ByBit is one of the newcomers that is gunning for the king of the crypto leveraged trading: BitMex. Hence this BitMex vs ByBit comparison. These are exchanges that aim for the same target group of traders, offer similar features and direct duel where we set the platforms to go toe-to-toe was an inevitable event.
Without too much of further introduction, we will dive into it, head first.
What you'll learn 👉
BitMex vs ByBit: General info
Bitcoin Mercantile Exchange, or BitMEX, is a trading platform owned by HDR Global Trading Limited. HDR was founded in 2014 by three experts in the market – Arthur Hayes, Samuel Reed, and Ben Delo. Since then, investors have traded a combined $26.5 billion, which amounts to more than a fourth of the total bitcoin market cap. The company is based in the Republic of Seychelles and they offer a margin-trading service for experienced, professional Bitcoin traders.
Up to 100x leverage is available to users for Bitcoin, up to 50x for Ethereum, and up to 33.3x for Litecoin. There is also a selection of altcoins for spot and futures markets.
Bybit is a crypto exchange located in the British Virgin Islands. It is a cryptocurrency derivatives platform with only two trading pairs: BTC/USD, XRP/USD, EOS/USD and ETH/USD.
ByBit vs BitMex: Fees
BitMex has very competitive fees and most users will find them almost negligible relative to the chunky profits to be made if you’re a savvy operator. The fees on Perpetual Swaps (and some of the futures) are currently -0.025% for the market makers and 0.075% for the market takers, so the maker actually grabs a little rebate on trades. You can read more about BitMex fees through this link.
At Bybit, takers are charged 0.075% per order while the makers fee is -0.025%, essentially all the same like BitMex. This essentially means that each maker get paid to trade. For example let’s say that you are the maker in an order where you purchase cryptocurrency for USD 1,000. This means that instead of paying USD 1,000, you will only have to pay USD 997.50. This is a very competitive trait indeed.
Bybit also charges withdrawal fees in the amount of 0.0005 BTC. This is pretty competitive as it 40% less than the global industry average BTC withdrawal fee (0.0008 BTC).
Buying Limits
There are no limits on Bitmex, not on deposits nor on withdrawals. It is completely limit-free.
There are no limits on Bybit either, when it comes to amounts of crypto you are allowed to deposit.
Deposit and Withdrawal methods
BitMex is crypto only exchange so all deposits and withdrawals can be made strictly in bitcoin. Deposits and withdrawals are free of charge, which is always very pleasing. Once you’re done trading, you shouldn’t be left with any hidden costs (other than the Bitcoin network fees).
Bybit is crypto only exchange so all deposits can be made only in BTC or ETH.
Supported Countries
BitMex itself is a registered company in the Republic of Seychelles, but is available worldwide. Thanks to the cryptocurrency nature of the site, the exchange doesn’t limit access for any locations. It’s important to note that local laws may affect your use of the service. However, this is out of the company’s control.
Bybit is available worldwide with the exception of US and these restricted countries: Québec (Canada) , Singapore, Cuba, Crimea, Sevastopol, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, China(Mainland,Hong Kong, Macau).
Supported coins
BitMEX supports the following cryptocurrencies:
- Bitcoin (XBT)
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
- Ethereum (ETH)
- Ethereum Classic (ETC)
- Litecoin (LTC)
- Ripple Token (XRP)
- Monero (XMR)
- Dash (DASH)
- Zcash (ZEC)
- Cardano (ADA)
- Tron (TRX)
- EOS Token (EOS)
Note: On BitMEX exchange Bitcoin is still denoted by XBT. ( The popular ticker name ‘BTC’ violates ISO 4217, and as according to this standard, it goes against the currency of Bhutan. Hence Bitmex went with the XBT ticker).
Four major coins are available at Bybit: BTC, ETH, XRP and EOS.
Customer Support
Generally, it seems like customer support at BitMex is amongst the most knowledgeable in the market. Their team is polite, courteous, speak English well, and they try to cater to the expanding market and attempt to take the pressure off their customer service.
Customer support is offered via an email ticket, and the support even responds to social media messages. The exchange has a great website that is packed full of useful information and features. They also offer a knowledge base that gives a slick rundown of the exchange and helps to educate users on complex trades.
Bybit has a live chat that operates 24/7 and is able to speak multiple languages. Bybit is also active across the vast majority of well-known social media platforms. This includes Facebook, Instagram, Telegram and Reddit.
Trust and reputation
BitMEX is currently unregulated in any jurisdiction and the only security users have is their reputation in the community. Their team is well known and active on social media so in case of any frauds, people would know who needs to be hunted down. However, lack of official regulation is a big minus and huge risk, especially if you plan to margin trade larger amounts of crypto.
The ByBit company is only 2 years old but has no major incidents or negative press to its name. Alongside the CEO Ben Zhou, the management team at Bybit is made up of seasoned professionals from the forex, investment and blockchain arenas, which includes former employees from Morgan Stanley and Tencent. In crypto terms, it is trustworthy and reputable even though it is a far cry from the standards institutions in the traditional financial markets have to uphold.
Security
BitMEX is reputed to have strong levels of security. The exchange uses multi-signature deposits and withdrawal schemes which can only be used by BitMEX partners. BitMEX also uses Amazon Web Services to protect the servers with text messages and two-factor authentication, as well as hardware tokens.
They have email notifications, and PGP encryption is used for all communication. All BitMex withdrawals are manually checked by their employees and are executed only once per day to minimize hacking risks (funds are held in cold storage).
Bybit keeps majority of tokens in a multi-signature cold wallet with a limit to only three withdrawal cycles per day. As is now expected in the industry, Bybit comes with an option of setting-up two factor authentication (2FA) plus email notifications for any major action on the platform (login, withdrawal, trade etc).
Margin trading
Bitmex offers margin trading in all of the cryptocurrencies displayed on the website. It also offers to trade with futures and derivatives – swaps. On BitMEX, users can leverage up to 100x on certain contracts. BitMEX also offers Binary series contracts, which are prediction-based contracts which can only settle at either 0 or 100. There are two types of Margin Trading: Isolated and Cross-Margin. The former allows the user to select the amount of money in their wallet that should be used to hold their position after an order is placed. However, the latter provides that all of the money in the users’ wallet can be used to hold their position, and therefore should be treated with extreme caution.
You can trade at 100x leverage on Bybit for BTC and ETH pairs and 25x on EOS and XRP. Their matching engine is allegedly capable of up to 100,000 TPS (Transactions Per Second) which is incredibly impressive and a great future for anyone interested in leveraged trading.
Pros and Cons
BitMex Pros
- Low fees
- Futures and derivates trading
- Many advanced features available
- Nice trading platform
- Maximum leverage of 1:100 is available
BitMex Cons
- Not for beginner traders
- No fiat deposits / withdrawals available
ByBit Pros
- Attractive Fees
- Advanced Technology
- Anonymous Accounts
- Trading Bonuses
ByBit Cons
- Limited Asset Coverage
- No Mobile App
- Still New Exchange
BitMex or ByBit: Conclusion
So who wins the battle between BitMex and ByBit?
- In terms of fees – ByBit emulated the fee structure of BitMex so they both offer essentially the same fee model.
- In terms of supported currencies – BitMex has a broader offering and wins this category.
- In terms of regulatory compliance and licensing: BitMex has a much longer track record even though neither platform is regulated. BitMex wins this one purely on the basis of their longer presence in the market.
- In terms of customer support: Both are of similar quality so it is a tie.
- When it comes to security in the BitMex vs ByBit battle: Both of the platforms employ all the best practices for cyber-security and there is no special feature that one offers that the other doesn’t have. This is mostly due to the fact that ByBit seems to have designed their exchange by looking up to BitMex as the sector leader.
- Trading features: another tie since both platforms offer tons of advanced trading functions + margin trading. ByBit does have a slight edge here as they matching machine is superior to that of BitMex.
- Overall reputation: BitMex is much more known and hence has a first mover advantage. ByBit does a good job of copying BitMex but they need to offer some additional feature if they want a chance to displace the incumbent. They are on a good path with their first-class matching algorithm that has an upper hand on BitMex.
If you are not fond of neither of these exchanges, here is a list of potential alternatives: Cex.io, Binance, PrimeXBT, PrimeBit, Deribit. Since February 2020, Coinbase Pro has announced they are entering the margin trading arena as well.
In case you want to compare BitMex with other exchanges, have a look at our guides where we do just that with BitMex vs Binance.
