BTSE Exchange Review | Is This A Great Less Known Exchange?
Jack Moreau
Apr 2024
9 min read
Fact checked
Our in-depth BTSE Review answers the most relevant questions about this growing exchange. We have covered everything from product features, trading fees, user experience and much more to give you a quick and fair overview. Keep reading and discover if BTSE is the right exchange for your crypto trading needs!
BTSE is a digital assets trading platform that was founded in 2018 by Jonathan Leong and Brian Wong. BTSE Holdings Limited is registered in the British Virgin Islands and the company has also secured a digital assets registration in Liechtenstein. This allows BTSE to provide services relating to tokens and cryptocurrencies.
The company has raised over $20 million in their Series A funding which valued the company at over $400 million. The company has a smaller 300 person team mainly based in Taiwan, Singapore, Dubai and Indonesia. BTSE is available in most countries around the world with the exception of the United States, Belarus, Canada, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Singapore, Taiwan and Russia.
In terms of products and services, BTSE offers its users access to buy, sell and swap over 150 cryptocurrencies via their spot exchange and convert functionality.
This includes the most well known and popular cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, BNB, XRP, ADA, DOGE, SOL, ATOM, CHZ and many others. The exchange is estimated to have 1.4 million users across the world with over 100,000 of those having downloaded the BTSE app which is available on Android and IOS.
BTSE KYC Requirements
The signup process on BTSE is straightforward and fast. Users just need to enter their email address and select a password. Once done they simply need to enter the email verification code that was sent.
The next window that users see is the option to either deposit crypto onto the exchange or complete KYC in order to buy crypto with fiat.
For users who just want to deposit cryptocurrencies and begin trading on BTSE, there is no requirement to pass KYC verification. That is only required for users that wish to withdraw cryptocurrencies with fiat.
Users that wish to buy cryptocurrencies with credit card have to verify their identity with a photo ID. For fiat deposits and withdrawals, users will also need to provide proof of address. Once users have completed the KYC verification, it can take BTSE up to a few hours before the verification can be approved.
BTSE Products & Services
Moving on to products and services, BTSE offers spot trading for over 150 large cap cryptocurrencies. Daily spot trading volume on BTSE tends to hover between $200-400 million with the highest volume cryptocurrencies being BTC, ETH, XRP, XMR, USDT, LTC, ATOM and SOL.
Besides spot trading, BTSE also offers perpetual futures for over 65 cryptocurrencies including BTC, ETH, LTC, INCH, AVEE, ALGO, ATOM and many others. The max leverage that BTSE offers on perps is 100X on both cross and isolated futures.
The most popular futures on BTSE are BTC and ETH perps with 24-volumes frequently exceeding $1 billion. Grid trading is also available for traders that prefer a more systematic approach to their trading strategy.
Novice traders can also replicate systematic grid strategies, set up by more experienced traders, with just a couple of clicks. Besides trading products, BTSE also offers earn opportunities via flexible savings, lending and staking for up to 50 cryptocurrencies like DOT, AXS, NEAR, ATOM, GRT and VEGA.
The user experience on BTSE is good with a decent selection of trading and financial products and with a simple interface that is easy to navigate for beginners.
The wallet overview is also easy to navigate and provides plenty of information including the available products, deposit options, transaction history and account statements. While the UX is not flashy, it's straightforward and gets the job done in a frictionless way.
In terms of trading fees, BTSE charges a spot maker and taker fee of 0.2% for users who have just begun trading. The spot trading fees of BTSE can be further reduced depending on either trading volumes or the number of BTSE tokens held by users.
For example, users who hold a minimum of 100 BTSE tokens or trade over $100,000 during a 30-day period will see their spot fees reduced to 0.19%.
This tier schedule goes all the way down to VIP 10 which brings down trading fees to 0.02% for makers and 0.06% for takers assuming trading volumes over $2 billion.
In terms of futures trading fees, the fees begin at a very competitive 0.019% for makers and 0.054% for takers which is equal to the lowest fee exchanges in the market.
The futures fees reduce to 0.01% for makers and 0.05% for takers when holding either 100 BTSE tokens or when trading futures for over $500,000 during a 30-day window.
$100 BTSE tokens at the time of writing only cost $100 which is a no brainer for anyone who plans on trading a decent amount of futures.
When it comes to fiat deposits, BTSE supports 10 fiat currencies including USD, EUR, GBP, HKD, JPY, AUD, AED, INR, UPI and SGD. The fiat deposit methods that are supported are SWIFT, SEPA, FPS and Express Buy.
Swift deposits are available for all supported fiat currencies with 0.05% deposit fees for all fiat currencies besides USD which is free, and 0.5% for AUD and AED.
For anyone wishing to deposit EUR or GBP to BTSE can do so free of charge with SEPA and Faster Payments (FSP).
BTSE's fiat deposits and withdrawals are actually one of the exchange's biggest strengths as few exchanges offer this type of fiat diversity with free to low deposit and withdrawal fees.
BTSE Withdrawal Fees
BTSE supports fiat withdrawals for all the 10 fiat currencies that they support with either SWIFT, SEPA or Faster Payments. The minimum withdrawal amount is 100 USD or equivalent and the withdrawal fee in all cases is 0.1% with minimum withdrawals ranging from 3 EUR (SEPA) to 50 USD (SWIFT).
In terms of the fees to withdraw cryptocurrencies from BTSE, the exchange offers low crypto withdrawal fees. For example, Bitcoin (BTC) withdrawals have a withdrawal fee of 0.0005 BTC, Ethereum (ETH) have a fee of 0.001 ETH, 0.01 SOL fee for Solana and 2.2 USDT fee for ERC-20 Tether withdrawals.
Is BTSE Safe?
When it comes to security, BTSE has a great track record of having never been hacked and the exchange stores 99% of users' assets in cold wallets.
In terms of account security, BTSE offers everything that we have come to expect from modern exchanges including 2FA, device management, account activity, anti-phishing codes and email verifications and more.
BTSE does not have much more information about security measures on their platform which could easily be added to add more peace of mind to its users. BTSE also currently does not offer proof of reserves which is becoming standard across exchanges.
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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.