Crypto Exchanges

Fees

When deciding which exchange to use for trades, fees are a key consideration. Here’s an explanation of the usual fees to look out for.

Deposit / Withdrawal Fee (paid to exchange platform)

Some platforms charge fees upon the deposit/withdrawal of funds/crypto from the platform.

Trading Fee / Spread (paid to exchange platform)

• A taker fee is charged if the trade order is matched immediately against an order already on the order book, removing liquidity​.
• A ​maker​ fee is charged if the trade order is not matched immediately against an order already on the order book, adding liquidity​.
• Profit-only fees — some exchanges don’t charge trading fees but impose a higher charge on any profits made from your trade.
• Spreads are the difference between the highest buy price and lowest sell price in the market. The spread that is enforced by the platform protects the platform from making a loss in selling cryptocurrency to you by selling under current market prices.

Network transaction fees (paid to miners)

Every time you send cryptocurrency from one wallet to another, you incur a network transaction fee. This is the fee that is paid to confirm your transaction on the blockchain.

The actual amount of fees vary depending on the cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Ether, or Litecoin etc), the network capacity, and the market demand (i.e. how many transactions are looking to get confirmed at this point in time).

Here’s a snapshot of the fees charged by the fiat-to-crypto and crypto-only exchanges featured above. Crypto-only exchanges generally have more competitive trading fees than fiat-to-crypto exchanges.