One of the most well-known crypto exchanges, Poloniex attracts many novice traders with its simplicity and a variety of passive earning options that don’t require any special skills. But are your earnings well protected? In this article, we explain how Poloniex is regulated and whether you should consider depositing your money and trading there.
Overview
Poloniex isn’t really outstanding when it comes to its trading options. Of course, you can trade several dozen popular cryptocurrencies like BTC or ETH, but that’s it. However, there are also fiat pairs — that means you can exchange fiat directly. Margin trading is allowed, the leverage goes up to 1:100. The minimum deposit is $50 or 0.03 BTC, so you can start trading with just a small amount of money. The exchange uses a proprietary platform for trading, and there’s a single account option. As you can see, everything is kept as simple as possible.
Moreover, the exchange has a very user-friendly interface without too many various conditions and features. Poloniex also provides you with all kinds of education materials on crypto trading and a 24/7 support service. That’s probably why so many beginners stay on this exchange for long. But what’s really great about this exchange is its passive earning options. There are two of them: staking and P2P lending. While they differ a little bit, you don’t have to possess any special skills to benefit from them, it takes just a tap to start earning.
Security
Alright, let’s get to our big question: is Poloniex legit? Well, it’s considered a reliable platform by a good portion of global crypto community, but currently it’s not regulated by any financial organization. Poloniex started as a US crypto exchange back in 2014 but failed to make a deal with regulators. As a result, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged them for illegal online trading in 2021. To fix this issue, Poloniex had to pay about $10 million and then moved its headquarters to Bermuda.
The exchange has suffered a couple of hacker attacks, too. However, the platform makes sure that won’t happen again by enforcing various security measures like two-level verification or special protection against DoS attacks. All in all, Poloniex is relatively safe and legit.