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Most Secure Exchanges Do Not Include Biggest Ones (Except One)

Binance Bitfinex Bithumb BitMEX

Cryptocurrency Exchanges

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Sead Fadilpašić

Journalist

Sead Fadilpašić

About Author

Sead specializes in writing factual and informative articles to help the public navigate the ever-changing world of crypto. He has extensive experience in the blockchain industry, where he has served...

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Last updated:

June 25, 2023

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A new list of the most secure cryptocurrency exchanges brings surprises: only one of the top 10 exchanges (it’s BitMEX) made it into the top 10 most secure ones. Others are much further down the list, up to the 78th spot out of 100 by security ranking in the case of Bithumb.

Titled the “Exchange Security Report” and done by the rating agency ICORating, the report analyzes the exchanges whose daily trade value exceeds USD 1 million – a total of 100 exchanges. Out of all those, roughly a half (46%) meet all the user account security parameters (password security, email verification and two-factor authentication), while 32% of all exchanges have code errors, according to the researchers.

Web security performance was found to be worse, with the majority of exchanges failing registrar and domain security, as well as web protocol security, in some way. In total, of all the crypto exchanges available, only four percent satisfies security to the fullest extent – leaving the remaining 96% possibly prone to an attack.

Out of a maximum of 100 points, Coinbase Pro scored the most at 89, while the lowest of all is OKCoin.cn with only 15 points.

Below it the list of the top 10 cryptocurrency exchanges by 24 hour trading volume. Their security ranking and received points are shown in brackets.

1. BitMEX (3rd by security ranking, 78 points)
2. Binance (17th, 63 points)
3. BitForex (63rd, 40 points)
4. OKEx (42nd, 47 points)
5. Huobi (47th, 46 points)
6. ZB.COM (60th, 41 points)
7. HitBTC (18th, 63 points)
8. Bitfinex (54th, 43 points)
9. Bibox (24th, 56 points)
10. Bithumb (78th, 34 points)

Only three of these have more than 60 points, which would in an academic environment be considered a passing grade. Out of all the exchanges, only the top 20 would pass. Additionally, whether or not these top 10 exchanges by trading volume truly belong in those top 10 is, as usual, debatable, as fake trading volume is a persistent problem in the cryptocurrency space.

In either case, the report by ICORating, reminds that over the past 8 years about 31 crypto exchanges have been hacked and USD 1.3 billion stolen: “Still nobody is fully protected from the loss of their crypto assets, therefore, invest in reliable assets, diversify your portfolio and choose good crypto exchanges.” And as many like to add – don’t invest more than you’re willing to lose.

By the way, here is the list of the top 10 performers in the security rating: