Recommended Exchanges (KYC)

In the United States exchanges are the most commonly used tool to acquire bitcoin. These are businesses that will sell you bitcoin for government fiat currencies. These exchanges have advantages and disadvantages:

ADVANTAGES

Easy to use with nice interface and traditional “banking” like features.
Typically lower fees than non-KYC options.
High liquidity enables you to smash buy or DCA at any time.
Quick transactions to your exchange account.

DISADVANTAGES

Require Know Your Customer (KYC) credentials. These will forever link your identity to those coins which threatens financial privacy.
Susceptible to
- Fraud
- Government interference/ regulations
- Hacking
Relying on a central authority.

Our recommendation for the most private and permission-less use of Bitcoin would be to use a peer to peer exchange that is KYC-FREE. However, we also acknowledge that this is not for everyone and the vast majority of individuals will stack sats on an exchange that includes KYC regulations. For that reason we want to steer people toward exchanges that are trustworthy, bitcoin- only and easy to use.

Regardless of which exchange you choose it is best practice to regularly sweep all sats from the exchange to a self-custody bitcoin wallet, like Sparrow Wallet. This ensures that your bitcoin is secure from many of the disadvantages listed above, except for the KYC concerns.

Here are a few of our preferred exchanges.

Updated January 10, 2025

Recommended Exchanges (KYC)


Bitcoin Only	X	X	X
Withdraw to Self-Custody	X	X	X
KYC Required	X	X	X
DCA	X	X	X
Smash Buy	X	X	X
On-Chain	X	X	X
Lightning	X	X	X
Automatic Withdraw	X		X
Withdrawal Restrictions	X	X	X
Spread	0.00%	0-1%	0.00%
Reserved 1:1	X	X	X
Proof of Reserves	X	X	X
Custodian	River	CashApp	Strike
HQ	Columbus, OH	New York, NY	Chicago, IL
FEES
Auto Buy	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%
Smash Buy up to $9.99	1.00%	3.00%	0.99%
Smash Buy up to $100	1.00%	2.25%	0.99%
Smash Buy up to $200	1.00%	2.00%	0.99%
Smash Buy up to $250	1.00%	2.00%	0.99%
Smash Buy up to $1,000	1.00%	1.75%	0.95%
Smash Buy up to $2,000	1.00%	1.50%	0.95%
Smash Buy up to $3,000	1.00%	1.25%	0.89%
Smash Buy up to $5,000	1.00%	1.00%	0.89%
Smash Buy over $5,000	1.00%	0.75%	0.89%
Withdraw to Self-Custody	Network Fee	Network Fee	Network Fee
OTHER FEATURES
Interest on Cash	Paid in Bitcoin	Paid in Cash
SMS Bitcoin	River Link
Inheritance	Inheritance	Investing Account
Spare Change to btc		X
Direct Deposit	X	X	X
Hardware Signing Device	X	X
Bill Pay		X	X

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