Bybit vs Bitmex | Best Exchange for Professional Traders?
Jack Moreau
Apr 2024
9 min read
Fact checked
Are you trying to decide between Bybit vs Bitmex for your crypto trading? We have compared these exchanges across factors such as signup procedures, KYC requirements, country availability, trading fees, product offerings and overall user experience. Read on and we promise that you will quickly discover which exchanges best fits your needs!
eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.
eToro USA LLC: Investments are subject to market risk. Including the possible loss of principal. Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest.
eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.
eToro USA LLC: Investments are subject to market risk. Including the possible loss of principal. Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest.
Bybit and BitMEX are both popular cryptocurrency trading venues that offer advanced trading options and features.
Bybit was founded in 2018 by Ben Zhou while BitMEX was founded in 2014 by Arthur Hayes and Ben Delo. Bybit is registered in the British Virgin Islands as Bybit Fintech Limited and headquartered in Singapore while BitMEX is registered in Seychelles.
Bybit exchange
Bybit has a workforce of over 1,000 employees and is available in over 200 countries, with restrictions in the US, the UK, Singapore, Quebec, and Ontario. BitMEX has over 100 employees and is restricted in countries such as the US, Ontario, Japan, and for Russian citizens.
Bitmex exchange
Both exchanges offer leveraged trading, with Bybit specializing in advanced trading options such as perpetual contracts, futures, and inverse contracts, with up to 100x leverage for various cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and more.
Bitmex is known for offering leveraged contracts using cryptocurrencies and supports an estimated 10-20 cryptocurrencies. Bybit has quickly grown to a user base of over 10 million based mainly in Europe and Asia with BitMEX userbase estimated to be around 1 million users.
The Bybit Android and IOS app have over 5 million downloads and have an impressive 4.2 star rating with over 60,000 reviews.
Bybit app
Bybit vs Bitmex Signup & KYC
When it comes to signup and KYC, Bybit and Bitmex have taken a different approach in terms of requirements.
To begin with, the signup process for Bybit is easy and straightforward and users can register with their phone number or email, and they can begin trading without KYC.
Bybit does however require a KYC verification process for users who want to participate in Earn, One Click Buys or who wish to deposit fiat currencies.
Bybit KYC
Without KYC verification, users are limited to 20K USDT daily withdrawal and 100k USDT per month. Generally, the KYC verification process on Bybit takes approximately 10 minutes but can take up to 48 hours in slow cases.
On the other hand, Bitmex requires KYC from all its users and the signup process is simple. All you need to do is provide an email and password and voila, you have an account on Bitmex. But to access the exchange services, you need to complete KYC.
Bitmex KYC
It can take up to 72 hours to get verified on Bitmex, but once verified, users can start trading. In conclusion, Bybit is the better option for users who don't wish to complete KYC and who rather just quickly signup, deposit some cryptocurrencies and then begin trading.
Bybit vs Bitmex Products & Services
In the last five years, Bybit has experienced remarkable growth both in its user base and in the breadth of its product offerings.
The exchange which primarily targets retail users and professional traders, has made significant strides in creating a platform that's both comprehensive and user-friendly.
Bybit Product Offering
This approach has made it particularly accessible for beginners, who can navigate its multitude of offerings with relative ease.
A key feature of Bybit is its spot trading offering where users have the opportunity to buy and sell over 450 cryptocurrencies.
Bybit Spot Trading
This selection includes most major cryptocurrencies as well as a robust variety of altcoins that are harder to find elsewhere.
Bybit Crypto Markets
Bybit also addresses the needs of those interested in leveraged trading. It offers margin trading with the possibility of up to 10X leverage for those that want to go long or short a particular asset.
Bybit Margin Trading
In addition, Bybit provides access to leveraged tokens for about 30 cryptocurrencies, enabling up to 3X leverage without the risk of liquidation.
Bybit Leveraged Tokens
The platform goes further by offering a range of automated trading bots. These bots facilitate various trading strategies, such as futures grid, futures martingale, spot grid, and Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA).
Bybit Trading Bots
Moreover, Bybit presents plenty of pre-formulated strategies with historical track records, which users can adopt at no cost.
For those interested in mirroring the trades of seasoned traders, copy trading is another popular feature for beginners.
Bybit Copy Trading
When it comes to futures trading, Bybit provides access to 180 perpetual contracts with max leverage of up to 100X.
Bybit Perpetual Trading
This suite includes USDT perpetuals, inverse perpetual & futures, USDC perpetual & futures, as well as USDC Options.
Bybit Perpetual Products
Bybit's margin options are flexible, offering both isolated margin and cross margin depending on user preference. Options traders also have the choice of European-style cash-settled options, priced and settled in USDC.
Bybit Derivatives
The exchange's performance is reflected in its 24-Hour trading volumes with a top 10 ranking for spot trading with over $1 billion, and top 5 in derivatives trading with over $7 billion in volumes.
Bybit Trading Volumes
The platform also supports demo trading which is a super helpful tool for users to practice and hone their trading strategies risk-free.
Additionally, Bybit caters to users looking to earn interest on their digital assets through various products such as lending, borrowing, liquidity mining, and dual asset options.
Bybit Earn
Bybit offers a Master Card so that their users can spend their digital assets with the added benefit of up to 10% cashback on rewards.
Bybit Mastercard
The platform's recent foray into the NFT space now supports NFTs and digital collectibles on multiple blockchains like Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Tezos and BNB Chain.
Bybit NFTs
Bybit's launchpad provides a platform for early-stage projects, where users can commit MNT or USDT tokens to gain allocations in new projects.
Bybit Launchpad
Finally, for high-net-worth individuals and institutions, Bybit offers an OTC desk for large trades up to $10 million that can occur privately and without moving the market.
Bybit OTC
Simply put, Bybit has created a beast of an exchange that pretty much caters to all audiences with almost every product imaginable.
Bitmex on it's end offers basic spot trading which allows users to instantly buy and sell cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Additionally, Bitmex features perpetual contracts for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies against the US dollar, letting users trade without an expiration date.
Perpetual trading Bitmex
The platform also provides futures trading, which allows users to speculate on the future prices of cryptocurrencies and potentially profit from market fluctuations.
Furthermore, Bitmex offers margin trading for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple giving users the ability to trade with borrowed funds and potentially earn higher profits. The max leverage offered on Bitmex is 100X.
BitMEX is renowned for providing an advanced trading platform that caters to institutional investors and experienced traders.
However, the platform's professional-grade features and complexity may present a steep learning curve for novice users. The average daily spot trading volume on Bitmex is only $1 million which is much lower than Bybit.
To help traders save even more, Bybit offers trading fee reductions for spot, perps, and futures trading when monthly trade volumes exceed the minimum threshold.
On the other hand, Bitmex offers similar fees to Bybit with a slightly lower spot maker fee and a futures maker fee at 0.075%, and a spot taker fee and a futures taker fee at 0.02%.
Bitmex fees
Bitmex also offers trading fee rebates to traders whose trades exceed $1,000,000 during a 30-day period or for those who stake a sufficient amount of BMEX tokens.
Overall, both Bybit and Bitmex offer low trading fees that are competitive within the industry. While Bitmex has positioned it's trading fees slightly lower than Bybit's, both exchanges have done a great job by offering low fees.
While both exchanges offer similar trading services, the deposit methods for each exchange differ. Bybit supports the deposit of support for over 10 fiat currencies including USD, EUR, GBP RUB, MXN, BRL, ARS, and TRY.
The exchange offers a range of deposit methods, including Bank Transfer, SEPA, FPS, QiWI, Advcash, and PIX. The deposit fee via wire transfer is $8, while bank transfers for the other fiat currencies are free of charge.
Fiat deposit on Bybit
On the other hand, Bitmex does not support fiat deposits. Instead, users can buy cryptocurrencies directly via Onramper or deposit cryptocurrencies directly.
Buy crypto on Bitmex with Onramper
While the exchange does not charge any deposit fees, users may encounter fees charged by Onramper depending on the payment method used.
Buying crypto via third-party provider comes with high fees so for those who wish to use Bitmex, we recommend simply depositing cryptocurrencies and then taking advantage of their lower trading fees.
Let's take a closer look at the withdrawal options on each platform. Bybit supports fiat withdrawal for fiat currencies such as USD, EUR, GBP, BRL, RUB, TRY and a few others. The platform offers zero fee bank withdrawals for TRY and BRL but a high USD Wire Transfer fee of $25.
Bybit fiat withdrawal methods
Users on Bybit can also withdraw directly to their Advcash or ZEN wallets free of charge. For those that wish to withdraw their GBP or EUR, they can do so via Faster Payments (FSP) and SEPA for a 0.19% and 0.22% withdrawal commission.
In terms of cryptocurrency withdrawal fees, Bybit charges 0.005 BTC for Bitcoin withdrawals, 0.005 ETH for Ethereum, 0.01 SOL for Solana and a high 10 USDT for Tether.
On the other hand, Bitmex does not offer support for any fiat withdrawals while crypto withdrawals are of course available.
The platform charges 0.00005 BTC for Bitcoin withdrawals, and there is no withdrawal fee for other cryptocurrencies. Overall, Bybit offers more options for fiat withdrawals, but Bitmex offers lower cryptocurrency withdrawal fees.
Bybit and BitMEX are both popular cryptocurrency exchanges that offer advanced trading options and features. While both exchanges offer leveraged trading with high leverage for various cryptocurrencies, there are several key differences in their operations.
Bybit is the much larger company with a larger userbase and overall wider range of cryptocurrencies and range of products.
When it comes to KYC requirements, Bitmex differ from Bybit in that it requires all of it's users to verify themselves while on Bybit, that is not needed for basic trading. This makes Bybit more attractive as users can begin trading in minutes.
Bybit offers an extensive range of trading options, including spot trading, futures, margin trading, perpetual swaps, options, and leveraged tokens, as well as financial services like lending and borrowing and an NFT marketplace.
BitMEX offers a more limited range of trading services with a focus on spot trading, perpetual contracts, futures, and margin trading for Bitcoin, Ethereum and a few other cryptocurrencies.
This also includes the range of cryptocurrencies offered by Bitmex which is only 15 compared to the 250 offered by Bybit. When it comes to trading fees, both exchanges offer competitive rates, with slight differences in fee structures and fee reduction policies.
Bybit supports the deposit of 10 fiat currencies and offers a range of deposit methods, while BitMEX does not support fiat deposits and users can buy cryptocurrencies directly via Onramper.
As we have reviewed the products, fees and UX of both exchanges, it becomes clear to us that Bybit is the winner and the overall much better exchange compared to Bitmex.
eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.
eToro USA LLC: Investments are subject to market risk. Including the possible loss of principal. Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest.
eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.
eToro USA LLC: Investments are subject to market risk. Including the possible loss of principal. Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest.
Author
Jack Moreau
Jack is a crypto writer and reviewer who has been active in the space since he caught the crypto bug in 2017. With a passion for trying out new shiny things, Jack is always eager to try the latest cryptocurrency exchanges, wallets or DeFi applications.
