Active traders live and die by execution quality. Small differences in speed, spreads, and stability have outsized effects on P&L. That’s why your platform due diligence should look beneath marketing claims.
Evaluate matching engine performance and uptime history. Frequent micro-outages during volatile periods can invalidate strategies. Review API documentation, rate limits, and WebSocket reliability if you automate. Paper trade to assess order acknowledgment times and slippage versus quoted prices.
Study the fee stack as a system: maker/taker tiers, rebates for providing liquidity, and VIP discounts at specific volume thresholds. On derivatives venues, funding rates and liquidation mechanics can dwarf commissions. Simulate a week of trading with your typical volume to estimate effective cost.
Risk controls are your seatbelt. Confirm that you can set account-level position limits, isolated versus cross margin, and granular alerts. Look for post-only and reduce-only flags, cancel-on-disconnect, and time-in-force options. These details prevent bad fills and cascading errors.
Good platforms provide analytics: realized and unrealized P&L, fee breakdowns, win/loss rates, and downloadable trade histories. A native journal or easy CSV exports help you iterate.
Finally, consider market coverage. If your edge is in majors, depth is abundant almost anywhere. If you hunt inefficiencies in mid-caps, choose venues with consistently tight spreads on those pairs.
Create a contenders list of the best crypto exchanges, then run head-to-head tests for a week. Let data—fills, slippage, uptime—decide where your strategy belongs.