CoinChoose: How to Choose a Crypto Exchange You Can Trust

To choose a crypto exchange you can trust, check three things in order: that the platform is registered where you live (ESMA’s MiCA register in the EU, the CSA list in Canada, FinCEN and your state regulator in the US, the FCA register in the UK, AUSTRAC in Australia), that it keeps customer coins segregated and accounted for, and what a purchase really costs once spread, card and withdrawal fees are added. Fees and coin lists come last.

CoinChoose helps you run those checks yourself, then explains the coins and wallets you will meet along the way. We never print live prices and we do not tell you what to buy. Crypto platforms come and go faster than most financial firms: of the exchanges this site listed a few years ago, several were seized, went bankrupt or quietly shut, so we start with whether a platform may serve you and whether you can get your money out.

What does CoinChoose cover?

CoinChoose is an independent research site on crypto exchanges, coins and wallets, written for ordinary users in many countries. It covers exchange registration, custody and fees; plain explanations of major coins such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP; software and hardware wallets and how to back them up; and the scams that copy real offers. It is not an exchange, does not hold funds and gives no investment advice.

• Exchanges. Our crypto exchange comparison lines up the large platforms by regulatory status, funding options and track record, and names the exchanges that no longer exist. Individual reviews cover Coinbase, Coinbase Advanced (formerly Coinbase Pro), Kraken, Binance, KuCoin and HTX (formerly Huobi). New users can start with exchanges for beginners.
• Coins. The coin directory explains Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Litecoin and Dogecoin in plain language: how each network works, who runs it and what is fixed about its supply.
• Wallets. Our guide to crypto wallets covers software, mobile and hardware options and how to back them up.
• Free bitcoin. The free bitcoin page separates the small, real rewards from the faucets, cloud-mining schemes and giveaways that cost people money.

What kinds of crypto platform are there?

There are four main kinds of crypto platform: centralised exchanges such as Coinbase, Kraken and OKX, which run an order book and hold customer coins; broker apps that sell from their own inventory; peer-to-peer marketplaces that match individuals and hold coins in escrow; and decentralised exchanges, smart contracts that swap tokens from your own wallet. Each type puts your money with a different party and gives you a different complaint route.

• Centralised exchanges run an order book, hold customer coins and match buyers with sellers. They offer the deepest markets and bank connections, and they carry the custody risk described below.
• Broker apps sell you crypto from their own inventory or route your order elsewhere. Some general investing apps work this way. They are simple, but the spread is often the main charge, and some do not let you withdraw coins to your own wallet at all.
• Peer-to-peer marketplaces connect individual buyers and sellers, with the platform holding coins in escrow during the trade. The best-known early one, LocalBitcoins, stopped trading on 16 February 2023. Fraud risk sits with the counterparty, so payment disputes are common.
• Decentralised exchanges are smart contracts that swap tokens directly from your own wallet. Nobody holds your coins between trades, but nobody can reverse a mistake either, and fake tokens with familiar names are listed freely.

Most newcomers start with a registered centralised exchange because it connects to a bank account. That is a reasonable choice as long as the registration and custody checks come first.

What do you need to open a crypto exchange account?

Registered crypto exchanges must identify their customers, so expect to provide a government photo ID, a selfie or short video, your address and sometimes the source of your funds. Approval can take minutes or days. A platform that skips identity checks entirely is either unregistered or breaking its own rules, which is a warning in itself. In the EU, transfers to or from your own wallet also carry identity checks.

In the EU, the transfer-of-funds rules (Regulation (EU) 2023/1113) have applied to crypto since 30 December 2024, and for transfers above €1,000 to or from a self-hosted wallet the provider must assess whether the wallet belongs to you. Do not be surprised if a withdrawal screen asks you to confirm who owns the destination address. Keep records of every deposit, trade and withdrawal from day one, because tax authorities in most countries treat a sale or swap of crypto as a taxable event, and exchanges increasingly report customer data to them. Our crypto tax guide explains the basics.

What should you check before opening an exchange account?

Before opening an exchange account, ask seven questions in this order: is the platform allowed to serve you, who controls the coins, what a trade really costs, whether you can move money in and out cheaply, whether it lists the coins and networks you need, how it protects accounts, and what its record with regulators looks like. Marketing pages lead with low fees and long coin lists; those come last.

1. Is the platform allowed to serve you?

Crypto exchanges need permission country by country, and sometimes state by state or province by province. A platform that is fully licensed in one place can be unregistered, restricted or banned in another. In Canada, for example, the Canadian Securities Administrators publish a list of crypto platforms authorised to do business with Canadians and a separate list of banned platforms; KuCoin, Poloniex and LATOKEN operators appear on the banned list. In the European Union, a provider has needed a licence under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) since the transitional periods ran out by 1 July 2026. Binance had no MiCA authorisation by then and told users that it would suspend most services for EU residents from 1 July 2026. Our MiCA explainer covers what the licence does and does not protect.

Using an unregistered platform is not always illegal for you as a customer, but it strips away protections. If the firm fails, there is no local regulator holding its records, no complaint route and often no clear insolvency process in your country.

2. Who controls the coins?

When you buy on an exchange, the platform normally holds the private keys and you hold a claim against it. That claim is only as good as the firm’s books. FTX showed the worst case: at least $8 billion of customer money went missing, and its founder Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 25 years in prison in March 2024 (see our FTX collapse explainer). Smaller failures follow the same pattern. Withdrawals slow, then stop, then a court appoints a trustee. The Polish-founded exchange zondacrypto (formerly BitBay) froze withdrawals in April 2026, lost its Estonian operating licence on 29 June 2026, and its operating company was declared insolvent by an Estonian court on 27 August 2026.

Look for three things: a regulator that requires client assets to be segregated, published proof-of-reserves or audited accounts, and a clear statement of what happens to your coins if the company goes bust. Then decide how much you are willing to leave on the platform at all; our page on whether it is safe to keep crypto on an exchange goes further.

Proof of reserves deserves a closer look than most users give it. A snapshot that shows the exchange’s wallets on a single day proves the coins existed then, not that they were not borrowed for the occasion, and it says nothing about liabilities unless the report also covers what the platform owes customers. Reports checked by an independent accountant, published regularly and covering both sides of the balance sheet carry far more weight than a dashboard of wallet addresses.

3. What will a trade really cost?

Exchanges earn money in several places at once, and the headline trading fee is often the smallest of them. The full bill usually includes:

• Spread. The gap between the buy and sell price on a simple “buy” button. It is rarely shown as a fee but can be larger than one.
• Maker and taker fees. Order-book trading charges a percentage per trade, lower for orders that add liquidity (maker) than for orders that fill immediately (taker). Rates usually fall as your 30-day volume rises.
• Funding fees. Card purchases cost more than bank transfers almost everywhere.
• Withdrawal fees. Sending coins to your own wallet costs a fixed amount per withdrawal, which differs by coin and by network.

The worked example further down shows how quickly these add up on a modest purchase.

4. Can you get money in and out cheaply?

Check the local rails before you sign up. Canadians generally look for Interac e-Transfer, European users for SEPA transfers, and US users for ACH or wire transfers. A platform that only takes cards or only accepts crypto deposits will cost more, and a platform that cannot pay out to your own bank account forces you through a second service to cash out. Read the withdrawal limits too: daily caps and extra checks on first withdrawals are normal, but caps that are far below deposit limits are a warning sign.

5. Does it list the coins and networks you need?

A coin can be listed while the network you want is not. USDT, for instance, runs on several blockchains, and sending it on a network the receiving platform does not support can lose the funds. Before you move anything, confirm both the coin and the network on the withdrawal screen and on the receiving deposit screen. Also check whether the platform restricts some coins in your country; privacy coins and some stablecoins are unavailable on many regulated platforms.

6. How does it protect accounts?

Most stolen exchange balances are taken through the customer’s own login, not a hack of the platform. The minimum set of protections to switch on:

• An authenticator app or hardware security key for two-factor authentication, not SMS codes.
• A withdrawal address allowlist, so new addresses need a waiting period or extra confirmation.
• Anti-phishing codes in emails, where offered.
• Separate email addresses or aliases for exchange accounts.

Platform-side incidents still happen. Bitget paused withdrawals on 24 September 2026 after unauthorised transfers that it first put at about $351 million, and the FBI attributed the theft of about $1.5 billion from Bybit on 21 February 2025 to North Korea (see our Bybit hack explainer). A platform’s response to an incident, and whether customers were made whole, tells you as much as its marketing.

7. What is its track record with regulators?

Settlements and guilty pleas are public. Binance agreed in November 2023 to pay about $4.3 billion to US authorities over anti-money laundering and sanctions failures; its founder Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty, served a four-month sentence and was pardoned by President Trump on 23 October 2025. OKX pleaded guilty in February 2025 to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and agreed to pay more than $504 million. KuCoin’s operator Peken Global pleaded guilty in January 2025, agreed to penalties of more than $297 million and to leave the US market for at least two years. A past penalty does not mean a platform is unsafe today, but it tells you how the firm treated the rules when it thought nobody was checking.

Where can you check if a crypto exchange is registered?

You can check a crypto exchange’s registration on the public register for your country: ESMA’s interim MiCA register in the EU, the CSA authorised list and FINTRAC registry in Canada, FinCEN’s MSB search plus your state regulator in the US, the FCA Financial Services Register in the UK and AUSTRAC’s digital currency exchange register in Australia. Search for the legal entity named in the terms of service, not the brand.

One brand often runs several companies in different countries, which is why the legal entity matters. A registration check takes five minutes and is the single most useful step on this page. Canada shows why: in July 2025 FINTRAC imposed a penalty of C$19,552,000 on KuCoin’s operator, citing among other things a failure to register as a foreign money services business. Peken Global has appealed that penalty to the Federal Court.

The UK is in transition. The FCA’s application window for the new regime runs from 30 September 2026 to 28 February 2027, so a firm saying it is “applying” is not yet authorised under the new rules. EU readers comparing licensed platforms can use our list of MiCA-licensed exchanges in Europe.

How much does a crypto purchase really cost?

A small crypto purchase can cost anywhere from under 1% to over 5% depending on how you pay and which screen you use. On an illustrative C$800 bitcoin purchase, a card deposit plus an instant-buy spread and a withdrawal fee comes to about C$42 (5.3%), while a free bank transfer plus an order-book taker fee comes to about C$6.20 (0.8%). The figures below are round examples, not quotes.

The gap is not about one platform being honest and the other not. It comes from the funding method and the order type. Most large exchanges offer both a simple buy screen and an advanced order book; using the second with a bank deposit is usually the cheapest route on the same platform. Check the live fee schedule of any exchange you consider, because rates change and depend on your volume tier. Our step-by-step guide on how to buy bitcoin applies the same logic to a first purchase.

Should you keep crypto on an exchange or in your own wallet?

Keeping crypto on an exchange is convenient for trading and for people who would rather not manage keys, but it concentrates risk in one company. A self-custody wallet removes the exchange from the picture and moves all responsibility to you: lose the recovery phrase and nobody can restore access. Many users keep a small trading balance on a registered exchange and move longer-term holdings to a wallet they control.

Practise with a tiny amount first: send it out, restore the wallet from its recovery phrase on a second device, and send a little back. Our guide on moving crypto from an exchange to a wallet walks through the steps, and the wallet explainer compares the options and backup methods.

Which coins does CoinChoose cover?

CoinChoose focuses on a handful of established networks rather than new tokens: Bitcoin (launched January 2009, proof of work, capped at 21 million), Ethereum (July 2015, proof of stake since September 2022), XRP (2012, XRP Ledger consensus), Litecoin (October 2011, capped at 84 million) and Dogecoin (December 2013, no cap). The table sets out the fixed facts about each; the coin pages go deeper.

None of these facts tells you whether a coin is a good purchase, and we will not try to. They do tell you what to expect: a capped supply behaves differently from an open-ended one, and a proof-of-stake network has different risks from a mined one. Crypto assets are volatile and this is not financial advice.

Can you really get free bitcoin?

You can get free bitcoin only in small amounts: learn-and-earn quizzes from exchanges, card or shopping rewards paid in bitcoin, and faucets that pay a few satoshis for attention. Mining on a home computer is not one of them, because the network is far too large for a laptop or gaming PC to earn anything measurable. Offers of large free amounts or guaranteed mining income are scams.

Cloud-mining “contracts” have been a favourite fraud for years: the founders of HashFlare pleaded guilty in February 2025 in a case the US Justice Department valued at $577 million. The free bitcoin guide explains which options pay and how much.

Paying with crypto on gaming sites

Online gaming sites are one of the most common everyday uses of crypto payments, and the checks that apply to an exchange apply there too: who licenses the operator, how quickly withdrawals arrive and what the network fee adds. Cheaper, faster chains have changed which coins people use. Solana casinos are popular because deposits settle in seconds for a fraction of a cent.

No-KYC crypto casinos skip identity checks, which brings its own risks when a withdrawal is held. A broader bitcoin casino guide tracks which operators still pay out.

The rules depend on where you live. In Australia, federal law bars operators from offering these games online to people there, and the regulator ACMA blocks offshore sites that do so, although players themselves are not prosecuted. This overview of online casinos in Australia explains what that means in practice. Real-money play is for adults only, and it is never a way to make money.

How do you spot a fake or failing crypto platform?

Fake crypto platforms promise guaranteed or fixed daily returns, arrive through a new online contact, and demand a “tax” or “release fee” before a withdrawal is released. Failing real platforms show slower withdrawals, new limits and missing reserve reports. These scams cost Americans more than any other online fraud: the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center recorded 149,686 cryptocurrency-related complaints and about $9.3 billion in losses in 2024, up 66% on 2023.

Watch for:

• Guaranteed or fixed daily returns, especially on “trading bots” or “arbitrage” products.
• An app or website that a new online contact recommended, rather than one you found yourself.
• A request to pay a “tax”, “release fee” or “verification deposit” before a withdrawal is released. Real platforms deduct fees from the balance.
• Domains that imitate a known exchange with an extra word or a different ending.
• “Recovery” services that promise to get back lost crypto for an upfront fee. These target people who have already been defrauded.
• On a real platform: slower withdrawals, new limits, missing reserve reports and executives leaving at the same time. BitMEX, by contrast, announced its closure on 23 July 2026, gave users two months and kept withdrawals open after trading stopped on 23 September 2026; an orderly exit looks like that.

If something feels off, stop sending money and check the firm against the register for your country. Legitimate platforms do not mind waiting while you look.

How does CoinChoose check its facts?

Every CoinChoose page is written and checked by the CoinChoose Editorial Team against primary sources: regulator registers and enforcement notices, court filings, each exchange’s own terms and fee pages, and official protocol documentation. Each page lists its sources, time-sensitive facts carry a date, and pages are updated when a platform’s status changes. No platform pays for a review, a ranking or a link.

More on our methods, funding and corrections is on the About CoinChoose page, and corrections are welcome through the contact page. CoinChoose also publishes native editions in German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Turkish, Russian, Korean and Japanese, written for readers in each country.

Nothing on this site is investment, tax or legal advice. Crypto prices can fall sharply, and money held on an exchange is generally not covered by deposit insurance. Only use money you can afford to lose.