Deribit vs HTX

Deribit or HTX: which to use

Deribit vs HTX is two centralized exchanges that match on an order book. Deribit charges 1.5 bp maker and 3.5 bp taker, pays funding every hour on every market, and offers up to 50x. HTX charges 2 bp maker and 6 bp taker, lists 370 perp markets against Deribit's 134, and offers up to 200x. HTX lets you start trading without ID inside limits, while Deribit requires verification before any deposit. Fees and funding schedule favor Deribit. Market count, real-world assets, leverage and ID limits favor HTX.

How each exchange is built

Deribit is a centralized exchange (CEX): you open an account with the company, and the account holds your funds. It matches orders on a central limit order book.

HTX is built the same way: a CEX with an account at the company and a central limit order book. Custody and matching do not separate the two. Fees, markets, leverage, funding and access do.

Fees and what they mean

Deribit's base tier is 1.5 bp maker and 3.5 bp taker. We read these from Deribit's API, and Deribit has no fee page to link. HTX's base tier is 2 bp maker and 6 bp taker, per HTX's fee page.

A market order pays the taker fee to open and again to close. That is 7 bp per round trip on Deribit and 12 bp on HTX. A limit order that rests on the book and is filled later pays the maker fee instead: 1.5 bp on Deribit and 2 bp on HTX. One basis point is 0.01% of the position.

Fees are only part of a trade's cost. Slippage is the price you move by eating through the order book, and it grows with size. The cost table above adds the fee and the measured slippage at each size from $1k to $5M. The execution cost page also compares the taker fee plus measured slippage at $10k, $100k and $1M.

Markets and leverage

As of 1 October 2026 Deribit lists 134 active perp markets, 34 of them stocks, commodities, FX or other real-world assets. HTX lists 370, of which 251 are real-world assets. If you trade stocks, gold or FX perps, the real-world asset markets on HTX are a much larger share of its list.

Deribit allows up to 50x on its highest-leverage market and HTX up to 200x. Most markets on both allow less, so check the cap of the market you want.

Funding is the periodic payment between longs and shorts, and a positive rate means longs pay shorts. Deribit pays it every hour on every market. HTX pays every 1 hour, 4 hours or 8 hours depending on the market. An hourly market settles 24 times a day and an 8-hour market three times. A rate that looks attractive on a 4-hour or 8-hour market arrives in larger, less frequent payments. Hold through a settlement time and you pay or receive the whole payment for that interval. The list further down this page shows the markets both exchanges have, with each one's funding rate. The funding spread ranking covers the same pair across every asset.

Who can use them

Deribit requires KYC before any deposit: ID, proof of address and a financial profile. It is closed to the US, Canada, Japan and retail UK clients.

HTX limits accounts without ID. Trading starts without ID, inside limits that verification lifts. An account opened without ID since 2026-03-30 can trade futures up to 5x and cannot use API trading. More leverage and the API need level-2 KYC. If you run API strategies on HTX, plan for level-2 verification.

Token

HTX has a token, $HTX.

Reading the numbers on this page

Both exchanges publish open interest as one side of open positions. The open interest row and chart above are therefore a like-for-like comparison of size, which is not always the case between exchanges. Some exchanges publish longs plus shorts, which reads about twice as large.

Neither exchange has a TVL row or chart, as is usual for a centralized exchange. Volume, depth, funding and trading cost are live figures that change every minute. Read them in the Head to head table and the charts above, not in this text.

Which one fits you

• Pick Deribit if you trade mostly with market orders: its 3.5 bp taker fee against 6 bp on HTX.
• Pick Deribit if you rest limit orders: 1.5 bp maker against 2 bp.
• Pick Deribit if you want every market on an hourly funding schedule, so each position settles 24 times a day.
• Pick HTX if you want more markets: 370 against 134, as of 1 October 2026.
• Pick HTX if you trade stocks, commodities or FX perps: 251 real-world asset markets against 34.
• Pick HTX if you need more than 50x, up to 200x on its highest-leverage market, or want to start trading without ID inside its limits.