Alright moving past the fact that this post is an obvious not-so-subtle advertisement for Coinsbit...

Everyone makes the mistake of using a smaller exchange, and everyone eventually gets burned. Hacks, exit scams, liquidity problems, you name it. Don't trust your money with small unknown exchanges.

Personally, I stick to exchanges that:

• are based in the US
• are registered with FinCEN as an MSB
• don't report fake volume
• have a long-running history of being reputable (or at least have never gone  down or experienced a noteworthy security issue)

Being registered as an MSB is huge. It not only shows they're serious about being compliant w/regulatory concerns, but MSBs are required to do a lot of practices that help protect consumers and prevent money laundering and other nonsense.

We've all seen the Bitwise report on fake volume by now. Don't trust your money with an exchange that is gaming its own order books, you're the pawn who loses in this game. You can see the list of exchanges that don't game their order books here https://www.bitcointradevolume.com/.

So really if you're in the US your only reliable options (IMO) are:

• Coinbase
• Coinbase Pro
• Gemini
• Kraken
• Bittrex
• ItBit
• Bitflyer
• Binance US