Phemex Review: Pros, Cons, And Alternatives

Phemex is a cryptocurrency exchange notable for low fees. The exchange is based in Singapore and offers accounts to users worldwide, including in the United States.

As of this writing, it ranks in the top 50 cryptocurrency exchanges by daily trading volume, making it a somewhat sizeable crypto brokerage that is more likely to survive a volatile crypto winter.

Here’s a closer look at how Phemex works, what it costs to use Phemex, and incites to help you decide if Phemex is right for you.

Pros & Cons

Who Is Phemex?

Phemex is a cryptocurrency exchange and brokerage based in Singapore. The company was founded in 2019 by a team of former Morgan Stanley executives. It serves around 2 million customers in over 200 countries. Users can buy and sell more than 200 spot-trading pairs or 39 currencies with up to 100x leverage.

The company follows industry-standard security measures, and accounts should be safe if you follow online best security practices. However, the company earns mixed reviews from customers with a litany of complaints on popular review sites.

As of this writing, CoinMarketCap ranks Phemex as the 25th largest online cryptocurrency exchange by volume. That’s a long way from the top five market leaders but is large enough to influence the overall crypto markets.

Phemex Features

Phemex caters to active cryptocurrency traders looking to take advantage of low trading fees for the most popular cryptocurrencies. These are the main financial products available to individual and institutional users:

Buy Cryptocurrency

You can use Phemex to buy crypto directly from the company where it acts as a broker. In this situation, you can pay using a payment card via a partnership with MoonPay, bank transfer, or Apple Pay. Added fees may apply depending on your payment method.

Spot Trading

The platform enables exchanges between 200+ currency pairs for extremely low rates. This acts as a direct peer-to-peer trading market where trades may be slightly slower. Lower liquidity can lead to price disparities compared to more active, centralized marketplaces.

Derivatives Trading

Phemex supports around 40 currencies on its contract trading platform with up to 100x leverage.

Staking And Earning

You can stake and deposit currency in your account to earn over 8% APY interest. There’s a learn and earn section similar to Coinbase, but it’s currently not paying out any crypto rewards.

Pricing And Fees

Trading fees are the most important feature for many active traders. Phemex uses a maker/taker model starting at 0.1%. You can earn lower fees with higher trading volumes. Market makers at the highest levels can qualify for a negative rate, meaning they get paid for supplying liquidity to the Phemex markets. Spot trades generally require a $10 minimum trade value.

Derivatives contract fees trade with a 0.075% fee for takers and -0.025% for makers, with most currencies requiring a 5% initial margin fee and 1% ongoing margin maintenance rate. Withdrawal fees vary by currency.

How Does Phemex Compare?

Phemex is part of a crowded market, including many Phemex alternatives. The largest global cryptocurrency exchanges are Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, and KuCoin. Gate.io, Gemini, Huobi Global, and Bitfinex round out the top ten.

When choosing a cryptocurrency exchange, it’s important to look at the fees, available currencies, market liquidity, customer support, and other features. Here’s a side-by-side comparison of some top Phemex alternatives:

How Do I Open An Account?

The account opening process is similar to other large crypto exchanges and financial service providers. Be prepared to enter your personal information, contact details, and Social Security number or other taxpayer identification number as part of the KYC (know your customer) requirements.

Creating an account with your email and password takes about 30 seconds. The full process takes around five to 10 minutes for digital natives who grew up with computers.

Safety And Security

The Phemex exchange keeps user funds safe with a system of cold hardware wallets. The company uses Wall Street-style techniques to scan for fraudulent transactions and withdrawals to prevent major problems before they happen hopefully.

However, many past users have shared frustrations about lost access to deposits and funds sent through Phemex.

Customer Service

Customer service is primarily available through online chat support. After reaching an automated bot, you can request to work with a human customer service representative. In our testing, it took about a minute to reach a human. There’s no phone support. Email support is also supported for non-urgent matters.

On review site TrustPilot, nearly half of users have given Phemex the worst “bad” level rating, followed closely by “excellent.” There are few middle-of-the-road experiences. It’s either great or terrible.

Complaints focus on poor market pricing, slowly executed trades, loss of access to customer accounts, and a poor trading platform. Positive comments mention helpful customer service and a good rewards program.

Is It Worth It?

While Phemex earns mixed customer reviews, the overall pricing structure, security scheme, and trading offerings could make Phemex a good choice for your needs. With hundreds of cryptocurrencies and a Wall Street-inspired trading platform, you might find Phemex offers the right combination of features for your unique needs.

Phemex Features