Paxful vs Binance: In this comprehensive comparison, we delve into the key aspects of both platforms to help you make an informed decision. From examining their KYC processes and availability in various countries to scrutinizing their product offerings, trading fees, and withdrawal fees, we explore all the crucial factors. Keep reading to determine which exchange aligns better with your trading and investing requirements!
Paxful and Binance are two well-established cryptocurrency exchanges with distinct features and offerings.
Paxful, founded in 2015, serves as a peer-to-peer platform for buying and selling digital currencies. The exchange has a mission to empower the unbanked and underbanked population. They do this by providing access to cryptocurrencies via 350 different payment methods such as gift cards, bank transfers, and online wallets.
Paxful exchange
Paxful supports only four cryptocurrencies which includes Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), USDT (Tether) and USDC (Circle). With over 10 million global users, Paxful has established headquarters in New York and offices in Estonia, the UK, Dubai, and other countries.
The exchange aims to cater to a wide range of users and offers a variety of payment methods to facilitate cryptocurrency transactions.
Paxful app
Binance on the other hand was founded in 2017 and has quickly become one of the largest and most popular trading platforms in the crypto industry.
Registered in the Cayman Islands as Binance Holdings Ltd, the company has grown to over 6000 employees. Binance is available in 186 countries, except for restricted regions such as the US, Canada, the UK, Iran, and Syria.
Binance exchange
With over 120 million users worldwide, Binance offers a comprehensive suite of trading services that includes spot trading, futures trading, staking, earning products, NFTs and much more.
The exchange supports over 350 cryptocurrencies, making it one of the most liquid exchanges globally. Binance also provides a user-friendly mobile app, which has been downloaded over 50 million times and has a rating of 4.4 based on over 1 million reviews.
Binance app
While both Paxful and Binance cater to a global market, they differ in their approach and target audience. Paxful aims to empower individuals with limited access to traditional banking services, while Binance offers a wide range of trading and financial services, catering to both retail and institutional investors.
Paxful vs Binance KYC Requirements
Createing an account on Paxful takes no time whatsoever. Users can quickly sign up by providing either an email or a phone number.
Once this information is verified, users are prompted to continue with the next step which is completing the Know Your Customer (KYC) process. KYC is required on Paxful and no buying or selling of Bitcoin can occur without having a verified account.
Paxful KYC
For those who conduct phone verification on Paxful, they can buy up to $1,000 worth of Bitcoin. However, if users also verify their identity with a valid government ID, they get to buy and sell up to $10,000 worth of Bitcoin. To access unlimited trading, users must also verify their home address.
The signup process on Binance is incredibly quick taking less than a minute to complete by providing an email and password. However, to unlock full account privileges, users must verify their account through the KYC process.
Binance KYC verification
Binance requires users to submit all the necessary information and documents for verification, including their country of residence, address, and a government ID. This process typically takes a few minutes to finish for the users and up to a few hours for Binance to verify the information.
Similar to Paxful, on Binance, users cannot trade before completing the KYC process. So, it's important to ensure that all the required information and documents are provided to avoid any delays in trading.
Paxful vs Binance Crypto Products
Paxful is a peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency exchange platform that focuses on providing a marketplace for users to buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT and USDC.
The platform operates by connecting buyers and sellers directly, allowing them to facilitate transactions between each other. With over 300 payment methods available, Paxful ensures high accessibility and convenience for users around the world.
Buy and sell on Paxful
When a trade is initiated on Paxful, the Bitcoin being sold is held in escrow by the platform until both parties confirm that the transaction is complete.
In terms of user experience, Paxful offers a unique exchange experience that is centered around the buying and selling of Bitcoin in a peer-to-peer setting.
Paxful wallet
This service is primarily tailored to individuals living in underbanked countries who may not have access to more traditional methods of buying and selling cryptocurrencies.
It is important to highlight that prices on Paxful can vary widely, as they are set by individual users who have the freedom to set their own prices. For individuals looking for a more traditional cryptocurrency exchange experience, Paxful is not be the best fit.
On the other hand, Binance is one of the most versatile cryptocurrency exchanges in the world and offers a wide range of trading services. They provide spot trading, futures trading, margin trading, perpetual swaps (perps), and options trading.
Paxful Binance spot trading
Binance also offers contracts that can be settled perpetually or on a quarterly basis, using various cryptocurrencies such as USDT, BUSD, or other cryptocurrencies.
Binance future contracts
Additionally, Binance offers trading bots and copy trading, allowing users to automatically follow and copy the trades of successful traders. The exchange also provides leveraged tokens for users who want to earn on their assets and offers staking, lending, and different types of vaults.
Binance earn
Binance has its own NFT marketplace and a Web 3 wallet called Trust Wallet which it acquired a few years ago. In terms of user experience, Binance manages to provide a wide range of products without making things to complicated for the users.
Binance interface
The platform is beginner-friendly and has an easy-to-navigate website. Binance also has very high liquidity with daily spot and futures trading volumes frequently exceeding $10 billion.
Binance cryptocurrencies
For those that wish to trade with leverage, Binance offers leverage of up to 125X on futures trading and margin trading with up to 5X leverage using various cryptocurrencies as collateral.
When it comes to trading fees, Paxful and Binance offer different options for users. Paxful charges a 1% sell fee for various types of transactions.
Whether you sell via bank transfers, credit/debit card, digital currency, online wallet, or even good and services, the fee remains at 1%. However, if you plan to sell gift cards on Paxful, the commission is slightly higher at 5%.
Paxful trading fees
One unique aspect of Paxful is that it only charges the sellers, buyers don't have to worry about any fees. This can be advantageous for those looking to purchase cryptocurrencies without any additional costs.
On the other hand we have Binance that charges a very low spot maker and taker fee of only 0.1%. Binance also provides futures trading options, with a futures maker fee of 0.02% and a futures taker fee of 0.04%.
Binance spot fees
For high volume traders, it's worth pointing out that if your monthly trade volumes exceed $1 million during a 30-day period or if you hold at least 25 BNB tokens, you can enjoy reduced trading fees.
Binance futures fees
Comparing the two exchanges, Paxful's fees are straightforward but their 1% sell fee is obviously quite a bit higher than the 0.1% trading fee charged by Binance.
Paxful and Binance are both popular cryptocurrency exchanges, but they differ in terms of their deposit methods. While Paxful only supports cryptocurrency deposits, Binance offers a wide range of options for fiat currency deposits
On Paxful, users can only deposit Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether USD, or Circle USD into their accounts. The exchange does not support fiat currency deposits, which means users cannot directly deposit traditional currencies like USD or EUR.
In contrast, Binance supports over 20 fiat currencies including USD, EUR, AUD, GBP, SEK, DKK, and many others. This gives users more flexibility when it comes to depositing funds into their Binance accounts.
Binance fiat deposit
Binance offers several deposit methods for fiat currencies. Users can make deposits through bank transfers via Swift, Signet, SEPA, and Faster Payments (FSP).
They can also deposit funds using Visa, Mastercard, PayID, and Advacash. However, it's important to note that there are deposit fees associated with some of these methods on Binance.
For example, fiat currencies deposited with Visa and Mastercard incur a 1.8% fee while bank transfers via SEPA come with a 1 EUR fee. If users have an Advcash account, they can deposit funds with a 1.5% fee. It's always a good idea to carefully consider these fees before choosing a deposit method.
In terms of withdrawal fees, Paxful solely allows for cryptocurrency withdrawals and does not support any fiat currencies. Users can withdraw popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), USDC, and USDT.
The withdrawal fees vary depending on the network activity and the specific cryptocurrency being withdrawn. For Bitcoin, the cost ranges from 0.00008 BTC for smaller amounts to 0.0004 BTC for larger amounts.
Ethereum withdrawals come with fees ranging from 0.002 ETH to 0.0005 ETH. As for USDT and USDC, the fees can range from $1 to $10, depending on the network activity.
On the other hand, Binance offers multiple methods for users to withdraw their fiat currencies. They provide options to withdraw USD via SWIFT, EUR through SEPA, and GBP using Faster Payments (FSP).
Binance fiat withdrawals
Binance charges a 1.8% withdrawal fee for fiat withdrawals made with Visa and MasterCard. For SEPA withdrawals, there is a fixed fee of 1 EUR. However, bank withdrawals in many other fiat currencies are free of charge.
When it comes to cryptocurrency withdrawals, both exchanges offer different fees. Binance charges a fee of 0.0002 BTC for Bitcoin withdrawals, 0.000768 ETH for Ethereum withdrawals, 0.008 SOL for Solana withdrawals, and 3.55 USDT for USDT (ERC-20) withdrawals.
Once again, Binance proves to be the more versatile exchange offering more options and cheaper methods than Paxful.
In conclusion, Paxful and Binance are two prominent players in the cryptocurrency exchange market each with their own unique offerings and advantages.
Paxful stands out for its mission to empower the unbanked and underbanked population with a focus on peer-to-peer transactions, providing access to cryptocurrencies through over 350 different payment methods.
On the other hand, Binance Wwith over 120 million users worldwide offers many more features than Paxful such as spot trading, futures trading, staking, and earning products, among others.
Binance supports over 350 cryptocurrencies compared to only 4 on Paxful while also offering the most liquid exchange in the industry.
In terms of trading fees, Paxful charges a 1% sell fee and 0% fee for buyers while Binance charges a low 0.1% spot fee for makers and takers and just 0.02% futures fees for makers.
Binance also provides the potential for fee reductions based on trade volumes or token holdings, giving users more flexibility in managing their trading costs.
Additionally, while Paxful only supports cryptocurrency deposits, Binance offers a wide range of options for fiat currency deposits, providing users with more flexibility and convenience.
Paxful is thus not the better exchange when compared to Binance. Binance is simply the better exchange across almost every metric that we have compared!
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Author
Jack Moreau
Jack is a crypto writer and reviewer who has been active in the space since he caught the crypto bug in 2017. With a passion for trying out new shiny things, Jack is always eager to try the latest cryptocurrency exchanges, wallets or DeFi applications.
