Exchange Review: Phemex

This post contains sponsored advertising content. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.

Phemex Background

Phemex is a Singaporean cryptocurrency trading platform that was launched on November 25th, 2019. It focuses on crypto spot and derivatives trading and supports seven different languages: English, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, French, German, and Korean.

Phemex Trading Volume

An exchange's trading volume is an important factor to its users. A large trading volume often (but not always) correlates with deep liquidity. When the liquidity of a platform is deep, it means you’ll have an easier time finding a buyer for your sell order or a seller for your purchase order.

According to CoinMarketCap on the date of this review’s last update (January 21, 2022), Phemex had a 24-hour trading volume of 6.5 billion USD.

Popularity

It’s safe to say that Phemex has gained wide popularity amongst many crypto enthusiasts since its launch. Why has Phemex become so popular? Well, we think you have to see for yourself. Phemex has a newly designed website that is very easy to use and understand. The platform is also famous for hosting large campaigns and events to reward its users with generous prizes and crypto bonuses.

Gold/USD Trading Pair

As of 30 March 2020, users can also trade Gold/USD at Phemex. This could be a helpful trading pair to have access to, especially in times of high volatility. You can trade Gold/USD with up to 100x leverage.

Bonuses

Phemex also offers different bonuses to attract customers. As a welcome bonus, Phemex offers you up to $60 for any deposit of 0.03 BTC or more. This bonus can also be claimed by depositing other cryptocurrencies such as ETH. Additionally, you receive a $10 USD trading bonus when you share pinned tweet from Phemex Twitter and complete identity verification. Phemex also offers you a $10 spot trading bonus for a single order worth 500 USDT or more and a $10 contract trading bonus for a single BTC/USD transaction worth 5,000 USD or more.

Phemex also features a popular “Learn and Earn” program where users can earn extra bonuses by watching videos and completing quizzes.

Please note that these bonuses may change at any time.

Leveraged Trading

For its crypto derivatives products, Phemex allows you to trade with leverage up to 100x. This means that you can receive a higher exposure towards a certain crypto’s price change, without actually holding the necessary amount of assets. You do this by “leveraging” your trade. In simple terms, this means that you borrow from the exchange to bet more.

However, leveraged trading can be risky. For instance, let’s say that you have 100 USD in your trading account and you bet this amount on BTC going long (i.e., going up in value). If BTC then increases in value by 10%, you would have earned 10 USD. If you had used 100x leverage, your initial 100 USD position becomes a 10,000 USD position so you instead earn an extra 1,000 USD (990 USD more than if you had not leveraged your deal). However, the more leverage you use, the smaller the distance to your liquidation price becomes. This means that if the price of BTC moves in the opposite direction (goes down for this example), then it only needs to go down a very small percentage for you to lose the entire 100 USD you started with.

Again, the more leverage you use, the smaller the opposite price movement needs to be for you to lose your investment. Therefore, as you can imagine, the balance between risk and reward in leveraged deals is quite fine-tuned (there are no risk-free profits).

Spot Trading

On May 15th 2020, Phemex released its Spot Trading services. Unlike contract trading where you bet on a specific cryptocurrency or the price of an asset without owning the asset yourself, spot trading is a direct exchange of cryptocurrencies.

What's remarkable about Phemex's spot trading service is that it offers a zero-fee model. Most exchanges require you to pay a commission when purchasing or selling cryptocurrencies. This is typically in the range 0.10% to 0.25%. With Phemex, you can purchase a premium membership for just $9.99 per month and enjoy zero fees on spot trading. According to Phemex, premium membership offers significant savings for large numbers of traders.

Earn Crypto

Phemex also offers an Earn Crypto product that allows users to earn up to 8.5% APY through Fixed and Flexible Savings options. Flexible accounts allow for instant withdrawals and deposits at any time. Earn Crypto on Phemex is a great way to keep on earning passive income without the risk that comes with trading. Currently, Phemex offers an estimated APY of 6.00% on USDT for a flexible period and an estimated APY of 8.50% on USDT for a fixed 7-day period. Furthermore, you can also receive an estimated APY of 1.00% on BTC for a flexible period and an estimated APY of 1.80% on BTC for a fixed 7-day period.

Mobile App Support

Phemex is not only available on desktop, but also as an app on Android and Apple mobile devices. Users can simply download the Phemex app for convenient trading. Most traders in the crypto world today carry out their trades via desktop. However, many people are also starting to trade on their smartphones as well. If you’re one of those people, then Phemex could be for you. They have a comprehensive yet easy-to-use app.

Phemex Trading View

Every trading platform has a trading view. The trading view is the part of the exchange’s website where you can see the price chart of a certain cryptocurrency and what its current price is. There are also usually buy and sell boxes, where you can place orders with respect to the relevant crypto, and, at most platforms, you will also be able to see the order history (i.e., previous transactions involving the relevant crypto). You can enjoy all the important information in one intuitive display on your desktop. Of course, there are also variations to what we have now described.

This is the trading view at Phemex:

It is completely up to you to decide if the above trading view is suitable for you. There are many different features on the Phemex trading view you can adjust to match your own preferences.

Phemex Trading Fees

As mentioned above, in terms of Spot Trading, Phemex has adopted a zero trading fee model. Instead, they charge for monthly Premium Memberships (prices are $9.99 for 30 Days, $19.99 for 90 Days and $69.99 USDT for 365 Days). Becoming a premium member will also give you access to set conditional spot orders, hourly withdrawals with no limits, and the ability to gift trial premium memberships to friends.

Every trade occurs between two parties: the maker, whose order exists on the order book prior to the trade, and the taker, who places the order that matches (or “takes”) the maker’s order. We use the term “makers” as their orders make the liquidity in a market. Takers, on the other hand, are those who “take” this liquidity by matching makers’ orders with their own.

At Phemex, takers are charged 0.075% per order. This is a fair fee. There are smaller exchanges out there offering lower taker fees for contract trading, but there are many large exchanges that are charging much higher fees.

When it comes to the makers, Phemex trading fee is -0.025%. This essentially means that each maker gets paid to trade. To clarify, let’s say that you are the maker in an order where you purchase a derivatives contract for USD 1,000. This means that instead of paying USD 1,000, you will only have to pay USD 997.50. This is very competitive indeed.

Phemex Withdrawal Fees

Phemex does not charge any fees of their own when you withdraw crypto from your account on the platform. The only fees you have to think about when withdrawing are the blockchain network fees, which are paid to the miners of the relevant crypto/blockchain, and not the fees paid to the exchange itself. On Phemex, there is a minimum 0.0005 BTC Bitcoin Network fee that is set dynamically based on blockchain load.

Deposit Methods

Phemex currently partners with 6 fiat payment gateways - Banxa, Koinal, Coinify, Moonpay, and Mercuryo - to offer all users the ability to conveniently buy crypto using credit and debit card. You also have a variety of payment options (ranging from bank transfers to Apple Pay and OTC Services), as well as varying rates to fit your needs.

Is Phemex Safe?

Phemex implements a Hierarchical Deterministic Cold Wallet System which assigns separate cold wallet deposit addresses to each user. All the deposits are periodically gathered in the company’s multisignature cold wallet via offline signature. Phemex deploys its system and secures its machines on the Amazon Web Service (AWS) Cloud.

Phemex uses several firewalls to separate different zones and machines for different trading purposes.

In addition, when it comes to user account security, Phemex uses a two-factor authentication mechanism to protect all user accounts. When a user performs any critical operations such as login, funding, or password modifications, the system automatically triggers two-factor authentication. This forces the user to perform a secondary authentication to protect account integrity and security.

Does Phemex Require KYC?

Phemex currently does not require KYC verification. The registration process at Phemex is immediate and does not require a lengthy verification process or official documentation to prove your identity. It is ideal for merchants who value privacy. However, Phemex recommends its users to complete KYC as Phemex has adopted KYC procedures to better comply with local regulations and to ensure secure platform operations for all users. Customers who do not complete KYC will face certain service restrictions on the platform, such as not being eligible for a premium membership, various bonuses, and more. To fully enjoy all Phemex features without limitation, we highly recommend that you complete KYC.

Phemex Customer Support

Phemex has great customer support with 24/7 live support integrated on their platform. Users can also contact Phemex with other inquiries or questions such as product feedback and complaints.

Is Phemex Legal in the US?

Currently, Phemex is not registered in the United States and Americans are prohibited from trading on this platform.