Binance is the best.
1) Easy to use,
2) Platform is fast, stable and secure.
3) Good trading volumes on most cryptos.
4) Support is fairly reasonable.
Bitfinex is is full of shit. Arrogant bunch of pricks. Stay clear from them. Here's how you will be greeted, as a first time potential trader at sign-up:
Professional Platform
Bitfinex is a platform for professional traders. If you are new to cryptocurrency trading, please consider another, more straightforward platform first and return to Bitfinex later.
Minimum Account Equity
New accounts will not be able to trade or perform any platform function until they reach a minimum account equity of 10,000 USD, achieved by bank wire or by depositing cryptocurrency.
Verification Timeline
If you wish to complete the verification process to gain access to additional features such as fiat deposits and withdrawals, please understand that the verification process is significantly backlogged. New verification requests are taking 6-8 weeks to complete.
Inactivity Fee
Bitfinex is not a wallet service. If you are not participating in Bitfinex markets, please withdraw your funds from the platform. In the future, users who hold balances in their Bitfinex account but do not participate in markets may be charged a small inactivity fee.
- Verification time line - Bitfinex: I'm allowed to trade and have been trading for over 4 moths on Bitfinex, but my verification is still pending (no, I'm not from banned countries). So no fiat deposits or withdrawals. 16+ weeks now.
I really don't understand why KYC in some ICOs/exchanges take weeks. Do they have a single person who manually does the verification or what??
There are many reputed companies that can perform rules-based KYC + AML in realtime/near real-time (a number of large banks use the same - so they are trusted solutions). Sure it may cost a a dollar or so per verification, but I'd rather pay for that than being subject to backlogs and endless to and fro sending of documents to their compliance/legal teams.
KYC in crypto trading/investing is probably the single most irksome part for me.