It's no secret that the cryptocurrency market is highly volatile. Sometimes this can be seen as a benefit: let’s admit, it's always nice to get a little more cryptocurrency than you expected. This is a popular scenario in the rising market.
How to avoid volatility risk when trading crypto?
With such a wide variety of cryptocurrency exchanges available today it can be pretty hard to find the one that will suit your customers’ needs best. There are many factors that influence the choice of a cryptocurrency exchange service. Here are the main ones:
1. The age of the crypto exchange service, or in other words, how long it has been on the market;
2. The number of cryptocurrencies available for exchange;
3. Whether the exchange is custodial or non-custodial (means whether user funds are kept inside the service or not);
Another important factor is the ability to exchange cryptocurrencies at a fixed exchange rate. Let's see what this means.
What is a Fixed-rate exchange and why do we need it?
It's no secret that the cryptocurrency market is highly volatile. Sometimes this can be seen as a benefit: let’s admit, it's always nice to get a little more cryptocurrency than you expected. This is a popular scenario in the rising market. But what if the market is unstable, and we need to exchange, say, 0.1 BTC for ETH, and get a specific fixed amount of ETH resulting from the exchange. For such situations, there are fixed-rate exchanges.
A fixed-rate crypto exchange is one in which the rate gets fixed and doesn’t change while the transaction is executed. Hence, even if the market is unstable, the user receives the exact amount of crypto that was indicated at the beginning of the exchange, regardless of market fluctuations.
As a rule, such exchanges are accompanied by an increased commission. Exchange services explain this by the need to provide themselves with “insurance” in case of high market volatility.
Top 5 services with fixed-rate exchanges
Coinswitch
Coinswitch is not an instant crypto exchange in its classic interpretation. Yet it is a crypto exchange aggregator which accumulates offers of other exchange services and gives them to users, starting with the best-rate offer.
To see the list offers a user needs to pick a crypto pair and push the exchange button. Fixed-rate offers are usually displayed at the end of the list since the fixed-rate implies higher fees for the exchange.
There is a special mark on the offer, which indicates that if you select this offer, the rate will be fixed for a certain number of minutes (from 5 to 15, depending on the service indicated in the offer).
Pros
Coinswitch shows several offers at once, thereby allowing you to choose the best offer.
Cons
However, it is worth considering that the aggregator takes a small additional commission for its services. Thus, the exchange rate presented on Coinswitch will be slightly worse than on the official website of the exchange service itself.
Changelly
Changelly is another well-known instant crypto exchange platform that offers the opportunity to fix rates. The service calculates the best rate for the user using an algorithm that takes a variety of factors into account, from the current situation on the market to the risk the platform is undertaking by locking the rate.
Their commission fee is also calculated with an algorithm, and when the market is stable it can even match the fee for floating rate exchanges.
Changelly has an official mobile application that allows users to freeze the rate for the entire duration of the transaction on-the-go.
The Fixed rate button is situated on the top of the exchange window. Changelly refreshes the guaranteed rate every 30 seconds, during which a user needs to decide whether to accept the rate or not, afterward proceeding to the exchange as normal. As soon as the transaction is created, a user has 15 minutes to send the money.
Pros
When writing this material, Changelly showed the best rates for fixed-rate exchanges in comparison with other services from the list.
Cons
Changelly refreshes the fixed-rate every 30 seconds, so you have to make the decision quickly. However, the service warns users if the rate has changed so that they could decide whether to accept the final rate or not before sending funds.
FixedFloat
The next crypto exchange with fixed-rate transactions is FixedFloat. The service freezes the rate for 10 minutes and charges a fixed 1% commission for such types of exchanges. Like in other cases, when opting for a fixed rate, a user gets the price displayed at the point of initiating a transaction.
Pros
The service has an option to try lightning-fast transactions. To choose this transaction type a user needs to click on “try lightning!” phrase underneath the amount field.
Cons
The network fee is not included in the rate displayed on the screen. So be ready to receive less crypto than expected.
ChangeNOW
ChangeNOW is a platform for fast crypto swaps. The service offers its users to exchange cryptocurrencies in two different ways: using the classic (floating) rate or the fixed-rate mechanism.
Pros
ChangeNOW offers transparent fixed-rate transactions. The service calculates all the fees from the very beginning and freezes the rate for the next 15 minutes.
Cons
However, the fixed-rate option is not that cheap. The fee for the fixed-rate exchanges can exceed 1%, which is pretty high in comparison with other services mentioned in this article.
Changehero
Another instant exchange service that looks pretty similar to the previous one in our today list is called Changehero. Like ChangeNOW it offers to freeze the rate for 15 minutes in exchange for a higher commission of around 1%.
Summing it all up
When comparing fixed-rate exchanges on various crypto exchange services, your goal is to pick the one that offers the best value for money. In this regard, it appears that Changelly offers the biggest amount of ETH in exchange for 0,1 BTC.*
*All the provided screenshots were made with the same crypto-pair at the same time period to enhance the transparency of this comparative experiment.