools. It also comes with state-of-the-art security.
If you’re doing enough day trading, high volume discounts on Crypto.com can save you a lot of money.
Day trading can be profitable, but we can’t guarantee anything and you shouldn’t expect day trading to be a sure thing. A lot of it comes down to timing and getting the timing right requires experience. That said, if you learn how to use stop-loss and stop-limit orders, you can be profitable as a day trader.
Yes, there are. We’d recommend either Robinhood or Coinbase for beginners. These two platforms offer intuitive interfaces and tools that new day traders can learn how to use quickly.
