OKX vs Binance | Best Spot & Perpetuals Trading?

okx vs binance image
Jack Moreau
Feb 2024
9 min read
Fact checked

OKX vs Binance: Looking for the best crypto exchange? From KYC requirements to trading fees, we've compared OKX and Binance across numerous metrics to help you make an informed decision. Keep reading to find out which exchange is the best fit for you!

MEXC

1780 Cryptos & Deep Liquidity

Spot/Perps/Copy Trading

Low Fees & 200X Leverage

KYC Not Required

Visit MEXC
eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.
Binance

+350 cryptocurrencies

0.1.% Spot Fees & 125X Leverage

Spot, Futures, Perps, Margin

Cheap Deposits/Withdrawals

Visit Binance
eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.

OKX vs Binance Comparison

OKX
Binance
MEXC
Founded
2017
2017
2018
Registered
Hong Kong
Cayman Islands
Seychelles
Countries N/A
US, CA
US, CA, UK, CN, ML, JP
OFAC
Users
20M
150M
6M
Cryptos
+350
+350
1780
Spot Fees
0.08%
0.1%
0.2%
KYC Required
Yes
Yes
No
Best for
Spot & Futures trading
Great All Around
Altcoins & 200X Leverage
Rating
Signup
OKX
Your Capital is at risk.
Binance
Your Capital is at risk.
MEXC
Your Capital is at risk

In the world of cryptocurrencies, OKX and Binance are two of the most popular exchanges.

OKX was founded in 2017 by Star Xu and is registered in Seychelles and headquartered in Hong Kong. They have over 1000 employees and are available in 180 countries worldwide.

OKX exchange
OKX exchange

OKX offers a wide range of trading services, including spot, margin, perps, futures, and options, along with many other additional services such as trading bots, demo and copy trading, earn products, launchpad, web 3 wallet, and more.

OKX has grown to serve over 20 million users with 1 million app downloads and has over 350 cryptocurrencies available for trading. At the time of writing, countries such as the United States, Canada and the UK are not permitted to signup and trade.

OKX Android app
OKX Android app

On the other hand, Binance was founded a year earlier in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao and is registered in the Cayman Islands as Binance Holdings Ltd.

The company has over 6400 employees, and Binance is available in over 180 countries worldwide with notable exception including the United States, Canada and the UK.

Binance exchange
Binance exchange

As one of the largest and most popular trading platforms, Binance offers a comprehensive suite of trading and financial services, including spot trading, futures trading, staking, earn products, launchpad, its own blockchain (BSC), and much more.

Binance supports over 350 cryptocurrencies, numerous trading pairs, and is known to be the most liquid exchange in the world.

Binance has over 120 million users worldwide, with the Binance Android app having been downloaded over 50 million times and has a rating of 4.4 based on over 1 million reviews.

Binance app
Binance app

OKX vs Binance Signup & KYC

When it comes to signing up for OKX or Binance, there are some differences to keep in mind. To begin, both exchanges require some kind of verification for trading.

When it comes to signing up to OKX, users can sign up with just an email or phone number and their account will be created.

OKX then offers two types of verification with Basic (level 1) only requiring personal information such as full name and country of residence.

OKX KYC
OKX KYC

With level 1 verification on OKX, users can deposit cryptocurrencies and begin trading.

For those that want to access more features and higher limits, they will also need to complete level 2 verification which includes providing a government ID.

OKX Level 2 KYC
OKX Level 2 KYC

The verification process normally takes 10 minutes, but can take up to 3 days for level 2 verification. To create an account with Binance is also easy with a signup process that takes less than a minute.

However, to unlock full trading privileges, users must complete the KYC verification process which includes providing personal information, taking a selfie and providing a valid government ID.

Binance KYC verification levels
Binance KYC verification levels

The process to get verified can take up to 2-3 business days in some cases, but generally takes as little as 15 minutes.

OKX vs Binance Products & Services

In just a few years, OKX has rapidly grown into a highly versatile exchange known for its wide range of services catering to both beginner and experienced traders.

Starting with spot trading which is a fundamental offering on most crypto exchanges, OKX provides its users with the ability to invest in over 300 cryptocurrencies.

OKX Spot Trading
OKX Spot Trading

This selection includes popular options like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), ATOM, DOT, USDT, USDC, and many others.

OKX Crypto Markets
OKX Crypto Markets

While OKX may not have as extensive a range of altcoins as some other exchanges like Kucoin and MEXC, it covers most large-cap coins.

For those looking to engage in margin trading, OKX supports this as well and users can long or short over 100 digital assets with up to 10X leverage.

OKX Margin Trading
OKX Margin Trading

OKX also stands out in its futures and perpetual contracts offerings. The exchange supports hundreds of USD and crypto-margined futures and perpetual contracts.

OKX Perpetual Trading
OKX Perpetual Trading

Traders have the option to use either isolated or cross margin support and for those that want even higher risks, OKX allows up to 100X leverage on perpetual contracts.

Options trading is another feature that OKX offers, specifically for BTC and ETH in the form of European call or put options.

OKX Options Trading
OKX Options Trading

This trading method is suited for those who want to speculate on the future price of these cryptocurrencies without the obligation to buy or sell them at the contract's expiration.

For beginners who prefer a more guided approach to investing, OKX provides copy trading. This feature allows users to replicate the trades of professional traders with a proven track reckord.

OKX Copy Trading
OKX Copy Trading

Experienced traders looking for automation can leverage OKX’s array of over 10 trading bots. These include tools like spot grid, futures grid, futures and spot Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA), infinity grid, recurring buys, and more.

OKX Trading Bots
OKX Trading Bots

These bots can assist in executing complex trading strategies without the need for constant manual intervention.

Additionally, OKX supports demo trading for total beginners who want to practice trading with virtual funds without any real risk of loss.

In terms of trading volumes, OKX ranks among the top 5 exchanges globally with 24-hour spot volumes exceeding $3 billion and derivatives volumes over $28 billion.

OKX Trading Volumes
OKX Trading Volumes

Moving beyond trading, OKX has developed a variety of yield opportunities for its users to earn interest on their digital assets.

OKX Earn
OKX Earn

These products include simple earn, staking rewards, dual investments, and others, available in flexible or fixed terms with varying Annual Percentage Rates (APRs) depending on the asset.

OKX’s launchpad, Jumpstart, offers users early-stage investment opportunities in newly launched tokens such as SUI, RAY, WOO, allowing investors to get in on the ground floor.

OKX Jumpstart Launchpad
OKX Jumpstart Launchpad

For those concerned with privacy, OKX has its own Web 3 wallet, offering access to over 70 blockchains in a non-custodial manner, providing greater control and security over one’s digital assets.

OKX Web 3 Wallet
OKX Web 3 Wallet

Institutional clients or high-net-worth individuals can take advantage of OKX’s Over-the-Counter (OTC) marketplace for large-sum trades that are executed privately, without impacting the broader market.

OKX OTC
OKX OTC

These VIP services are accessible to traders holding a minimum of $10,000 in their trading accounts.

OKX also provides a user-friendly experience and a modern interface that is easy to navigate for both beginners and professional traders.

Binance on the other hand is the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange with a massive user base of over 150 million.

The exchange offers an extensive array of services and products tailored to meet the needs of everyone from beginners to experienced traders and institutional clients.

Its cornerstone is a user-friendly spot trading platform that supports the exchange of over 350 different cryptocurrencies, including well-known ones like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), and Tether (USDT).

Binance Spot Trading
Binance Spot Trading

For those interested in margin trading, Binance provides leverage options ranging from 3X to 10X depending on the cryptocurrency, making it a versatile choice for traders seeking to amplify their trading power.

Additionally, Binance caters to beginners with thousands of active trading bot strategies, encompassing methods like spot trading, Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA), auto-investing, and portfolio rebalancing.

Binance Bots Trading
Binance Bots Trading

Binance also steps into more advanced territory with its futures trading offerings. This includes hundreds of USD-Margined futures contracts, which are ideal for traders looking to avoid crypto's inherent volatility by settling trades in stablecoins such as USDT or BUSD.

Binance Perpetual Trading
Binance Perpetual Trading

Moreover, Binance provides hundreds of coin-margined futures contracts available in both perpetual and delivery formats, and settled directly in cryptocurrencies.

The platform's options trading feature which includes built-in leverage, allows traders to hedge their portfolios. Binance offers options for five major assets including BTC, ETH, BNB, XRP, and DOGE with over 700 contracts in total.

Binance OptionsTrading
Binance Options Trading

Binance’s trading system is enriched with advanced charting tools for technical analysis, various order types for risk management, and high liquidity. The platform stands out for having the highest liquidity in both spot and futures markets, with a staggering $60 billion in 24-hour trading volume.

Binance Crypto Volumes
Binance Crypto Volumes

For users looking to earn interest on their digital assets, Binance’s Earn platform presents a comprehensive solution with options for staking, savings, and liquidity farming. Users can earn interest on various assets like BTC, ETH, USDT, and USDC, with the flexibility to choose between fixed or flexible durations.

Binance Earn
Binance Earn

Binance also ventures into riskier investment territories with its Launchpad, offering early access to brand new token projects. Additionally, the platform satisfies the growing interest in the NFT market with a dedicated section for buying and selling NFTs on major blockchains such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and BNB.

Binance Launchpad
Binance Launchpad

For large-scale private transactions, Binance offers OTC Trading services, catering to individual and institutional clients who wish to execute significant trades discreetly and securely.

Binance OTC
Binance OTC

Further expanding its ecosystem, Binance has developed its blockchain the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), enabling developers to create DeFi applications and users to engage with non-custodial wallets.

Binance Smart Chain
Binance Smart Chain

Additionally, Binance has acquired Trust Wallet, a versatile Web 3 wallet, enhancing its features to include in-wallet trading and earning among others.

Binance Web 3 Wallet
Binance Web 3 Wallet

In terms of security, Binance takes robust measures, including the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), which acts as an emergency insurance fund, and the implementation of a proof of reserves system, ensuring clients can verify their assets are fully accounted for.

Binance Proof of Reserves
Binance Proof of Reserves

The platform’s design is focused on ease of use, with both the website and mobile applications being intuitively structured to assist even crypto trading novices in navigating smoothly.

OKX
Binance
MEXC
Spot Trading
Yes
Yes
Yes
Futures
Yes
Yes
Yes
Perps
Yes
Yes
Yes
Margin
Yes
Yes
-
Options
Yes
Yes
-
OTC Desk
Yes
Yes
-
Copy Trading
Yes
Yes
Yes
Trading Bots
Yes
Yes
-
Staking
Yes
Yes
Yes
Lend & Borrow
Yes
Yes
Yes
NFTs
Yes
Yes
-
Web 3 Wallet
Yes
Yes
-
Debit Card
-
Yes
-
Signup
OKX
Your Capital is at risk.
Binance
Your Capital is at risk.
MEXC
Your Capital is at risk

OKX Fees vs Binance

When it comes to trading fees, OKX and Binance are two exchanges that stand out from the crowd. Let's take a closer look at what each of these exchanges has to offer.

Starting with the trading fees of Binance, the exchange charges a spot maker fee of 0.1% and a spot taker fee of 0.10%. For futures trading, the maker fee is 0.02% and the taker fee is 0.04%.

It's worth noting that Binance offers fee discounts for users who trade with high volumes, either by exceeding $1 million in monthly trades or by holding at least 25 BNB tokens.

Binance spot fees
Binance spot fees

Moving on to OKX, this exchange charges a spot maker fee of 0.08% and a spot taker fee of 0.10%. Thus a slightly lower spot maker fee than Binance.

For futures trading, the maker fee on OKX is 0.02% and the taker fee is 0.05%. Similar to Binance, OKX also offers trading discounts for users who hold a minimum of 500 OKB tokens or whose monthly trading volume exceeds $10,000,000.

OKX spot fees
OKX spot fees

Overall, both OKX and Binance offer verycompetitive trading fees that can be further reduced for high-volume traders.

OKX
Binance
MEXC
Spot (mkr)
0.08%
0.1%
0.2%
Spot (tkr)
0.10%
0.1%
0.2%
Futures (mkr)
0.02%
0.02%
0%
Futures (tkr)
0.05%
0.04%
0.02%
Signup
OKX
Your Capital is at risk.
Binance
Your Capital is at risk.
MEXC
Your Capital is at risk

OKX vs Binance Deposit Methods

When it comes to depositing funds into your trading account, the options available can vary greatly between exchanges.

Starting with Binance, this exchange supports a solid range of 26 fiat currencies for deposits, including USD, EUR, AUD, GBP, and many others.

Users have the option to deposit by bank transfer via Swift, Signet, SEPA, Faster Payments (FSP) as well as Visa, Mastercard, PayID, and Advacash.

Binance fiat deposit
Binance fiat deposit

However, it's worth noting that there are different fees associated with these deposit methods.

For example, deposits made with Visa and Mastercard incur a 1.8% fee, while bank transfers via SEPA come with a 1 EUR fee. Those with an Advcash account can deposit with a 1.5% fee.

On the other hand, OKX does not support any fiat currencies for deposits. Instead, users can buy crypto on OKX via a credit/debit card or third-party payment provider, with a fee of 1-2%.

OKX buy crypto with card
OKX buy crypto with card

While this may be convenient for some, we prefer depositing fiat currencies at lower fees as offered by Binance. This is the one area where Binance has a big advantage over OKX.

OKX
Binance
MEXC
USD
-
Bank Transfer, SWIFT
-
EUR
-
VISA, MC, SEPA
-
GBP
-
VISA, MC
-
Signup
OKX
Your Capital is at risk.
Binance
Your Capital is at risk.
MEXC
Your Capital is at risk

How to withdraw from OKX and Binance?

When it comes to withdrawing fiat currencies, Binance offers multiple methods for people to withdraw their USD, EUR, and GBP. USD can be withdrawn via SWIFT, EUR via SEPA, and GBP via Faster Payments (FSP).

The exchange charges a 1.8% withdrawal fee for fiat withdrawals with Visa and MasterCard, but offers a 1 EUR withdrawal fee with SEPA and free bank withdrawals with many other fiat currencies. Binance also charges a small fee for BTC, ETH, SOL, and USDT withdrawals.

Binance fiat withdrawals
Binance fiat withdrawals

On the other hand, it is not possible to withdrawal fiat currencies from OKX. However, the exchange offers low fees for cryptocurrency withdrawals, charging only 0.0002 BTC, 0.00061 ETH, 0.008 SOL, and 0.8 USDT.

While OKX may not be the best choice for those looking to withdraw fiat currencies, it is a good option for those looking to quickly and cheaply withdraw their cryptocurrency.

OKX
Binance
MEXC
USD
-
Bank Transfer, SWIFT
-
EUR
-
Sepa, Bank Card
-
GBP
-
Bank Card
-
Signup
OKX
Your Capital is at risk.
Binance
Your Capital is at risk.
MEXC
Your Capital is at risk
OKX
Binance
MEXC
Bitcoin
0.0002 BTC
0.0002 BTC
0.0003 BTC
Ethereum
0.0014 ETH
0.0008 ETH
0.0001 ETH
Solana
0.008 SOL
0.008 SOL
0.01 SOL
USDT (ERC-20)
3.8 USDT
3.2 USDT
$4 USDT
Signup
OKX
Your Capital is at risk.
Binance
Your Capital is at risk.
MEXC
Your Capital is at risk

Is OKX better than Binance?

After analyzing OKX and Binance, it is clear that both cryptocurrency exchanges have their strengths and weaknesses.

In terms of user base, Binance boasts a larger number of registered users with over 120 million compared to OKX's 20 million.

Both exchanges offer an overlapping set of products which is very wide and includes spot, futures, margin, options, earn products, NFTs, web 3 wallets and much much more.

When it comes to trading volumes, Binance is the king with daily spot volumes frequently exceeding $10 billion while OKX currently has roughly 1/10th of that trading volume.

Both exchanges however offer a solid range of over 300 cryptocurrencies so it won't be an issues finding what you are looking for with either one.

Overall, both OKX and Binance offer very competitive trading fees for beginners as well as for high volume traders.

The user experience in our opinion is a bit better on OKX as it offers the more simple interface while Binance needs some more getting used to.

MEXC

1780 Cryptos & Deep Liquidity

Spot/Perps/Copy Trading

Low Fees & 200X Leverage

KYC Not Required

Visit MEXC
eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.
Binance

+350 cryptocurrencies

0.1.% Spot Fees & 125X Leverage

Spot, Futures, Perps, Margin

Cheap Deposits/Withdrawals

Visit Binance
eToro is a multi-asset investment platform. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.
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.

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