A ranked shortlist, not a directory. Two winners each month: the best exchange based in your region and the best one serving it from outside.
1099-DA ready. Highest fees of the four.
No exchange of this type clears the floor in this edition.
| # | Exchange | Type | Fees (20) | Local rails (20) | Liquidity (20) | Security (20) | Tax docs (10) | Support (10) | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Coinbase NYDFS BitLicense and 45 states | onshore | 5 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 7 | 81 |
| 2 | Kraken State licences | onshore | 7 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 8 | 8 | 80 |
| 3 | Robinhood Crypto State licences | onshore | 8 | 9 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 5 | 75 |
| 4 | Gemini NYDFS trust charter | onshore | 6 | 8 | 6 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 73 |
Scores are out of 10 per column and weighted as shown in the header, for 100 points. Fees, spreads and rail timings are measured by the pipeline through the month. Support is scored from mystery tickets. Security combines incident history, custody disclosure and login options.
Affiliate payouts never touch a score. Links beside an exchange may pay us a share of trading fees and are labelled where they appear.
The scores on this page are illustrative placeholders until the first monthly measurement run.
