Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world by spot and derivatives volume, and on execution quality nothing else comes close. That is the whole case for using it. The case against it is that the entity you actually sign up with depends on where you live, the protections attached to each vary widely, and the group has settled with US authorities over anti-money-laundering and sanctions failures. Both things are true at once, which is why it scores 8.4 rather than 9.5.
What Binance actually is
Binance operates a global spot exchange, the largest perpetual futures venue in crypto, an options desk, a launchpad, an earn product and a self-custody wallet. Revenue comes primarily from trading fees, with listing arrangements, spread on the convert product and interest on lending balances adding to it. Since the 2023 settlement it has operated through separate regulated entities in several jurisdictions — Binance.US, Binance France, Binance Bahrain and others — each with its own asset list, fee schedule and legal terms. Reading the terms of the specific entity you onboarded with is not pedantry here; it determines what you are owed.
Fees: what you actually pay
Headline spot fees start around 0.10% maker and taker, falling with 30-day volume and a further 25% if fees are paid in BNB. That puts it among the cheapest large venues before discounts and clearly the cheapest after them. The trap is the Convert button, which quotes an all-in price with a spread rather than a fee — on illiquid pairs that spread can exceed the trading fee many times over. Use the spot order book. Withdrawal fees are set per asset and per network, and choosing a cheaper network for stablecoin withdrawals routinely saves more than a month of trading fees.
Security and custody record
Binance suffered a hot-wallet breach in 2019 in which roughly 7,000 BTC was stolen; the losses were covered by its SAFU insurance fund and no user was left short. Since then it has run without a comparable incident, publishes proof-of-reserves attestations using Merkle-tree verification, and maintains SAFU as a self-funded backstop. Two limits are worth stating plainly. Proof of reserves shows assets at a moment in time and says nothing about liabilities, and SAFU is a promise from the exchange rather than third-party insurance. Our security mark of 7.5 reflects a good decade-long operating record with a self-attested safety net rather than an audited one.
Regulation and access
This is Binance's weakest criterion at 5.5. The group pleaded guilty to US charges in November 2023, paid a multi-billion-dollar penalty, accepted monitorship and saw its founder step down and serve a prison sentence. It has since exited or restructured in several markets, and its availability, products and even leverage limits differ by country. For a trader, the practical consequences are that a product you rely on may be withdrawn in your jurisdiction at short notice, and that recourse in a dispute depends on which entity holds your account.
Who should use Binance
Traders who need depth on majors, cheap execution and access to newly listed assets will not find a better venue, and the volume discounts make it materially cheaper than Coinbase or Kraken at size. Anyone whose priority is a regulated, audited counterparty for long-term holdings should use Coinbase or Kraken instead and accept the higher fees. The pragmatic position, and the one we take, is to treat Binance as a trading account rather than a savings account: keep working capital there, sweep the rest to self-custody, and do not assume today's product line will exist in your country next year.