Cryptocurrency Exchange Fees: How Much Are Cryptocurrency Exchange Fees? Traders and buyers used to avoid cryptocurrency because it was a small market. Now, it is a popular class. If you want to get into this growing market, you’ll need to use a coin exchange to get your foot in the door.
Trading in cryptocurrencies is a lot like trading on a stock market, but you can only do it on exchanges for cryptocurrencies. Most coin exchanges have only one way to figure out fees: they charge a percentage of how much you trade in a 30-day period.
Learn more about the fees you’ll have to pay when you trade cryptocurrency so you can come up with ways to keep them from eating into your income.
Thoughts on Exchanging Cryptocurrencies
When buyers think about buying or selling cryptocurrencies from an exchange, they need to think about three important things:
- Fee schedules: You might have to pay wire fees (to move money to and from your bank account), mine fees, account fees, spot fees, and tiered transaction fees.
- Location: Many exchanges aren’t regulated, and some can only be used by people in certain places.
- Availability: Not every exchange has all coins.
Fee Schedules
A “maker” and “taker” plan is the most common way for cryptocurrency exchanges to set their fees. It creates tiers based on how much you trade and charges maker and taker fees based on how much you trade.
A “maker” is the person or group that puts Bitcoin on the exchange by selling it, and a “taker” is the person or group that buys it off the exchange. Fees are paid by both parties, but makers usually pay less.
The way cryptocurrency exchanges set their fees is meant to encourage people to trade often and for big amounts worth thousands of dollars. Fees often go down as a trader’s total trade volume over the past 30 days goes up.
For example, if you trade less than $10,000 on Coinbase, the maker and taker fees are 0.50%. If you trade more than $10,000, the fees go down in tiers depending on how much you trade.
Coinbase lists the first four price groups as:
| Pricing Tier | Taker Fee | Maker Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Under $10,000 | 0.40% | 0.60% |
| $10,000 – $50,000 | 0.40% | 0.25% |
| $50,000 – $100,000 | 0.25% | 0.15% |
| $100,000 — $1 Million | 0.20% | 0.10% |
As a maker, you also pay less in the top tiers because you make the market more liquid, which lets the exchanges keep trading.
Some exchanges may still charge a fee for each transaction, but most have switched to a combination fee plan like the one Coinbase uses. So, small deals that don’t happen very often aren’t cost-effective on cryptocurrency exchanges, unless all you want to do is buy a cryptocurrency. If that’s the case, most exchanges will charge you a spot dealing fee to buy a digital coin and get it in your hands.
Location
In many countries, there are no rules about how to buy or sell cryptocurrency. Most governments around the world have stayed out of the way when it comes to regulating cryptocurrency in some of its largest trading areas. But in the U.S., bitcoin exchanges must sign up with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
This means that exchanges in the U.S. are regulated and may not be able to give the same services as exchanges in other countries.
Availability
Most popular cryptocurrency platforms don’t let you buy or sell all coins. Some only give a few dozen, while others might give hundreds. You might have to use more than one exchange to get your hands on the cryptocurrencies you want.
Top Two Exchanges for Cryptocurrencies
Here’s a quick look at how much it costs to trade cryptocurrency on three of the most popular platforms.
With the CoinMarketCap Spot Exchange Score, you can see how popular an exchange is. This score takes into account each exchange’s web traffic, volume, average liquidity, and trust.
Binance
Binance was started in 2017 and registered in the Cayman Islands. In 2019, they opened a branch in the United States with their offices in California. By 2022, Binance will be at the top of the list and trading more cryptocurrencies than any other market.
On Binance, people who like cryptocurrencies can choose from more than 600 different ones. However, people in the United States can only choose from a little more than 100 cryptocurrencies on Binance.US because of the rules.
Binance lets people all over the world trade cryptocurrency futures, buy currency, earn cryptocurrency, make non-fungible tokens, and learn everything there is to know about cryptocurrency through the Binance Academy.
Important: You can access everything on Binance’s website, like the academy and other tools. The U.S. only limits buying, selling, and trading on the international platform to protect investors.
Most people who use Binance.US will have to pay fees and have limits on how much they can take out. Fees are based on how much you buy and sell in a 30-day period. In general, you’ll pay 0.1% for spot trading and 0.5% when you buy or sell cryptocurrency.
If you pay any fees with Binance’s cryptocurrency, BNB, you can save 25%. Traders who do more than $10 million worth of business (or at least 1500 BNB) no longer have to pay maker fees, and the taking fees go down from there.
You can trade pairs of cryptocurrencies and tether (USDT), pairs of cryptocurrencies, and pairs of cryptocurrencies and U.S. dollars in the U.S., but your options are limited.
You can also trade these pairs over the counter or do advanced trades based on how their prices move.
Coinbase
Coinbase was started in 2012 with the goal of letting everyone use a banking system based on cryptocurrencies. In April 2021, the market went public after its first public offering and listing on Nasdaq. The market lets people buy and sell thousands of different digital currencies.
When you use Coinbase’s services, the maker/taker fees are based on the current pricing tier at the time the order was made, not the tier after the trade. Also, Coinbase changes the price tier every hour based on the total amount of trades. There are no account fees on Coinbase, but there are fees for miners.
Is It Illegal to Use a Cryptocurrency Exchange?
Whether or not your country lets you use cryptocurrency depends on where you live. In some countries, all cryptocurrency trades are illegal, but in many others, there are some restrictions or none at all.
Can Crypto Be Changed Into Cash?
Most cryptocurrency platforms let you change digital currency into cash or cash into digital currency.
What is the Best Website for Buying Cryptocurrency?
There are several places where you can buy cryptocurrency. Which one is best for you relies on how you feel about fees and what country you live in. Customers use Coinbase, Kraken, KuCoin, and Binance to buy and sell cryptocurrencies.
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