That is to say, it is important to know the fees charged to perform operations, currency pairs on offer and the volume of currency an exchange has processed when making a decision as to which one to use more often.
(In terms of volume, we took the amount of BTC traversing each exchange over the past 30 days. Note that, unlike the previous two reviews, results here are not listed in terms of best and worst performers, as each exchange has strengths in different areas.)
Bitstamp charges each party for successful USD/BTC transactions, the only pair available on the exchange. The amount of the fee will vary based on their 30-day trading history, the rate for new accounts and those with the lowest volume being 0.5%. Trading volume is the highest of all exchanges in the list, as would be expected from the most well-known name in the community, at 578227BTC.
Fees: 2
Currencies: 2
Volume: 5
Fees on other exchanges tend to be lower than Bitstamp, and Bitfinex is no exception, charging on average 0.15%. It employs a maker-taker system, whereby the market maker ends up paying between 0.1% and 0(!)%, and the taker pays 0.2%.It currently offers 3 trading pairs and recent volume was 496355BTC, the second largest after Bitstamp.
Fees: 4
Currencies: 3
Volume: 5
BTC China charges a flat fee of 0.1% for 2 trading pairs, although foreigners will most likely only using BTC withdrawals to another wallet. In the 30-day period it processed 158004BTC.
Fees: 4
Currencies: 3
Volume: 3
ICBIT has a different fee structure in place, with 0.0001 BTC per contract trade or settlement. This is advantageous for orders of 0.3BTC and over, but not such good value for lower amounts. Trading volume was 138834BTC, and 2 currency pairs are only offer at present.
Fees: 4
Currencies: 3
Volume: 3
Other Chinese outfit LakeBTC charges between 0.1% and 0.5% per transaction, has 3 pairs on offer and only slightly lower trading volume history than BTC China at 147837BTC.
Fees: 4
Currencies: 3
Volume: 3