I’ve spoken before here about the seemingly inexorable rise and rise of crypto currencies – 2017 was a huge year for some of the leading players such as Bitcoin. However it seems that the rest are now catching up – a recent article on Bloomberg suggests that the crypto coin leader’s market share has dropped to 37% as a rival currencies get their act together and increase in popularity. So, there’s a lot to look out for on the crypto currency markets as we head into 2018 – but here I want to focus on how the new trading exchange Binance is now also rising to prominence.

A big deal

A bit of background first though. Binance has really caught the attention over the last few months – the new cryptocurrency exchange started out almost feeling like experiment, but since then it has rapidly grown into the largest exchange in the world by trading volume. Since the exchange was launched in July last year it’s estimated that nearly 3 million people are using the Binance platform. Some of this growth is likely to be due to the presence at the helm of CEO Changpang Zhao, who was formerly the Chief Technical Officer of OKCoin and is a well-respected figure in the world of crypto currency dealing. As a result of this confidence, trading is increasing. There is now more activity, even in the face of the Chinese government ban on cryptocurrency-related financial campaigns such as ICOs. It seems that there is little that will dampen people’s enthusiasm for trading in crypto currencies.

Flexible benefits

But is Binance all it promises? There is a huge amount of interest building around the new cryptocurrency exchange, but does it live up to the hype? Let’s take a look at what those benefits are first of all. The first is flexibility. If you’re interested in trading in crypto currencies then there are few easier places to do it than Binance. It’s easy to sign up (although the site has recently started to limit the number of new accounts that can be opened, as demand was overloading their platform), and straightforward to get started with trading – simply create an account and deposit some funds in the cryptocurrency of your choice. It’s flexible too: you’re able to exchange between digital currencies almost immediately, across multiple platforms and devices. The company behind the platform claims it’s capable of handling around 1.4 million orders per second, which is certainly impressive.

Binance is also incredibly popular because of the number of ICOs to be found on the platform – including some that are exclusive to Binance. A couple of notable recent ones were GIFTO, a virtual gifting protocol, which sold $3 million in tokens exclusively to Binance users, and Bread, a decentralised banking application, that sold over $3.5 million in tokens.

Interesting opportunities

I’ve spoken before about the pros and cons associated with ICOs – once again the Chinese government is wary enough of them to ban them – but if you’re looking to try and take advantage of the next big cryptocurrency venture by getting in early, then Binance is a great place to look for these kinds of opportunities.

Binance have been undeniably canny too – proving themselves incredibly adept at building a loyal customer base, largely due to the speed, security and flexibility of their offering. They’ve kept trading fees low too, which always helps to win friends.

“We are humbled to reach this incredible milestone,” said Changpeng Zhao, Founder and CEO of Binance recently. “Our focus has always been and will continue to be providing our users with the most secure, fast, and efficient way to exchange digital assets.”

Too good to be true?

Which is all as it should be – but I do have a few caveats to the generally positive reaction that there has been to Binance. The first is simply that it is still relatively new – it’s only been around since last July, and I’d argue that this really isn’t long enough to completely test the robustness of its systems. It’s yet to be hacked, but it’s surely only a matter of time until someone tries – and it will be interesting to see how Binance’s security systems stand up.

My other concern is one that goes for all cryptocurrency exchanges – the lack of regulation. Binance is completely unregulated, and it also deals only in digital currencies – you can’t use fiat money on the site. There have also been a large number of fake landing pages set up to catch the uninitiated – scammers are getting increasingly sophisticated at fooling those users who are new to trading in crypto currencies. Binance is by no means alone in suffering from this problem, but it underlines the need to make sure that you know exactly who you’re dealing with if you’re planning to trade in digital currencies online.

Ultimately, if you’re happy to accept the risks of trading in these new and more flexible ways, then Binance is as good as any of its competitors. I believe it’s still too early to tell how safe a bet it really is, but its millions of passionate supporters seem to be prepared to take the plunge.

 – Rob Weider 

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