Depending on which exchange you use, the price of a cryptocurrency will be different. This can be due to fees, the spread, or the volatile market affecting the APIs of exchanges.
It is possible to use the price difference between exchanges for arbitrage – buying cheaply on one exchange and selling on another exchange for profit.
Cryptocurrency exchange rates do not always have to be compared to dollar denominations either – many are often compared to their BTC value. There are many services that provide cryptocurrency exchange rates. Here are four of the most popular.
Coinmarketcap.com
Coinmarketcap.com is the most popular cryptocurrency exchange rate site. It has been around for many years now and lists over 2,000 cryptocurrencies. The site also provides the overall market cap of all cryptocurrencies as well as the market dominance percentage. It is also possible to compare the exchange rate to Bitcoin rather than dollars.
Coinmarketcap.com has come in for criticism in recent years though. Its data for exchanges often includes what has since been suggested as fake volume. This can make smaller and less legitimate exchanges look more popular than they actually are.
Another issue for coinmarketcap.com has been its lax attitude toward advertising on the site. Infamously, the pyramid scheme Bitconnect was allowed to advertise on coinmarketcap.com despite a whole lot of evidence pointing to its questionable behaviour. Further to this, while many people might use ad blockers to get around internet advertising, Coin Rivet recently reported that coinmarketcap.com is now asking people to disable their ad blockers when they visit the website.
Despite coinmarketcap.com having first mover advantage, there are now many contenders to its throne.
Coinpaprika.com
Coinpaprika.com is a newcomer on the scene and has coinmarketcap.com firmly set within its sights. Despite many websites suffering from diminishing traffic due to the bear market, coinpaprika has been gaining popularity in the cryptocurrency exchange rates market.
Compared to coinmarketcap, coinpaprika provides a few more metrics to help you compare cryptocurrencies, such as statistics on the amount of commits as well as a mining calculator. It also offers a useful tool to provide the latest price of cryptocurrencies in a variety of currencies from the Norwegian Krone to the South African Rand, and also lists the variety of exchanges where you can purchase any cryptocurrency.
Coinmarketbook.cc
Coinmarketbook is another competitor to coinmarketcap’s authority. Its unique selling point is that it provides a buy support indicator for each cryptocurrency.
Data is collected from a wide variety of exchanges including Binance, Bittrex, BitMEX, and Poloniex, as well as many others. The site is a lot sleeker than both coinmarketcap and coinpaprika as it provides slightly less detail. This does make the site more attractive on the eye. However, this “less is more” approach may not be suitable if you want to gather as much information as possible for your trades.
Coinlib.io
Coinlib has followed the coinmarketbook approach by providing a sleek user interface for its platform. One interesting metric it provides is to show the flow of money from altcoins through Bitcoin and back through to other altcoins. Using this tool, you can see where the majority of trades are going to and from.
It also provides an easy-to-use interface that shows the different exchange rates from various exchanges, which can help you find where to get the most bang for your buck.
Coinlib has an extensive list of cryptocurrencies on its website. Whereas coinmarketcap lists just over 2,000 cryptocurrencies, coinlib has more than double this at over 5,000.
Finally, coinlib provides users that sign up the ability to create their own portfolio, which allows you to easily keep track of how your cryptocurrencies are performing. This in itself is a very competitive space – there are numerous cryptocurrency portfolio trackers available, as noted here.
Finding cryptocurrency exchange rates
Whilst coinmarketcap.com stole the march on its competitors to become the most notable site for comparing cryptocurrency prices, the new actors on the rise are going to provide a stiff challenge to its throne.
Each site listed above provides different unique selling points, and which one you use will depend on your own needs and wants. Should you be looking for plenty of detail and an open source system, then coinpaprika is a viable option.
For more user-friendly designs, then coinmarketbook.cc and coinlib.io could be your preferred options.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice. We do not give advice on financial products.