10 Best Crypto Futures Exchanges for 2024

Crypto futures support speculation on future price direction and enable strategies such as hedging. However, when it comes to choosing an exchange, there is an abundance of choices. The best futures trading exchanges provide advanced trading tools such as technical analysis, charting tools, and risk management options to improve your decisions. Other factors to consider include security, customer support, fees, and reputation. We’ve carefully curated the best crypto futures trading platforms, each with its unique features.

MEXC is best known for its futures trading features, offering as much as 200x on leverage. It supports over 300 pairs and with cheap fees for traders, and several altcoins, making it preferable for traders.

The platform also offers perpetual futures contracts, with no expiry date. These perpetual futures can be settled in USDT or the underlying cryptocurrency. This further offers flexibility to traders seeking a diversified portfolio.

PrimeXBT is a futures trading exchange for traders seeking good leverage of as much as 200x. Although PrimeXBT supports fewer trading pairs, it makes up for that by  offering good fees. Furthermore, PrimeXBT offers isolated margin types, so users can adjust the margin type to suit their trading styles.

Another good reason to use  PrimeXBT is that it offers quick integration with TradingView. This helps with good market analysis for better decision making. PrimeXBT also supports adjustable leverage, meaning you can tailor leverage to your risk appetite and strategies.

OKX places strong emphasis on derivatives trading, including futures. You can access a couple of futures contracts on OKX, including quarterly futures and perpetual swaps. Here’s the good part; OKX provides leverage up to 100x. This makes sense if you are a high-risk trader. It also makes OKX one of the best crypto exchanges for day trading, along with bots to automate your trades.OKX is designed to cater to both new and advanced traders. Traders can access built-in support for futures DCA, futures grid, signal bots, trading bots, and advanced order types on OKX.

OKX offers two types of futures contracts. The first is Perpetual Futures Contracts. These contracts do not have an expiration date. OKX supports perpetual futures contracts for over 160 different cryptocurrencies. So, you can trade futures on popular coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as many smaller altcoins. The second type of futures is the Regular Futures Contracts. These futures contracts have a set expiry date. OKX offers these contracts for 6 major cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Fees are also pretty decent on OKX. It starts at a 0.02% maker fee and a 0.05% taker fee for new users.

Bitfinex has been around for a long time and is one of the top crypto exchanges with no KYC requirements. But we like it mostly for its futures trading features. They integrated their futures market with their spot trading interface, making it easy for you to explore different trading styles. What makes them one of the top futures exchanges? First, fees are pretty cost-effective. The exchange operates on a tiered fee structure that rewards higher volume traders. 

Why else are they on this list? There’s high liquidity for futures traders. You can also access futures on over 80 pairs. The leverage is pretty low at 10x. It’s safe to say Bitfinex is a good futures exchange for beginners.

Binance has high liquidity as the biggest crypto exchange by market volume. This means trading crypto futures should be fun here. On the other hand, Binance is also one of the best crypto exchanges for beginners. We recommend them because you can access almost all types of crypto services, especially crypto futures. Binance offers five futures products –  USDT delivery for BTC and ETH, USDT-M Perpetual, USDC-M perpetual, Coin-M Perpetual, and Coin-M Delivery. In addition, you can access over 200 futures and options contracts alongside multiple margin modes on Binance futures.

A major reason we like Binance is that it provides advanced charting tools, powered by TradingView. With this tool, you can make better trading decisions. Furthermore, Binance provides leverage up to 125x. Fees start at 0.02% maker fee and 0.05% taker fee for regular users.

Kucoin is another top crypto exchange and one of the best exchanges to access without KYC. We like KuCoin for its solid crypto futures. You can access multiple contracts on KuCoin with up to 100x leverage. KuCoin offers two types of contracts. The first is the Linear contracts. These use stablecoins like USDT (Tether) and USDC (USD Coin) as collateral. Next is the Inverse contracts. These are contracts backed by the base cryptocurrency itself.

KuCoin’s leveraged tokens come in handy for users wanting to avoid liquidation risks, manage margins, or handle collateral. KuCoin currently has 318 trading pairs available. In the last 24 hours, KuCoin Futures reported a trading volume of around $1.41 billion. KuCoin is also known for its strong security, using advanced encryption, multi-factor authentication, and withdrawal whitelists. They offer educational resources to boost your trading skills, along with customer support to help you out.

We like Bybit and listed it as one of the best Binance alternatives. Bybit is also a good platform for futures trading. It supports a wide selection of cryptocurrencies and offers six-month delivery contracts for Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bybit also provides access to coin-settled perpetual contracts with up to 125x leverage. You can also hedge or speculate on future crypto prices using Bybit’s USDC and coin-settled weekly, monthly, and quarterly futures.

Bybit has high liquidity, which is good for futures trading. Over $17 billion has been traded on the exchange in the last 24 hours. Fees are also competitive. Bybit charges a taker fee of 0.075% and a maker fee of 0.025%. You can also access some good support tools on Bybit such as There are other great support tools on Bybit such as copy trading features, bot trading, and OTC trading.

BitMEX allows you to trade with up to 100x leverage. On BitMEX, all margins are denominated in Bitcoin. This means you can speculate on future prices using just Bitcoin or other supported cryptocurrencies. Why else do we have BitMEX on this list? BitMEX offers different types of futures contracts with varying payout structures. This includes inverse, quanto, and linear payouts.

Now, each type has its own benefits and risks. And it’s important you understand them. Currently, BitMEX supports around 157 trading pairs. It also provides advanced order types and risk management tools. However, we think it has a complex interface that could be more suited to experienced traders, and challenging for beginners.

You can access up to 125x leverage on Bitget making it a good exchange for traders with high-risk appetites. Bitget supports USDT-M, USDC-M, and Coin-M futures contracts. It also uses an advanced matching engine to ensure a smooth trading experience. Bitget futures have good liquidity. Over $14 billion has been traded on the platform within the last 24 hours. Bitget offers good liquidity through its perpetual and delivery futures.

Bitget has several security features that we like. First, it uses third-party asset custody services, Proof of Reserves (PoR), and a protection fund. There are over 230 futures trading pairs available on the exchange. Bitget is also one of the top futures copy-trading platforms. Traders can also access AI-powered trading bots like Futures Quant, Futures CTA, and Futures Signal to automate their trading strategies.

Kraken is one of the best crypto exchanges we’d recommend for UK users, especially those interested in futures trading. You can access futures trading on Kraken Pro, along with useful tools such as customizable charts, live order books, technical indicators, and custom order types. Kraken’s fees are competitive, starting at 0.02% for makers and 0.05% for takers, with lower rates as your trading volume increases.

Although we think Kraken is a top crypto exchange, there are some drawbacks to its futures services. For example, Kraken supports fewer than 100 cryptocurrencies for futures trading and offers leverage only up to 50x. It also lacks some advanced features found on other exchanges.

Cryptocurrency futures contracts allow trades for a specific crypto’s value at a predetermined time. This helps forge agreements between traders to buy/ sell crypto at fixed prices on future dates. These contracts enable traders to bet on price movements without owning the underlying assets. With leveraging in the future, one may amplify the investment amount and hence the profits and losses. 

There are three main types of crypto futures markets:

Perpetual Futures

Perpetual contracts are the most common type of crypto futures market. These contracts have no expiry date, allowing traders to keep positions open indefinitely. Perpetual futures often cover a wide range of markets, offering flexibility to traders.

Delivery Futures

Delivery futures come with a predetermined expiry date. These contracts typically expire in 1, 3, 6, or 12 months. Unlike perpetual futures, delivery futures must be settled upon expiry. However, they can also be sold before the expiration date for risk management purposes.

Inverse Futures

Inverse futures are non-linear contracts settled in the underlying cryptocurrency. This characteristic increases both potential rewards and risks associated with trading.

Cryptocurrency funding rate is a mechanism that aligns futures prices and spot market prices of underlying assets. This rate can be positive or negative, implying the fees for long positions or compensations for short. The funding rate helps ensure a market equilibrium, which impacts the traders’ profitability. Thus, it is crucial to understand the mechanism and experience effective strategies in the volatile cryptocurrency futures market.

Staying safe while using crypto exchanges is a combination of various risk management systems, and discipline to your trading strategies. Here are some good tips to help you stay safe while using crypto exchanges: 

Develop a Trading Plan

 Advanced planning of trades helps mitigate the liquidation risks. This involves profit planning while making effective exit strategies for unexpected trade outcomes. This step helps mitigate impulsive decisions influenced by emotions and falling under the greed or fear grid traps.

Secure your Positions

 No matter how many precautions you take, crypto markets are volatile and can move unexpectedly. Thus, to mitigate potential losses while enhancing effectiveness, it is recommended to implement an exit strategy reinforced by stop-loss orders. Stop losses are an effective way to avoid liquidation but require constant vigilance.

Track the Margin Ratio

The margin ratio is calculated by dividing the maintenance margin by the margin balance. Constantly monitoring it helps effectively avoid liquidation risks. If the margin balance falls below the maintenance margin rate, automatic position closure is triggered. This emphasizes the need for careful monitoring.

Practice Trading

Several popular platforms allow newbie traders to make demo accounts for practicing crypto futures trading. For example, Binance Futures allows real-time practice without putting capital under actual risk. Additionally, active traders can use exchanges with crypto paper trading to test new strategies and tools and gain valuable experience.

Risk Management Strategies

To manage risk effectively, limiting the exposure of the trading account balance to 1-2% per trade is essential. Hence, it is recommended to begin with 2x to 5x leverage and avoid large positions initially. This helps develop a crypto futures trading methodology without excessive pressure.

Most exchanges provide a convenient method to keep track of the margin ratio. Here’s how it looks on Binance:

Lower the ratio, lower the risk of liquidation.

Avoid Compounding Losses

By increasing positions in a losing trade, the liquidation risk gets even bigger. Instead, one must focus on risk management to cut losses by closing losing positions. This also involves establishing and adhering to a trading plan to avoid impulsive decisions.

This article has outlined the top crypto futures exchanges. Each of these platforms have their uniqueness, providing different leverage options and fees. For an overall experience, consider using the best crypto exchanges that offer features beyond futures. 

However, it is important to ensure you use  an exchange that caters to your experience level, supports the cryptocurrency of your interest and offers a fee you are comfortable with.