CEX.IO

 
exchange cex.io review

CEX.IO is a cryptocurrency exchange and a trading platform for Bitcoin and altcoins, as well as GHS. It is available for the users from most countries, including 24 US states. The fiat currencies supported – USD, EUR, GBP and RUB. As BTCC is to Asia – so CEX.io is to Europe and America. CEX.io combines a mining pool, crypto to crypto exchanges and fiat to Bitcoin exchange. They also offer the ability to trade mining contracts – or the rights to bitcoin mining equipment for a specific period of time. The exchange also offers USD and EUR to BTC pairs alongside a number of crypto to crypto pairs. CEX.IO was launched in 2013 as a Bitcoin exchanger and cloud service. In 2016, the company changed its field of activity. Their service of cloud mining was suspended, and to their own platform they added Ethereum.

Contents

In recent years, based in London CEX.IO have created a great reputation. Currently, they offer services exchanger and a simple purchase/sale of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Users can make a Deposit to the CEX.IO exchange, using both Bank transfers and credit cards.

CEX.IO Review

CEX.IO mining

CEX.IO project development started in early 2013 and proceeded with launching the CEX.IO domain, acquiring assets of GHash.IO and, finally, registering a legal company CEX.IO LTD in November 2013. By this time, according to Blockchain.info, GHash.IO has become the biggest mining pool, reaching over 42% of the overall Bitcoin mining power, which embodied the 51% attack threat. However, CEX.IO made an official statement, assuring the Bitcoin community that it would “take all necessary precautions to prevent reaching 51% of all hashing power, in order to maintain stability of the Bitcoin network.” In April 2014, CEX.IO user base exceeded 200,000 users. May 2014, CEX.IO imposed trade fee onto the CEX.IO exchange, lowered maintenance costs for cloud-based GHS and added IXC/BTC trading pair. On September 22, 2014, CEX.IO announced the successful launch of the first fiat currency — US dollars are accepted via bank transfer and payment cards. This upgrade allows users to trade Bitcoins and cloud-based hashing power (GHS) as well as deposit and withdraw funds at one place without using services of another exchange. On September 29, 2014, CEX.IO established the second fiat currency, the Euro, and implemented the possibility to deposit funds via SEPA.

January 12th, 2015, CEX.IO suspended cloud mining services due to low Bitcoin price and high mining difficulty. Later on, CEX.IO has been developing as a trading platform. April 30th, 2015, the Bitcoin CEX.IO exchange has officially entered the USA market.

CEX.IO has also obtained an MSB (Money Services Business) status in FinCEN, a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. As a registered MSB, CEX.IO has proved that the company complies with the Bank Secrecy Act requirements applicable to financial institutions as well as to each of the specific requirements applicable to MSBs. August 2015, CEX.IO added Russian Ruble as the third fiat currency. At the same time, the platform presented WebSocket API for professional traders. December 2015 is the release month of official CEX.IO Mobile Application. April 2016, CEX.IO launched Ether trading and added ETH/BTC and ETH/USD pairs. April 28th, 2016, CEX.IO launched withdrawals of USD, EUR, and RUB to payment cards (Visa/MasterCard). In October, 2016, GHash.IO pool was closed. October, 2016, CEX.IO launched variable trade fee schedule, and margin trading for BTC/USD and ETH/BTC pairs. In December, 2016, CEX.IO launched a new Bitcoin Affiliate Program.

In October 2016, all mining operations in GHash.IO have been stopped and the pool was officially closed. The company focused on cryptocurrency trading, and CEX.IO continued operating as a multi-functional Bitcoin and altcoins exchange. Currently, CEX.IO is among the leading exchanges with a customer base of over 1,000,000 users.

News

CEX.IO was in London. Access to the purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies service provides users from around the world. You can quickly exchange one currency for another, and make money on the trade, using borrowed funds.

On the stock exchange often write specialized publications:

  • Coindesk;
  • Coin telegraph;
  • Medium;
  • Wired and others.

For customer convenience, the interface has been translated besides English into the following languages:

  • English;
  • Russian;
  • Italian;
  • Chinese;
  • Spanish;
  • Portuguese.

CEX.IO App

Trading interface is easy to use, and generally the entire platform is very user-friendly. The page load speed is excellent as well. The exchange also has CEX.IO apps for both Android and iOS, which are available for downloading in App Store and Google Play.

Trading Platform

Buying Bitcoin from CEX.IO

CEX.IO serves two major functions – cryptocurrency exchanging and trading. As an exchanger, CEX.IO allows users to instantly buy or sell cryptocurrency via FOK orders or “bundles”. Using this feature, customers have their orders executed under the preset conditions and according to the CEX.IO exchange rate. The fee charged for this service is 7%.

As a trading platform, CEX.IO allows users to trade BTC, BCH, BTG, ETH, DASH, XRP, and ZEC. CEX.IO enables cryptocurrency trading through several options – website, mobile app and API solutions for automated trading. The platform offers a flexible fee schedule based on the maker-taker model. The fees for takers range from 0.10% to 0.25%, and for makers – from 0% to 0.16%, depending on the trading volume.

Another feature supported by CEX.IO is margin trading. For now, there are several pairs available – BTC/USD, BTC/EUR, ETH/USD, BCH/USD, ETH/BTC, BCH/BTC. The customers are able to trade cryptocurrency with 1:2 or 1:3 leverages and secure their funds against loss by setting a stop loss price for the order. The system automatically executes the order upon approaching the stop loss price.

Despite closing mining operations, CEX.IO still offers an opportunity to trade GHS. GHS price depends on the correlation between market supply and demand. The CEX.IO exchange supports GHS/BTC pair for trading.

Trading Pairs

At CEX.IO, users are able to trade:

  • BTC: BTC/USD; BTC/EUR; BTC/GBP; BTC/RUB
  • ETH: ETH/USD; ETH/EUR; ETH/GBP; ETH/BTC
  • BCH: BCH/USD; BCH/EUR; BCH/GBP; BCH/BTC
  • BTG: BTG/USD; BTG/EUR; BTG/BTC
  • DASH: DASH/USD; DASH/EUR; DASH/GBP; DASH/BTC
  • XRP: XRP/USD; XRP/EUR; XRP/BTC
  • ZEC: ZEC/USD; ZEC/EUR; ZEC/GBP; ZEC/BTC
  • GHS: GHS/BTC

Cross-Platform Trading

CEX.IO offers cross-platform trading via website, mobile app, WebSocket and REST API, providing access to high liquidity orderbook for top currency pairs on the market. Mobile application is available for free download on iOS and Android.

GHS Trading

CEX.IO platform allows users to trade GHS.

GHS (gigahash per second) = 1 000 000 000 hashes per second. The speed of mining is measured in hashes per second — the smallest amount of work done by a miner. While mining is more or less passive way of gaining bitcoins, trading GHS allows you to be involved in the world trading processes and enjoy the fruits of your own activity on the Bitcoin commodity exchange. GHS price depends on the correlation between market supply and demand. After purchasing GHS at CEX.IO, users automatically start mining blocks of Bitcoins. CEX.IO is the only Bitcoin commodity exchange where trading and mining can be done simultaneously: even when you decide to sell your GHS, they will still be mining BTC until the moment they are sold. This means your GHS will be making profit for you till the last minute you own them.

Fiat Currencies and Payment Methods

  • Cryptocurrency on the CEX.IO exchange is represented by Bitcoins, Ether, DASH, Bitcoin Cash, Cash. Fiat money-euros, British pounds sterling, rubles and dollars. You can Deposit and withdraw funds on tabs with similar names. You can Deposit funds to your balance:
  • using payment cards;
  • Bank transfer (SWIFT, SEPA);
  • through Crypto Capital.

Before you can work with a map, you need to link it to your account and verify it. This process takes less than an hour. Any Visa, MasterCard or virtual card is suitable, and in any currency-the money will be automatically converted at the current rate. On the card of the day can be displayed 2 thousand euros per month — 50 thousand. Commissions in each system the. To add to the balance of the funds using a voucher CEX.IO.

Affiliate Program

CEX.IO has a special Affiliate Program, according to which users can bring new people to the platform and receive up to 30% on all the fees from their executed transactions.

Referral Program

CEX.IO has a special Referral Program, according to which users can bring new people to the platform and receive 3% of the referred ones’ GHS balance to their bonus account.

API

CEX.IO application programming interface (API) allows users to access and control their account using custom written software. Trade API is limited to 600 requests per 10 minutes. Apart from Trade API, CEX.IO offers WebSocket API with pusher technology, due to which users are able to subscribe to certain exchange updates. Such subscription allows getting real-time notifications about system changes without sending extra requests to get required information.

CEX.IO Wallet

The exchange has a blog, where are posted many actual articles. For instance, «How to choose your Bitcoin wallet?», which is available on the link. Users of CEX.IO are able to use any popular wallet to store cryptocurrency and withdrawal money.

Security

Trading on cex.io

CEX.IO is registered as a Money Services Business within FinCEN, and therefore is compliant with the regulations and requirements implied by AML/KYC policies.

CEX.IO also owns a PCI DSS certificate (Level 2), proving that the company meets the security standards necessary to process, transmit, and store credit card data of their customers.

Users can secure their accounts with passwords, but CEX.IO strongly recommends using Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). To facilitate the process users are free to choose from several 2FA methods, including Google Authenticator. Alternatively, users can use simple cell phones and get a text or an audio message containing respective authorization code.

Finally, CEX.IO offers a cold storage option to ensure that the user funds are kept safely and at no risk of being stolen. As a result of advanced security measures, CEX.IO has never been subject to theft throughout its history.

CEX.IO 2FA – Two-Factor Authentication

Users can secure their accounts with passwords, but CEX.IO strongly recommends using Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). Users are free to choose from two 2FA applications — Google Authenticator or Authy. Alternatively, users can use simple cell phones and get a text or an audio message containing respective authorisation code.

Cloud Mining

Due to the shared credentials between CEX.IO and GHash.IO mining pool, users can trade GHS and mine Bitcoins simultaneously.

Cloud Mining is a concept of forming groups (pools), where their joint efforts are rewarded with greater income, compared to individual mining with personal hardware. In case of cloud mining, all Bitcoin mining is done in the cloud, and once a block is mined, users receive payouts according to their shares via PPLNS.

Apart from mining Bitcoins, users can simultaneously mine alternative cryptocurrencies, such as NMC, DVC and IXC.

With Bitcoin cloud mining users can forget about the most frequent mining problems, such as:

  • Massive electricity consumption,
  • Constant connectivity issues,
  • The need to provide cooling and space
  • Annoying noise
  • Other hardware maintaining issues

CEX.IO vs. Coinbase

So, all in all, there are some very similar offerings from the two platforms. Both have an appeal for new users to get hold of various currencies almost instantly.

  • CEX.IO is clearly a little more feature rich and suits people looking to do a bit more than just buy to hold. The trading options are decent and you can work with low fees if you are willing to use the trading exchange.
  • Coinbase is super easy to understand for new buyers and is a simple option if you want to start building a cryptocurrency portfolio. The user-friendly interface of Coinbase simply is yet to be beaten by any platform out there.

Europeans might prefer CEX.IO as they make it painless for Euro bank account holders whilst North Americans might be happier with the US-based Coinbase.

Advantages/Disadvantages

Advantages

From advantages of the CEX.IO exchange we will note such moments:

  • instant purchase and sale of popular cryptocurrencies on the market.
  • deposits and withdrawals in Fiat money.
  • different ways of replenishment — Bank transfer, MasterCard, Visa.
  • margin trading.
  • best of fee.
  • the high liquidity of the market.
  • the ability to trade on the stock exchange to residents of different countries.
  • access the platform from your mobile device.
  • high level of security service.

Disadvantages

The exchange also has its disadvantages:

  • limits on work without verification.
  • there are no other popular tokens.

See Also on BitcoinWiki

External links

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