Bybit vs Phemex | Best Exchange for Newcomers & Professionals?
Jack Moreau
Apr 2024
9 min read
Fact checked
Which exchange is better between Bybit vs Phemex? Our team has conducted extensive research to determine which exchange comes out on top. We analysed factors such as signup and KYC requirements, available countries, trading fees, product offerings, and user experience. Read on to discover if Bybit or Phemex is the better exchange for 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 Phemex are two of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges in the market today.
Bybit was founded in 2018 by Ben Zhou and is registered in British Virgin Islands as Bybit Fintech Limited while headquartered in Singapore.
Similar to Bybit, Phemex was founded in 2019 by Jack Tao and is also registered in the Brittish Virgin Islands with heaquarters in Singapore.
Both exchanges offer a wide range of services, including spot trading, futures trading, and staking, and cater to users in multiple countries around the world.
Bybit is available in over 200 countries with service restricted countries including the US, Canada, UK and Singapore. Phemex is also available in over 200 countries, with restrictions for countries like the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, China, Bermuda, Seychelles.
Bybit specializes in offering advanced trading options, including perpetual contracts, futures, and inverse contracts, with up to 100x leverage for various cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and more.
Bybit offers over 250 cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, SOL, while Phemex supports a wider range of over 350 cryptocurrencies. In contrast, Phemex offers over 150 contract trading pairs that are margined in USDT, with leverage of up to 100X.
Both exchanges have a strong emphasis on security, reliability, and user experience. Bybit has quickly grown to a userbase of over 10 million based mainly in Europe and Asia, while Phemex has over 5 million users globally.
Both exchanges are available as IOS and Android apps and have over 1 million downloads, with Bybit having a rating of 4.2 based on over 60,000 reviews and Phemex having a rating of 4.5 based on over 10,000 reviews.
Bybit vs Phemex Signup & KYC
Bybit and Phemex are two popular cryptocurrency exchanges that offer similar services to users. However, they differ in their KYC requirements and signup process.
The signup process on Bybit is easy and straightforward as users can register with their phone number or email. They can begin trading without KYC, but without KYC verification, users on Bybit are limited to 20K USDT daily withdrawal and 100k USDT per month.
Bybit requires users to complete KYC verification in order to participate in earn, one click buys and fiat deposits. For those that want to complete it, the process to verify an account can take up to 48 hours.
Phemex does not require KYC verification for all users and users without it have unlimited crypto deposits and trading. Signing up to Phemex takes 30 seconds and users can then deposit cryptocurrencies and begin trading.
For those that want to complete KYC verification in order to get access to more features, they will also need to upload their ID and a photo of themselves.
The full KYC verification process takes a few minutes to complete and users have to provide their country of residence and address, upload an ID card or passport plus upload a selfie of themselves. The process can be completed within 5 minutes if the documents have been uploaded correctly
Bybit vs Phemex Products & Services
Bybit and Phemex are two exchanges that both offer a wide range of trading services to their users.
In the last five years, Bybit has rapidly expanded its offerings paralleling its significant user growth. Targeting both retail and professional traders, the platform stands out for its diverse range of products, all within a user-friendly interface.
This approach makes it especially appealing to beginners, who can easily navigate and start trading without hassle.
The core of Bybit's offerings is spot trading, allowing users to trade a broad spectrum of over 450 cryptocurrencies.
This includes nearly all large cap coins and tokens in addition to a solid selection of altcoins that are hard to find on other exchanges.
For those inclined towards leveraged trading, Bybit provides margin trading with up to 10X leverage to go either long or short.
Additionally, it offers a unique product in the form of leveraged tokens, where users can engage in up to 3X leverage on 30 cryptocurrencies, without the risk of liquidation.
Recognizing the popularity of automated trading, Bybit has developed a range of trading bots. These bots facilitate various strategies like futures grid, futures martingale, spot grid, and DCA.
Moreover, the platform offers a selection of pre-made strategies with historical track records for users to copy, free of charge. Copy trading is another feature, enabling users to mirror the trades of professional traders on Bybit.
Futures trading is a significant part of Bybit's portfolio, offering over 180 perpetual contracts with leverage options reaching up to 100X.
This includes diverse products such as USDT perpetuals, inverse perpetual & futures, USDC perpetual & futures, as well as USDC Options.
Bybit's margin options include both isolated and cross margin, providing flexibility to users based on their account management preferences.
Options traders also have access to European-style cash-settled options, priced and settled in USDC.
The platform's market presence is notable, with Bybit ranking in the top 10 for 24-Hour spot trading volumes with over $1 billion, and in the top 5 for derivatives trading with over $7 billion.
For risk-free practice, Bybit supports demo trading allowing users to experiment with trading strategies without financial risk.
It also offers multiple earning products for digital assets, such as lending and borrowing, liquidity mining, and dual asset investment.
These options enable users to earn interest on various digital assets including BTC, ETH, USDT, and USDC.
Bridging the gap between digital and real-world applications, Bybit offers a unique Master Card that facilitates spending digital assets with up to 10% cash back in rewards.
The platform has also ventured into the NFT space, supporting digital collectibles on blockchains like Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Tezos, and BNB Chain.
Bybit's launchpad is a feature designed for early-stage projects, allowing them to launch their tokens to a risk-tolerant audience.
Users can commit MNT or USDT tokens to subscribe to these projects, receiving allocations based on their commitment level.
Lastly, Bybit caters to high-net-worth individuals and institutions with an OTC desk, enabling the instant settlement of large trades up to $10 million.
Overall, Bybit has grown into a very well-rounded exchange that offers more features than almost any other exchange on the market, in a user-friendly packaging.
In comparison, Phemex has a high-level user experience both in terms of the usability of its platform but also by offering a competitive set of product features. KYC is not required for basic trading, and the experience of using their product is smooth and seamless.
Liquidity on Bybit and Phemex is also quite impressive. Bybit's liquidity is in the top 10 category with daily spot trading volumes frequently exceeding $1 billion. Phemex's average daily spot volume is over $100 million on a regular basis.
In terms of leverage, Bybit offers a max leverage of up to 125X on futures, while Phemex offers up to 100X leverage on perpetual contracts and up to 5X leverage on margin trading.
Overall, both Bybit and Phemex offer a great range of trading services to their users with impressive liquidity and user experience.
In the world of cryptocurrency trading, choosing the right exchange can make all the difference when it comes to fees. Let's take a closer look at Bybit and Phemex, two popular exchanges with competitive fee structures.
These fees are already quite competitive, but Bybit also offers the opportunity to lower fees through monthly trade volume thresholds. For example, spot, perps, and futures fees can be lowered if monthly trade volumes exceed the minimum threshold.
Phemex charges an equally competitive 0.1% spot fee for makers and takers, a futures maker fee of 0.01%, and a futures taker fee of 0.06%.
Similar to Bybit, Phemex also offers the chance to lower fees through monthly trade volume thresholds. For spot and futures trading on Phemex, fees can be reduced if monthly trade volumes exceed a certain amount.
Both Bybit and Phemex thus offers the exact same fee structure for both spot fees and futures. These are very competitive trading fees that few exchanges on the market can compete with.
If you're looking for an exchange that offers a variety of deposit methods, Bybit might be the one for you. They support over 10 fiat currencies including USD, EUR, GBP, RUB, MXN, BRL, ARS and TRY.
Bybit also offers multiple deposit options including Bank Transfer, SEPA, FPS, QiWI, Advcash, PIX, and Wire Transfer. The deposit fees on Bybit differ between fiat currencies with wire transfer being more expensive ($25) while other fiat currencies have free bank deposits.
On Phemex, users can deposit funds using six fiat options: EUR, GBP, CHF, JPY, CAD, and AUD. The sole method for these deposits is a fee-free Wire Transfer.
While GBP deposits are processed between 10 minutes to a day, JPY deposits might take two days. Additionally, cryptocurrency purchases can be made using Visa or Mastercard, facilitated by partners such as Simplex and Coinify. This card-based purchase method is costlier than the standard fiat deposit.
Keep in mind that buying via credit card may come with additional fees from the third-party provider so it's always cheaper to deposit fiat currencies with low to no fees and then make your crypto purchases.
When it comes to withdrawing funds from Bybit and Phemex, there are some notable differences.
Bybit offers fiat withdrawals for a wide range of fiat currencies including USD, EUR, GBP, BRL, RUB, TRY and others while Phemex does not currently offer any fiat withdrawal options. However, both exchanges allow for cryptocurrency withdrawals with varying fees depending on the blockchain.
Bybit offers zero fee bank withdrawals for TRY and BRL, but their high USD wire transfer fee of $25 may not be appealing to some users. Those who wish to withdraw EUR and GBP can do so via SEPA and Faster Payments (FSP) for less than 0.2% in commissions.
Their withdrawal fees for Bitcoin and Ethereum are reasonable with fees such as 0.005 BTC and 0.005 ETH respectively, but their SOL and USDT fees may seem steep to some users with 0.01 SOL and 10 USDT fees per withdrawal.
For those using Phemex, fiat currency withdrawals are facilitated in EUR, GBP, JPY, CAD, AUD, and CHF. All withdrawals are conducted through Wire Transfer, with a typical waiting time of 1-2 days for the funds to reach the user's bank account.
Phemex's crypto withdrawal fees for BTC and ETH are even lower at 0.0001 BTC and 0.001 ETH respectively. Their SOL withdrawal fee is on par with Bybit at 0.01 SOL but their USDT withdrawal fee for Tether USD is lower at 4 USDT.
In conclusion, both exchanges have a strong emphasis on security, impressive liquidity and a great user experience for beginner as well as advanced traders.
Bybit has quickly grown to a userbase of over 10 million based mainly in Europe and Asia while Phemex has over 5 million users globally.
Bybit specializes in advanced trading options including perpetual contracts, futures, and inverse contracts with up to 100x leverage for various cryptocurrencies, while Phemex offers over 140 contract trading pairs that are margined in USDT with leverage of up to 100x.
In terms of fees, both exchanges offer very competitive spot fees at 0.1% for makers and takers with the opportunity to lower fees through monthly trade volume thresholds.
Bybit offers a variety of deposit methods, including 5 fiat currencies and multiple deposit options, while Phemex only supports crypto deposits.
When it comes to withdrawing funds, Bybit offers fiat withdrawals for USD, BRL, and TRY, while Phemex does not currently offer any fiat withdrawal options.
Overall, our team uses both Bybit and Phemex and we recommend both exchanges as they have done a great job across the board.
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.