What to Check Before Changing Platform
Moving between venues has costs and failure modes. Six checks before starting, in the order that matters.
ELENA VOSS · · 2 min read
People change venue for fees, for available assets, or because service in their market is ending. The move has failure modes worth anticipating.
Check one: is the new venue authorised where you live
The public register, searched by legal entity name rather than brand. Thirty seconds.
If the answer is no, nothing else matters.
Check two: which networks it supports for the assets you hold
Deposit support is per asset and per network. An asset you hold on a rollup cannot be deposited to a venue that only accepts mainnet for it without an additional bridging step.
This is where migrations go wrong, and it is published in the deposit documentation.
Check three: the full fee schedule
Deposit methods and their charges. Trading fees, maker and taker. Withdrawal fees per asset and per network. Minimums.
Price your actual pattern rather than comparing headline rates. Venues publishing the complete schedule without an account, such as exchanges licensed in the jurisdiction, let you do this before committing.
Check four: verification requirements and timeline
Complete verification on the new platform before moving anything. A partially verified account may have deposit or withdrawal limits that strand funds mid-migration.
Check five: security features
Two-factor options beyond SMS. Withdrawal address allowlists with a delay. Session management. API key permissions.
Enable them before funding rather than after.
Check six: the exit path
How withdrawals work on the new platform, what they cost, and how long they take. Test it with a small amount before moving anything substantial.
A venue that is easy to fund and difficult to exit is the specific failure this check prevents.
The sequence for the move itself
- Open and fully verify the new account
- Enable security features
- Deposit a small test amount and withdraw it, confirming both directions work
- Move funds in tranches rather than all at once
- Keep the old account open until everything has settled and any pending items have cleared
- Close the old account deliberately, after exporting the full transaction history
Step six matters for tax records. An exported history from a closed account is frequently unobtainable later.
The cost
Withdrawal fees from the old venue and deposit costs at the new one, plus the time.
For a change driven by fees, calculate the payback period. A saving of a small amount per month against a migration cost can take a long time to recover, and the calculation is worth doing before rather than after.
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