HitBTC Review: A Comprehensive Analysis of Trading Experience

Summary of HitBTC

HitBTC is a cryptocurrency exchange platform that was founded in 2013 in the UK, but is currently headquartered in Chile.

Like most cryptocurrency exchanges, HitBTC facilitates crypto spot and futures trading, as well as leverage trading.

It also provides its users with crypto products, such as swapping and staking. While there are no investment instruments on HitBTC, the platform does list over 300 cryptocurrencies with more than 800 trading pairs.

A good cryptocurrency exchange is vital to a trader’s success, so people will spend long hours researching every option before settling on one. I’m here to make that process easier for you.

I’ve tested HitBTC and used all its features and services so you don’t have to. All you need to do is read this expert review to determine whether it’s the right crypto platform for you – or whether you need to keep searching for a better fit.

In this review, you’ll learn about HitBTC’s strengths, weaknesses, and key advantages over competitors.

Let’s dive in.

Evaluating High Impact Factors

Trade with HitBTC If:

• You want exposure to a variety of cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency pairs
• You want a platform that offers low trading fees
• You want access to leverage trading

Don’t Trade with HitBTC If:

• You’d rather avoid unregulated platforms
• You don’t have the patience to go through a lengthy verification process
• You want a platform that offers investment options and products

Verified Office Address

HitBTC has a representative office address on its official website: Av Vitacura 2969, Las Condes, Región Metropolitana, Chile.

However, on other websites like Bitcoinwiki, HitBTC’s office address is listed as Unit 19, 7/F., One Midtown No. 11 Hoi Shing Road, Tsuen Wan, New Territories.

Expert Opinion on HitBTC Review

Even though it’s a long-standing crypto exchange platform spanning over ten years of operations (which is practically ancient for the crypto industry), most users haven’t had a pleasant experience with HitBTC.

The platform scored a measly 1.3 stars on Trustpilot, with over 40% of the users giving it a one-star rating. However, 35% of users also gave it a 5-star score, as shown below.

Most user complaints on Trustpilot revolved around an inability to access accounts, frozen accounts, and hefty inactivity fees.

I did more digging into the platform and found this review by FX Empire on YouTube.

It provided in-depth details about HitBTC, its products, and its services. There was hardly anything negative said about it. In fact, the review even encouraged users to try it out for themselves, stating:

“It’s well recommended to take a look at HitBTC and even have a go and have a look at their demo trading account.”

I found more opinions on Quora, but not many were positive. Some users flat out called the platform a scam, citing concerns like an inability to withdraw funds, exorbitant inactivity fees, and lack of response from the support team.

One comment from an anonymous user caught my attention. They claimed to have lost $20,000 of their portfolio to HitBTC. They posted the following warning for other traders:

On Reddit, it’s the same story. Users there have a number of complaints with HitBTC, ranging from the inability to withdraw funds to issues with KYC and account suspension.

One user narrated their ordeal with the platform, detailing how their account got suspended for unknown reasons. You can read the full comment below:

Expert Review of HitBTC

Needless to say, I was apprehensive.

HitBTC has many exciting and useful features, such as low trading fees, a massive library of resources for new and experienced traders, and lots of cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency pairs to trade. But there are enough negative testimonials out there to give anyone pause.

The withdrawal process could be smoother. The inactivity fees are also shockingly high – it almost feels like a punishment or a fine.

On top of that, HitBTC isn’t regulated. This raises significant concerns about the safety of trading and putting money into the platform, especially with so many users struggling to withdraw their earnings.

Despite this, HitBTC does fairly well in the court of public opinion. It ranks 64 out of 428 crypto exchange companies reviewed and rated by Coin Codex, a reputable financial portal for all crypto trading and investing.

Signing Up with HitBTC

The signup process on HitBTC is one of the smoothest I’ve experienced.

To begin, I clicked on the signup button on the website. That took me to a new screen where I provided my email address and a password.

Then, I hit the signup button at the button of the form.

I was sent a confirmation email with a link, which I clicked. After that, a new screen popped up with some privacy information. I clicked the confirm button at the bottom of the screen.

And that was it.

I was taken to my dashboard, where I was met with a pop-up telling me to deposit or buy crypto to start trading.

HitBTC Dashboard

The dashboard on HitBTC has a decently modern design with buttons all over the screen for easy navigation.

At the top of the screen is a status bar showing your spot balance (in BTC and USDT) and its estimated value. Below that is a navigation bar with loads of relevant buttons, including account, spot, futures, staking, market overview, and trading content.

I liked that the HitBTC dashboard is easy on the eyes and simple to navigate. It also features loads of charts to help traders understand what’s going on in the market at every point, a feature most exchanges don’t have.

Deposits and Withdrawals on HitBTC

I tested out the deposit and withdrawal features on HitBTC to see how easy it would be to fund my account and retrieve my funds.

Here’s how I went about it.

Deposits

HitBTC only allows crypto deposits, but not all crypto is supported. Before depositing funds into your account, make sure the platform supports the coin you want to send.

You can deposit crypto into your HitBTC account by transfer or bank card transfer.

I navigated to the Accounts page to deposit into my account and clicked the deposit button. After that, I chose the crypto I wanted to deposit and clicked on deposit to generate my wallet address.

Then I just had to copy and paste this address to my external wallet and initiate the transfer.

Withdrawals

HitBTC only allows crypto withdrawals, and the process is pretty simple.

To withdraw, I first navigated to the Accounts page on my dashboard. Next, I clicked on the withdrawal column.

It’s important to note that HitBTC has different accounts where funds are stored, such as wallet and spot accounts. If your funds are in the spot account, you have to transfer them to your wallet account before withdrawing them.

Once in the withdrawal column, I selected the amount I wanted to withdraw, put a destination address in the address field, and hit the withdraw button.

In a couple of hours, the transaction went through. However, one time, it took nearly a week for the withdrawals to go through completely. I had to contact support for that one, and luckily, it was resolved.

It’s also worth mentioning that a transaction is irreversible once initiated on HitBTC.

Trading Conditions on HitBTC

HitBTC offers a spread of 0.25% across Starter and General accounts, and 0.057% on the Upgraded account. This is somewhat inexpensive, but the worrying thing about the platform is its inactivity fee.

According to its Terms of Service document, HitBTC charges a monthly fee of $30 on all inactive accounts (accounts that haven’t made a single trade, deposit, or withdrawal in 6 months).

That’s a significant source of concern amongst users, many of whom were unaware of this fee and lost a lot of money through it.

How to Start Trading with HitBTC

There are four account categories on HitBTC: Demo, Starter, General, and Upgraded.

The demo account allows you to perform crypto trading operations in a virtual environment. You can even use the demo without opening an account on HitBTC.

With the other three, though, you’ll have to create an account. Once that’s done, the next step is to deposit funds so you can start making trades. You can do that by generating a contact address on HitBTC and sending crypto from another crypto wallet, or you can buy crypto with fiat using Visa or MasterCard.

Once there’s money in your account, you can trade crypto or crypto pairs – or even try futures trading if you fancy that. Other options include staking and copy trading.

You can use the web version of HitBTC on access it on mobile (on iOS or Android).

Useful Tools for Traders on HitBTC

There are several tools on HitBTC meant to enhance the trading experience on the platform, including:

• Charts: Contains all the necessary information about events in a particular market
• Order Book: All propositions on the market, updated in real-time
• Market Overview: A dashboard that allows you to monitor all HitBTC markets at once

What I found helpful beyond the typical tools was the option to integrate your API into HitBTC to conduct automated trading.

The main trading bot that is used on the platform is Wundertrading, but other options include 3commas, TradeSanta, Trality, CryptoHopper, Coinrule, HaasOnline, and Bitsgap.

To make use of the Wundertrading crypto trading bot, simply:

• Register on Wundertrading
• Connect the HitBTC API
• Build a bot for yourself with trading view scripts
• Send your trading view alerts to Wunderbit trading for automatic execution on the HitBTC exchange

Investing Opportunities with HitBTC

Other than staking and copy trading, HitBTC doesn’t have a large suite of investing opportunities like you’d get from its key competitors.

Staking

Staking on HitBTC allows users to gain rewards for simply holding crypto. All you have to do is enable the staking feature on the platform.

However, the reward rate and the frequency of reward payouts depend on the asset staked. Users should read the Glossary section on the platform to calculate how many rewards a staked asset provides.

Copy Trading

HitBTC also supports copy trading, allowing users to copy the trades of experienced investors in real-time.

HitBTC Affiliate Program

HitBTC has temporarily shut down its affiliate program.

According to the HitBTC blog, they did this due to increased traffic on the exchange causing some difficulties.

The team said that stablity is their core priority and that the relaunch will happen soon. At the time of writing, no official date has been announced.