Introduction
Poloniex.com was registered on December 10, 2014. Despite being relatively new, Poloniex was able to compete with other older trading platforms and grab the top spot in terms of trading volume among all the cryptocurrency exchanges.
Poloniex Exchange supports a large number of pairs. Among the top cryptocurrencies available to trade, Poloniex supports Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Monero (XMR), Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum Classic (ETC), and Zcash (ZEC) amongst others.
Features of the exchange
- Wide trading range: approximately hundred pairs, including a variety of cryptocurrencies
- High level of protection: Two-factor authentication, user verification (voluntary, in two stages) and DDOS protection
- Affordable fees. Works according to the "maker-taker" principle, whereby market makers don't pay any fees, but market takers (who place the order at the same price later), pay a small fee (about 0.25%)
- Margin trading: Poloniex offers margin trading, whereby you can borrow from an exchange to purchase coins.
- Different methods for deposition and withdrawal of funds.
Sign-up and Verification Procedure
In order to register a new account at poloniex.com, a user has to:
- fill in the standard questionnaire (first name, last name, country, e-mail, etc).
After that, the user can go to his dashboard, fund the account and start to trade on the exchange. However, it is worth noting that unverified users have a daily limit on withdrawal of funds - $ 2,000. To increase this limit, you need to provide some additional information: date of birth, mobile phone number, address, personal ID data (SSN or other).
After this, the user has to upload scanned personal documentation for ID confirmation. It goes without saying, but you should only enter valid data — otherwise there may be problems with the withdrawal of funds later.
Deposits and Withdrawals
Funding your account with USD or any other fiat currency is not allowed on Poloniex — the platform is built only for cryptocurrency trading. So in order to fund your Poloniex account you need to have either some cryptocurrency on you or find an exchange platform (like Bitfinex, Coinbase, etc.), where you can sell your fiats (USD etc.), and buy cryptocurrencies you are interested in.
When you log in to your account, new tabs will appear on your dashboard. Click on the 'Balances' tab and in the dropdown, select 'Deposits & Withdrawals'.
Next, we have a huge list of available cryptocurrencies. Note that some pairs may be temporarily disabled for you. and cannot be purchased or sold. However, popular pairs are always available for trading.
How to Deposit Funds
Click on 'Deposit' in the 'Actions' column against a currency.
After clicking the 'Deposit' button, the system will generate an address for the selected cryptocurrency, and you can send the funds to Poloniex to this address. If you accidentally send ETH to the BTC wallet, then your funds will simply disappear — so be careful about which cryptocurrency you are transferring. Go to 'Balances', and then click 'History': here you can monitor the status of the transaction.
How to withdraw funds
If you want to withdraw digital currency from Poloniex wallet to your own wallet, you need to open the 'Balances' tab and select the 'Deposits & Withdrawals' section.
The procedure is very similar to the deposition of funds but this time, you have to click on 'Withdraw' instead of 'Deposit'. Simply enter the address you want to send your funds to and the amount.
Trading
To place an order on Poloniex, follow these steps:
1. Go to the trades section called 'Exchange'.
2. In the 'Markets' section there are 4 tabs: BTC, ETH, XMR, USDT - these are the currencies you can trade with. For example, if we want to trade Bitcoin for a different cryptocurrency, then we need to select the BTC tab. Additionally, there is a convenient search filter for any cryptocurrency market.
3. After choosing the curency pair, you can open all the trading data and tools: price statistics for the last 24 hours, the volume of trading for this period, the last selling price (1).
Charts allow you to follow the dynamics of the exchange rate (2).
4. Go down the page. Here you can see 'Order Book' tab with three types of orders: Sell, Stop-limit, Buy.
5. If you want to purchase some digital coins, say Ripple, then fill out the 'Buy Order': specify the price, number of coins (Amount) and check if your account has the required amount to buy (Total). You can click on the 'Lowest Ask' to select the minimum price at which other traders are ready to sell you a coin.
Next, click on the 'Buy' button. If you specified a price using the 'Lowest Ask', then the purchase will happen instantly, but if the price is lower, the order will be placed in the 'Order' table until there is a buyer willing to buy at your price. The process of selling is similar, you just have to use the 'Sell Order' tab and fill up the appropriate fields.
Fee Schedule
Every 24 hours, the exchange will calculate the last 30 days of trading volume on your account (spot and margin combine) and dynamically adjust your fees according to the following schedule:
This is it for our guide for Poloniex. If you have any questions, you can ask them below by leaving a reply.