Is it worth switching to Zero-Fee Exchanges?

Multiple exchanges that deal in cryptocurrencies usually charge commissions on each transactions within the ranges of 0.1% to 0.25%. Although this percentage may not seem significant, for an active trader who trades daily, the exchange fees certainly sums up and eat into the trading profits he or she makes.

In order to combat this problem, several zero-fee exchanges were proposed amd launched. The million dollar question now is that are these zero-fee exchanges a better and safer alternatives to the fee-incurring ones?

Some of the top zero-fee exchanges:

• BitMEX (USD 2.75 bn)
• Quoine (USD 124m)
• Fisco (USD 68m)
• Zaif (USD 68m)
• CoinBene (USD 61m)
  Source: coinmarketcap.com

The hard truth is that zero-fee exchanges are not actually free. There are two kinds of zero-fee exchanges.

• There are the exchanges that don't charge fees on certain specific pairs of currencies, such as BitMEX for American Dollars and Bitcoin transactions for instance.
• There also exist zero-fee exchanges that charge no fees across board, Cobinhood for instance.

The first kind has enabled no fee trading trading specifically for currency pairs in order allure enormous number of users to the respective platforms while traders who associate their transactions with other currency pairs get charged.

The zero-fee charging alternative, however, does not charge spot-on trading fees. Instead, such platforms charge fees for other products they offer as well as margin trading. The recently launched Cobinhood, for instance, charges no fee for margin or on spot trading. However, it does charge fees for its ICO services.

Zero-fee trading platforms are apparently good choice for profit-making businesses. However, they do charge their users elsewhere: margin trading fees,withdrawal fees, and other services/products.

Are charge-free trading platforms worth it?

There are multiple factors wirth considering when choosing a cryptocurrency exchange, with Fee-charging being one of the factors. The other factors include the reputation of the platform, the platform's security, accepted payment methods, and geographical location restrictions, user-friendliness and, perhaps most essentially, the number of currency pairs offered.
Some of the limitations of the charge-free exchanges include very few currency pairs, which is a big blow to altcoin traders or people who seek to trade ICO tokens actively. Additionally, most of these platforms are not always accessible to users in certain regions in the world. Furthermore, they keep experiencing low trading volumes compared to the most popular fee-charging exchanges such as Bitfinex, Kraken, and GDAX. Hence, trade of huge volumes on such platforms becomes cumbersome.

The zero-charge trade platforms are certainly gaining popularity. However, it seems most cryptocurrency traders, for now, seem to be okay with the fee-charging platforms with the bulk of trading volumes being the evidence.