Crypto is riding high once again, but investors still need to be careful about which firms they choose when it comes to digital assets trading.
By Javier Paz, Forbes Staff
Christmas came early for bitcoin this year. On the back of record-breaking launches of ETFs backed by the likes of BlackRock and Fidelity, which have accumulated $112 billion in bitcoin, and president Donald Trump’s reelection in November, the digital asset crossed $100,000. Enthusiasts are expecting 2025 to be more bullish as a pro-crypto Congress is coming in power with promises to pass regulation that will move the industry out of the proverbial penalty box.
Hype cycles like this create unbridled optimism, and a healthy dose of FOMO, but investors should proceed with caution. Risky tokens and meme coin rug pulls aren’t the only worry. There are hundreds of crypto exchanges in the world – essentially retail brokerage firms – with fancy websites, attractive features, and yield propositions and promises to keep your money safe. But all crypto exchanges are not created equal.
There are significant differences between the types and number of licenses they hold and how they safeguard your digital assets. Anyone who was burned by the collapse of FTX in 2022 knows how important this can be. Additionally, transaction fees and spreads vary from exchange to exchange as do trading opportunities and product offerings.
The top firm on Forbes’ third annual World’s Most Trustworthy Crypto Exchange ranking, which analyzes more than 200 firms, is Chicago’s CME Group. While this giant futures exchange, founded in 1898 to trade butter and eggs, is not suitable for most retail investors, we gave it high scores because in the wild and wooly world of crypto, safety is paramount and the CME Group is highly regulated by the CFTC. While crypto is still a tiny part of what is traded at CME, during 2024 it traded $1.4 trillion in futures contracts for digital assets such as bitcoin or ether. Despite its largely institutional focus, theCME Group offers new products such as Micro Bitcoin and Micro Ether futures and options, with minimums of $300.
When it comes to retail-oriented exchanges $70 billion (market cap) Coinbase earned the #2 spot in the rankings. Coinbase is the only major publicly-traded cryptocurrency exchange in the nation and its perceived safety has allowed it to charge premium fees and transaction costs. Thanks to some 8 million active accounts, it is the largest custodian of bitcoin in the world, holding 2.4 million worth a staggering $245 billion at current price levels. Asset safety is the most important feature exchange customers demand and Coinbase has so far delivered.
UK-based Bitstamp, a global exchange with a significant presence in Europe, ranked third in our survey, with Binance , the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, ranking fourth. Menlo Park, CA’s Robinhood, which is predominantly oriented toward stocks and options, placed fifth in our ranking. Robinhood, long criticized for gamifying investing to attract a youthful audience, has become something of a meme headquarters holding $15 billion worth of dogecoin for clients (Shiba Inu inspired token) and added “dogwifhat” to a list that includes Shiba Inu, PEPE, and BONK. Besides meme coins, Robinhood acquired Luxembourg-based crypto exchange Bitstamp last July for approximately $200 million. The firms have continued to operate independently pending the necessary board approvals in the coming months. This acquisition may be the start of a consolidation trend for this highly fragmented industry as the most successful firms attempt to break out from their regional focus.
Binance, absent during last year’s rankings due to its legal issues, continues to be a dominant firm globally. It claims to have 245 million registered users and an average daily spot trading volume of around $14 billion. The next biggest exchange, Dubai-based Bybit, reports only $8.2 billion in average daily spot volume. Coinbase has an average daily crypto trading volume of $5.3 billion. In the wake of its founder’s incarceration, Binance’s new management team has vowed to focus more on regulatory compliance.
The remaining firms on Forbes top 25 ranking include some of the most prominent worldwide. In the U.S., leading firms include Kraken, Gemini, Crypto.com, and Fidelity. In South Korea, the two major firms are Upbit and Bithumb, while in Japan, they are Bitbank, bitFlyer, and Coincheck, and in Europe, we recognize Revolut, bitpanda, and Bitvavo.
Together, these firms hold an estimated $1.2 trillion in client assets, and, according to the web analytics firm Similarweb, their websites were frequented by a combined 438 million users in November.
For an explanation of our methodology see below.
The Top 25
CME GROUP
While not retail focused, CME is the largest regulated bitcoin futures exchange in the world. Its strong 2024 performance caused its crypto trading volume to rise by 135% and its bitcoin open interest – which is the total value of capital tied up in futures contracts – by 83% to more than $20 billion.
COINBASE
Publicly-traded Coinbase custodies more than 12% of all bitcoin in existence. In fact, its Coinbase Custody now holds more than $300 billion of digital assets such as bitcoin, ethereum, and solana. It’s not the cheapest place to buy or sell crypto, but its long-standing reputation for safety and security allows the company to charge a premium. Late last year it also registered in Bermuda so that it can compete with the likes of Deribit in the off-shore crypto derivatives business.
BITSTAMP
Luxembourg-based Bitstamp has global operations, but it is particularly strong in Europe. The firm exemplifies many of the criteria valued in the ranking methodology: large asset base, ownership clarity, a credible audit history, and a robust crypto product offering. The firm has agreed to be purchased by Robinhood and approvals by the board are expected in the coming months.
BINANCE
The corrective steps that Binance has taken to address past compliance shortcomings have earned enough credit to return to the Forbes rankings in 2025, and achieve a top-5 placement. The firm is the second largest by assets. While it may not be active in the U.S., it remains the largest by trading volume and is a market leader in BRICS countries and Europe. The firm has a U.S. franchise (Binance.US), which has negligible volume and is unranked. Binance would not disclose ownership details, though founder Changpeng Zhao, who was recently released from prison, likely remains the controlling shareholder. Forbes estimates that CZ is the richest person in crypto with a net worth of $65 billion. The company has also yet to produce an audit, but it does produce regular on-chain snapshots of assets under custody and is working to undergo a formal audit for the first time.
ROBINHOOD
Menlo Park-headquartered Robinhood.com was a huge beneficiary of the November elections. It experienced a 780% trading volume rise compared to a year earlier. What gives? The firm made it easy to bet on election outcomes through novel prediction markets and offers free trading across asset classes. Robinhood is the main global marketplace for memecoins like dogecoin, with these assets growing from $6 billion in October to $15 billion after the election.
BITBANK – One of Japan’s top three exchanges, Bitbank (bitbank.cc) features a photo of star Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto on its homepage. Among the three firms from the East Asian nation in the rankings, Bitbank offers low trading costs on popular altcoins. Its steady high ranking also comes from its transparency, audited finances, and crypto holdings.
UPBIT
Upbit is one of two largest South Korean crypto exchanges, serving almost 10 million clients. It is one of the top 10 largest holders of bitcoin. Owned by Song Chi-hyung, one of Korea’s wealthiest investors, the exchange focuses on the trading of payment tokens XRP and XLM even over bitcoin. Korean regulators are currently investigating the firm’s know-your-customer practices after identifying a large number of documentation irregularities as part of Upbit’s license renewal application. Upbit responded to Forbes that all domestic exchanges are being reviewed, no decisions have been made, and that the alleged large number of irregularities have not been verified.
BITGET
In what was a marketing stroke of genius, Singapore-based Bitget launched a partnership with soccer legend Lionel Messi in October 2022 before he captained the Argentina squad to win the World Cup that year and the Copa America in 2024. The result of that multi-year campaign brought tens of millions of accounts to the exchange. The exchange was also the first to popularize the practice of copy trading in a crypto setting, where customers can automatically execute trades that mimic the best performers. This activity now brings in 20% of all of its volume.
DERIBIT
Dubai-based Deribit is a giant in the offshore derivatives space, where much like the CME traders can bet on the future price of assets with leverage. The firm specializes in options, which gives the purchasers the right to buy or sell tokens at specified prices over a set period of time. In particular, options are the instrument of choice to hedge exposure to volatile instruments and execute simple alpha generating strategies like a carry trade. Deribit holds notional crypto open interest – the capital tied up in derivatives contracts – worth more than $30 billion. Moreover, in 2024 its volume grew 95% to $1.2 trillion. Its foray into spot, futures, and perpetual trading broadened to create something of a one-stop shop for its institutional clients. Also, it secured its spot and derivatives licenses in Dubai, a credible derivatives regulator. The firm is said to be entertaining offers from suitors, including Kraken, but told Forbes that it’s not trying to sell itself.
GEMINI
The bitcoin-led run has lifted Gemini’s holdings by 34% in the past six months to $19 billion. The firm, owned by billionaire twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoos, has obtained licenses in France and Singapore, boosting its international footprint in 2024. Despite these changes, the exchange trimmed 10% of its workforce late 2024 to remain lean.
KRAKEN
U.S.-based Kraken holds more than $30 billion for clients and has an ample product line and lower cost offering than exchanges like Coinbase. The company has been looking for strategic acquisitions with a major focus on launching an offshore derivatives business.
REVOLUT
UK-based Revolut is a private digital bank valued at $45 billion that has raised multiple rounds from the likes of DST Global, TCV, Tiger Global, and SoftBank. It holds client assets of more than $22 billion for 50+ million clients across a variety of services, including payments, savings, investing, and crypto. It aims to be the JPMorgan Chase of a new generation, supporting a mobile-first approach to an umbrella of financial services. Crypto trading is available via an ultra-low cost web platform or the much more expensive app version. Most clients continue to use the latter but since late 2024 have started to migrate to the less costly Revolut X platform, where they can also trade more than 200 tokens.
CRYPTO.COM
Owned by its founders Kris Marszalek, Rafael Melo, Bobby Bao, and Gary Or, Crypto.com boasts one of the most recognizable names in cryptoland. It dropped $700 million for 20-year naming rights to the arena home of the Los Angeles Lakers and renewed a 9-figure Champions League partnership in Europe in 2024. While a big spender in marketing, there are metrics showing that its growth may be slowing. Similarweb data shows it had 2.3 million unique users in November, a far cry from the 100 million users it claims to have. Fee pricing information is not visible on its U.S. website nor was it provided to Forbes, but CoinGecko measures its spreads alone at 52 basis points – more than 2x wider than Coinbase’s. CoinGecko also considers its reported volume highly inflated, and discounts it by 80% to 90%. More importantly, Arkham data shows that the firm’s holdings of bitcoin, ethereum, and stablecoins stood at $5.0 billion in mid January, down from $10 billion on Christmas day.
FIDELITY
What a year it has been for financial services giant Fidelity ($13 trillion in client assets) and its affiliate Fidelity Crypto. Fidelity Investments’ spot bitcoin ETF FBTC reached its 1-year anniversary with $20 billion in AUM, while Fidelity Custody holds $35 billion worth of primarily bitcoin. Fidelity Crypto offers clients trading in bitcoin and ether a spread of 1% (100 basis points) per trade. Fidelity Crypto and Fidelity Investments operate under separate licenses and users require separate accounts should they want to buy its ETF FBTC alongside direct holdings in bitcoin or ethereum.
HASHKEY EXCHANGE
A division of Hong Kong-based HashKey Digital Asset Group Limited, Hashkey Exchange is one of only two crypto exchanges licensed under Hong Kong’s novel digital assets regime. The parent group is a conglomerate of firms with a regulatory-first approach to operating in crypto assets and Web3 investing. While still small – there are less than 150 employees at HashKey Exchange and sister entity HashKey Global – the exchanges report having a combined 145,000 retail customers and nearly 300 institutional ones. There are marked differences in pricing, however, with HashKey Exchange charging a 29bp trading fee and 16bp average spread, compared to 12bp fee and 206bp in average spread at HashKey Global, which serves customers outside of Hong Kong under separate licenses.
OKX
OKX, which was originally Ok Coin, did not participate in the Forbes survey but its recent pivot to become a much more regulated entity and considerable size compelled us to include it in our rankings. It gained regulatory licenses in France, Turkey, Dubai, Singapore, and Australia, and it signed up for a sponsorship of the McLaren Formula 1 team. It holds at least $15 billion worth of bitcoin and ethereum, and its website attracted more than 22 million unique visitors in November – with a quarter of them coming from the United States, Italy, the Russian Federation, and Egypt. The firm’s product offering is large while its fee structure is very attractive, with a 10bp fee and average spreads of 21bp – the third lowest trading costs out there among regulated entities.
BYBIT
Dubai-based Bybit is another major crypto provider, frequently among the ones reporting the highest trading volume, that has pivoted to become more regulated. Bybit has obtained licenses in the Netherlands, Turkey, and Canada, but at least a third of its considerable 26 million visitors come from the Russian-Ukraine war zone, a region subject to US sanctions. While the pursuit of regulatory licenses has started in earnest, the firm’s prior approach of doing business before securing the needed licensing resulted in it being blacklisted in France, banned in Hong Kong, and temporarily suspended in India. A big part of Bybit’s appeal with end users has been its low fees, which are on par with those of Binance and OKX.
HTX
Formerly Huobi Global, HTX is an exchange with China roots that founder Leon Li sold to About Capital Management, a Hong Kong investment firm in 2022. About Capital is owned by Tron founder Justin Sun. HTX secured licenses in Australia, Dubai, and Lithuania in 2022 and participated on the Forbes survey for the first time, signaling its desire for greater transparency. Even so, the firm has yet to disclose the beneficial owners of its parent company, get additional licenses, and go through credible financial audits to rise in the rankings.
BITFLYER
The Tokyo-based exchange custodies the most crypto assets in its home market ($4 billion) and touts 0% to 0.1% trading fees. BitFlyer is regulated in Japan, the U.S, and Europe. It was founded with backing from Japanese insurance, banking, and brokerage giants like Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, SBI Investment, and Dai-ichi Life Insurance. The company re-appointed co-founder Yuzo Kano as CEO after an ownership and management spat was resolved in March 2023, and he stated plans to take the exchange public.
SWISSBORG
As its name suggests, privately owned Swissborg got its origins in Switzerland thanks to a $52 million cash infusion from the exchange’s own initial coin offering (BORG) and in which 23,000 retail investors participated. What makes this smaller Western European exchange stand out is its pursuit of credible crypto regulation (France’s AMF, the SEC counterpart) and its adaptation of thematic investing to crypto – think investors using $500 to buy a collection of the larger coins in defi, memes, gaming, and real world assets without having to select them by themselves. Its fees are relatively high, however.
COINCHECK
One of the top three Japanese exchanges. It holds more than $5 billion in client assets today. Its current offering is limited to eight crypto assets traded against the yen, and fees are low/free depending on the pair but its 181 spread is very wide. In December 2024, its CNCK shares went public on Nasdaq with a $1.2 billion valuation.
BITFINEX
Launched in 2012, Hong Kong-based Bitfinex shares the same leadership of Tether, the company behind the $138 billion stablecoin that dominates the crypto trading industry. The firm has licenses from smaller countries like El Salvador and Kazakhstan, but two thirds of Bitfinex web traffic comes from jurisdictions where the firm is not regulated: Europe, the US, South Korea and Japan. Still, Bitfinex Securities has secured a tokenization partnership with illustrious Lazard Group, the Swiss asset manager with 175-years in operation and $245 billion under management.
BITVAVO
Bitvavo is a Netherlands-based crypto exchange that primarily serves its home country, Belgium, Germany, and Thailand. It claims to have 1.5 million active customers and Arkham indicates it holds more than $2 billion worth of bitcoin and ethereum for clients. Its considerable $545 million daily spot volume – which is higher than more prominent exchanges like Gemini and Bitfinex – is supported by a low fee and average spread totalling approximately 40 bp.
BITHUMB
Originally launched as btckorea more than 10 years ago, Bithumb has grown to be the largest Korean by web traffic and is gearing up for a possible IPO either in the U.S. on Nasdaq or Korea’s Kosdaq exchange in late 2025. The exchange offers trading in 348 coins and is particularly active these days in meme coin DOGE and Korea’s local stablecoin pair USDT/KRW. Its standard fee of 25bp and average daily spread of 50bp put it in the middle of the pack of ranked peers.
BITPANDA
Vienna-based Bitpanda is regulated as a payments firm, e-money provider and virtual-asset provider in Austria and France, allowing it to offer its services to all of continental Europe. It combines crypto services with traditional brokerage of stocks, ETFs, indexes, precious metals and other commodities. It charges a stiff 1.5% in commissions or fees plus spread, but it has developed partnerships with major German banks like Deutsche Bank and Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg to let its users convert crypto to fiat and vice versa via the German IBAN rails.
Crypto Trading Fees & Spreads
Many investors prioritize low fees when deciding where to trade crypto. Most exchanges post their prices for sellers or purchasers online, respectively known as “maker” and “taker” fees; but they do not tell the whole story. Traders also need to be aware of a term called spread, which is the difference between a quoted buying and selling prices in an orderbook. The size of the spread varies by exchange and trading pair, but a general rule of thumb is that platforms with high volume have lower spreads. And vice versa.
Our research revealed that the weighted cost of execution in the crypto market among ranked firms today, and inclusive of spread, is 80 basis points. To do this analysis we used the cost of trading reported by crypto providers to us or via their website, plus average spread information from CoinGecko. The specific test looked at what it would cost to purchase $25,000 of crypto without any volume discounts or other promotions.
While trading fees can be relatively easily controlled, spread is a function of a provider’s overall liquidity. Among ranked firms, the average spread was 64 basis points (bp), with Upbit, Coincheck, and Bitstamp averaging 241bp, 181bp, and 143bp, respectively, as the costliest firms. [One hundred basis points is the equivalent of one percentage point.] Coinbase’s 19bp spread was among the lowest and slightly bested Binance’s 21bp. There is a lot of variance among firms, if a trader wants to know the cheapest place to buy or sell crypto, it is important to evaluate both the posted fees and spread together.
Trading Costs Relation to Share of Trading Volume
The chart above shows both fees and spreads and demonstrates that the biggest exchanges by market share tend to have the lowest trading cost, with the exception of Coinbase. Robinhood, which caters to retail traders, has a zero-fee trading model but the numbers above fail to incorporate the spreads, which in Robinhood’s case are a core part of their business model since they sell order flow.
U.S. exchanges with more than a decade of crypto service such as Coinbase and Kraken continue to enjoy high demand despite higher trading costs. Eventually fee compression from competition from firms like Robinhood could drive fees down.
There are several firms that have both expensive and cheap alternatives for heavy users, and Coinbase and Revolut are perfect examples. Coinbase retail clients averaged fees of 126 basis points. But in an effort to retain low-volume but high fee-paying clients the company created a monthly subscription service called Coinbase One that would eliminate fees. Prices range between $30-$300/month depending on volume. A majority of Revolut clients trade using their traditional app and pay 249bp on average, but the firm launched a web platform called Revolut X in select countries late last year that is priced at 10 basis points per trade and is gaining heavy traction.
Crypto Geography
By Forbes measurement, there were no less than half a billion crypto users globally at the end of 2024.
We enlisted the help of web analytics firm Similarweb, to help us determine where the most crypto traders were. The map below gives an estimation of the geographic dispersion of crypto investors.
Crypto Visitors
Geolocation of unique visitors to 57 crypto providers, in millions, Nov 2024 445 million unique visitors total
The largest concentration of traders is in the Asia-Pacific region, which has 160 million visitors. Europe was next with 134 million. The US and Canada added another 56 million. Latin America and the Caribbean had 40 million traders, and Africa was the lowest at 18 million.
Traffic to crypto providers is highly concentrated, with 12 ranked firms and 3 unranked firms each having 10+ million unique visitors. Firms like Binance, Crypto.com, and Bitget prominently display the number of “users” on their website in the tens or hundreds of millions, without defining the term. These firms, along with many others surveyed for this study, did not provide up to date figures on active accounts. However, monthly Similarweb data provides a clearer picture and approximate number of users that is consistent across all exchanges.
This analysis reveals that Binance, for example, had 75 million unique users (17% of the total) compared to Coinbase’s 56 million (13%). Robinhood was fourth at 37 million.
But aside from these major global exchanges, there are some providers that focus on just one or two domiciles. The 49 million traders in South Korea are primarily serviced by two major institutions, Bithumb and Upbit, who received a combined total of 70% of all crypto exchange visitors. Much of the remainder went to larger offshore exchanges like Binance, ByBit, and Bitget. While these exchanges are ranked, none are actually licensed to operate in South Korea. The top three firms servicing Japan’s 16 million visitors are Bitflyer, Coincheck, and Bitbank, while Germany’s 15 million go to Austria-based Bitpanda along with Bitget, and Binance. In India, Binance is the biggest exchange, accounting for essentially all of the of the country’s 6 million monthly visitors. The biggest local exchange operating in the south-Asian country is CoinDCX, which received 1.1 million visitors. Turning to Latin America, Brazil’s 14 million visitors primarily went to Binance, Singapore-based Gate.io (which has a sponsorship deal with Italian soccer’s Inter Milan), and Coinbase. Finally, because Russia continues to be under US sanctions, American exchanges like Coinbase, Robinhood, and Kraken do not have a presence in those countries. Given its 18 million monthly users, Russia remains a major crypto trading hub. The biggest destinations are ByBit (6.7 million), HTX (3.5 million), and Binance (2.4 million).
Methodology
The 2025 Forbes list began with a multi-month study of 200+ crypto exchanges listed by sources including CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, and CryptoCompare. We used data from analytics specialists like Arkham and Defillama to narrow down the list to crypto exchanges with significant assets. Additional checks for those vetted included products offered via their websites, trading volume, traffic volume and regulatory history, if any. Forbes then evaluated each firm on a scale of 1 to 10 in nine categories—BTC+ETH, Transparency, Regulation, Cost, Audit Strength, Institutional Clients, Spot Volume, Derivatives Volume, Crypto Products. The scores were then weighted and tallied to obtain a composite final score.
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