The Exchanges Review Part II: In and Out, Securely

Further to the first part of our review of ten exchanges, Cointelegraph turns its attention to safety and the transaction process to give a slick overview of each one’s pros and cons.

Cryptsy lands bottom of the ten exchanges under review both in terms of transacting and safety. Its slow loading and unstable interface among other issues have resulted in many user reports of deposits taking a suspiciously long time or going missing altogether. This possibly accounts for Cryptsy having the lowest volume of the ten exchanges (more information on volumes coming later).

However, the exchange does have a registered address and holding company based in Florida, Project Investors Inc., making traceability easy.

ICBIT is also under constant scrutiny regarding its safety record. While it is currently in the process of incorporating offshore jurisdiction, there are numerous sources online which voice concern over lack of accountability in the event of fraud or technical failure.

That said, however, processing is done in conjunction with DeepBit, the largest Bitcoin mining pool, which nonetheless offers some sort of peace of mind, although safety in numbers is not a feature which has applied to the Bitcoin space, as has been seen.

Aside from an address in China, LakeBTC is also an elusive entity in terms of accountability offline. There have also been many calls on forums for representatives to divulge further details about the exchange and make core information more accessible. It does however offer fairly comprehensive security, including SMS confirmations of withdrawals.

BTC-e is perhaps the most unfriendly to non-Russian speaking users, however. While it offers a good selection of deposit and withdrawal options, the site’s legislation is only available in Russian and users have reported suspicious errors in addition to much-publicised fraudulent activity such as selective account freezing. It is also unknown who controls or owns the site.

Bitfinex fares considerably better than the others mentioned thus far, but as theblogchain’s review also points out, there is mistrust regarding the site’s programming. The platform is owned and operated by iFinex Inc. (Bvi), and during this final phase the platform is being prepared to operate as a fully licensed model.

The registered address is located in Hong Kong, which like China is also the subject of scrutiny as authorities are known to be keeping a close watch on Bitcoin’s development.