In this news:
A major fintech payments leader with strong crypto ambitions in Europe isn’t afraid to sacrifice profitability for volume and stickiness.
Revolut and Revolut X mobile apps
Want to buy Bitcoin? Crypto trading fees run the gamut. PayPal and rival Cash App charge their tens of millions of users as much as 150 basis points (1.5%) fee plus unspecified spread to buy $1,000 worth of bitcoin. Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange by assets, charged its tens of millions of users an average of 143 basis points in transaction fee and spread and generated $1.35 billion in retail trading revenue for Q4 2024. By contrast traditional securities broker Robinhood charges no fee or commission at all.
London-based Revolut, a European-focused financial services firm with a valuation of $45 billion and 9 million crypto users, is breaking ranks with the high-fee peer group. Up until last year, most of its global crypto users paid platform fees of 49 to 149 basis points plus a spread of about 100 basis points. Starting Tuesday Mar 25, it launched a dedicated crypto app for its Revolut X crypto exchange across the UK and Europe, charging zero spread and a low 9 basis point fee to price takers. Unlike a limited token offer by traditional financial peers, Revolut offers more than 220 tokens with a total of 400+ pairs denominated in three major fiat –US dollar, euros, and sterling.
The most recent Forbes-calculated weighted cost of buying bitcoin industry wide is actually 80 basis points. On the less expensive side of the equation, firms like Robinhood charge no fee but don’t disclose average spreads, while OKX and Binance have a base fee of 10 basis points plus 20bp in spreads.
Crypto trading costs expressed in basis points (one hundredth of one percent)
Illustration by Javier Paz for Forbes
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