Features, Pros & Cons, Step-by-Step Guide

Crypto.com has positioned itself as one of the most recognized exchanges in the industry. It serves as a fully-spectrum platform, offering everything from spot and futures trading to staking and a Visa card-linked ecosystem, as well as self-custody wallet solutions.

The exchange supports hundreds of cryptocurrencies and serves a global user base. It’s suited for both beginners just stepping into the world of crypto and advanced traders with years of experience.

Key Takeaways:

• The mobile app is the core experience, delivering a well-polished, beginner-friendly, and smooth user interface.
• CRO staking unlocks significantly better rewards, fee discounts, and card benefits.
• Security is robust, backed by extensive certifications, strict compliance, and multi-million dollar insurance policies.
• The mobile app is best suited for casual and intermediate users, while the exchange is suited for advanced traders.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• All-in-one crypto ecosystem (trading, staking, cards, DeFi, and more)
• Beginner-friendly and polished mobile app
• Strong security, certifications, and insurance coverage
• Wide range of cryptocurrencies and global availability
• Advanced tools available for experienced users

Cons:

• Best rewards and lower fees require CRO staking
• Fees can be on the higher side without staking CRO

What is Crypto.com?

Crypto.com is a well-known cryptocurrency trading platform founded in 2016. Since then, it has evolved into much more than just a trading hub, and it now presents an entire ecosystem, including a mobile app, staking, and a fully-fledged DeFi ecosystem under one unified umbrella.

It’s pretty clear that the platform’s goal is to be a full-service gateway into crypto – the kind of application where beginners can easily buy their very first BTC, while also providing a system for advanced users to stake, trade, or manage rewards without having to switch between exchanges.

The company has grown rapidly throughout the years and now serves more than 100 million users worldwide, according to a 2024 release.

It offers very extensive functionalities – users can buy cryptocurrencies with a card, trade on the exchange, hold assets in a secure Web3 self-custody wallet, earn yield, and even spend crypto with any of Crypto.com’s Visa cards. However, it’s worth noting that some of the features, such as some rewards, discounts on fees, and certain boosted yields, are tied to staking CRO, which may not appeal as much to every user, although it’s the established practice amongst all the larger exchanges.

Supported Markets

Because Crypto.com offers a range of different products, all of them have different restrictions and availabilities in certain jurisdictions.

The general Crypto.com application is available in most jurisdictions, with a few exceptions, typical of most platforms in the industry. These restricted jurisdictions include: Afghanistan, Algeria, Andorra, Bangladesh, Belarus, Benin, Bolivia, Central Africa Republic, Cuba, Djibouti, Dominica, Ecuador, Gabon, Ethiopia, Gambia, Gaza Strip, Russia, the State of New York, and others. Check the full list here.

When it comes to derivatives trading, the list includes many of the same countries, but also the United States (excluding states jurisdictions where the app is not available) the United Kingdom, and other countries. Check out the full list here.

All in all, depending on what product you are interested in, you can cross-check the list of restricted jurisdictions on the main website. For the most part, it’s rather typical and standard, comparable to what most of the other exchanges are doing.

Supported Cryptocurrencies, Trading Types & Platforms

There are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to the broader cryptocurrency trading experience that Crypto.com has to offer. The platform supports a full suite of spot markets, which allows you to buy and sell hundreds of cryptocurrencies – this can happen both on the web and the mobile application.

Some of the supported cryptocurrencies include (but are not limited to):

• Bitcoin (BTC)
• Ethereum (ETH)
• Ripple (XRP)
• Solana (SOL)
• Cardano (ADA)
• Chainlink (LINK), and hundreds others.

For those of you who are looking for a clean and convenient interface to begin with, Crypto.com has done a good job of onboarding new users without having to navigate through the complexities of a traditional exchange interface. The spot market layout feels responsive and intuitive.

For those of you who already have some experience, Crypto.com extends its offering through the Crypto.com Exchange, which is a separate and more sophisticated platform, entirely oriented toward traders. It has advanced order types, margin trading, and perpetual futures capabilities, although the availability of these features will depend on your jurisdiction, as we mentioned above.

Features & Tools

One of the first things that struck me as a user of Crypto.com is how much emphasis there has been on the mobile experience. Unlike many other exchanges, where the desktop interface seems to be the primary focus, here the team has clearly built its ecosystem around the application.

It has an intuitive interface, packed with a range of different features, all of which feel easy to use. You can buy crypto, manage your portfolio, stake assets, access the Visa card, and explore multiple other features all from a unified interface.

For new users, the onboarding process is also relatively straightforward. The identity verification is quick, and navigating through various markets feels smooth.

That said, beyond trading, here are some of the additional features that are worth looking into.

Crypto Earn (Staking and Rewards Program)

Crypto Earn is undoubtedly one of the more appealing features on the exchange (and the mobile app), especially for those of you who are interested in earning income on your existing cryptocurrency holdings.

The rewards vary depending on the asset you want to stake, the period you are staking for, and whether or not you stake CRO tokens, but they can scale considerably. Naturally, the best rates are reserved for those of you who opt in to purchase and stake CRO tokens for the longest periods of time. This can be a bit disappointing, but it has turned into the industry standard across all centralized exchanges.

Staking on the platform is easy, but not as easy as it may be on some decentralized protocols. This is a feature best suited for those of you who are holding certain cryptocurrencies for the long term. For example, if you want to hold BTC for years, there is absolutely no harm in locking it and earning an APY, albeit not that considerable.

Of course, the risk here is that you are trusting your crypto with a third-party and you are not in control of your private keys, but then again, this is the case for everything whenever you are using a centralized exchange. On the flipside, exchanges such as Crypto.com offer enhanced security features as opposed to the broad majority of decentralized protocols, where even though you control your private keys, the risk of protocol failure tends to be a lot higher.

Crypto.com NFT & Web3 Tools

Here, I’ll talk about the NFT Marketplace and the Crypto.com DeFi wallet as two of the more interesting features available on the platform.

NFT Marketplace

That’s exactly what it sounds like – a marketplace, where users can buy and sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This is what the interface looks like:

As you can see, there are plenty of available collections as well as filters you can sort them by, and a range of different options.

All in all, the feature is easy to use. One thing that I liked is that unlike some other NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea, for instance, which requires setting up an external wallet and paying variable gas fees, here you can buy, sell, and browse various NFTs directly through your existing account balance. This makes onboarding far more accessible.

DeFi Wallet (Self-Custody)

The company’s DeFi wallet offers complete self-custody, meaning that you will be in control of your private keys. It’s completely separate from the other services of the exchange, and it allows for direct interaction with multiple DeFi protocols.

Setting it up is very straightforward – it detects multiple networks such as Ethereum and Cronos, as well as various EVM-compatible chains automatically. From there, you could easily store, send, and receive tokens without the limitations of centralized custody.

It also allows you to earn passively on your crypto holdings, and stake your tokens with more than 25+ chains directly from the wallet.

Fees & Costs

Crypto.com is a fully-fledged ecosystem and, therefore, breaking down the fees requires me to dive deeper into the various functionalities.

Trading fees

The trading fees are weighted depending on your 30-day spot volume in USD. This is what it looks like at the most basic level without holding any CRO.

However, if you hold CRO, things are getting a lot more different. There are even some tiers that would make your maker fees 0%, depending on how much CRO you stake. As an example, take a look at this table:

Naturally, you will have to stake a minimum of 50,000 CRO to get there, which is quite a bit for a regular user, but there aren’t many competitors that get down to 0%..

Deposit and Withdrawal Fees

There are no deposit fees – all of them are free.

However, when you withdraw, you will incur a fee, which is heavily dependent on the network that you are using and the cryptocurrency you attempt to withdraw. You can check out the current rates on this page.

Bank Transfer

Bank transfers incur deposit and withdrawal limits and fees. Crypto.com and its European EMI partners are not chagrin any fees for EUR deposits via SEPA, but keep in mind that your own bank may apply a processing fees.

However, when it comes to the withdrawals:

• A transaction fee of $20 USD and $45 USD will be charged for each withdrawal if you use Fedwire or Swift.
• $40 administration fee will be applied to every return of an erroneous Swift or Fedwire transaction.

When it comes to the limits, you can refer to this table:

Margin Interest Rates

A common type of fee that users tend to forget about is the interest rate on their margin loans. If you’re trading with margin, here are the rates you need to keep in mind:

Also, in the event of a liquidation, the exchange will charge a 0.5% liquidation fee.

Fiat & Deposit/Withdrawal Options

Crypto.com supports numerous ways with which you can deposit funds into your account using fiat money. Beyond the traditional SWIFT, SEPA, and FPS, you can also use a range of payment methods like credit cards, Apple Pay, or Google Pay directly through the Crypto.com application.

Fiat deposit methods

Bank Transfer

This is likely going to be the primary method for most fiat currencies and it is available on both the web app and the mobile application.

To link your bank account, you need to first make an initial deposit from it. This is done easily by following the prompts from the interface, which will require you to provide your bank details and to activate the fiat currency in your wallet.

Options vary depending on where you are using the exchange from:

• SWIFT – for USD transfers.
• SEPA – for EUR transfers.
• FPS – for GBP transfers.

Credit/Debit Card, Apple Pay, or Google Pay

As mentioned above, you can use either of these to deposit fiat directly into your account, depending on your jurisdiction.

Fiat withdrawal methods

When it comes to withdrawing fiat (also known as off-ramping), you have the option of a traditional bank transfer.

After you sell your crypto for fiat in your wallet, you can then easily withdraw the cash balance to a bank account that you have previously linked.

Is Crypto.com Secure? Security, Regulation & Trustworthiness

In general, yes, Crypto.com is a safe cryptocurrency exchange, but there are considerations to keep in mind here, so I will divide this section in two.

What the exchange does right

The platform integrates all of the account-level security practices you can think of – two-factor authentication, separate accounts for trading, end-to-end encryption, and whatnot. You name it, they have it.

The firm invests very heavily in security infrastructure and compliance, and that’s evident. Users can verify their balances through Crypto.com’s proof-of-reserves system.

Naturally, the majority of assets are held in cold storage, but the company also backs it with a very substantial cold-storage insurance policy, which is around $750 million for customer assets, plus an additional buffer for institutional holdings.

On top of that, the platform has a number of top-tier security certifications such ash:

• ISO/IEC 27001:2022
• ISO/IEC 27701:2019
• SOC 2 Type II
• PCI-DSS v4 Level 1 compliance, and more.

Crypto.com also runs a bug-bounty program, offering considerable rewards to ethical hackers who are able to identify security flaws.

From regulation and licensing perspective, the exchange operates globally and is compliant with international AML and KYC rules, holding the necessary registrations and licenses across multiple jurisdictions.

Risks and past Incidents

That said, the platform has been breached before. In January 2022, it suffered a high-profile breach, which resulted in around $32 million worth of customers’ funds being stolen.

Now, this has happened to almost all exchanges out there, and I consider the response to events like this to be more important.

In this regard, Crypto.com responded quickly, halting withdrawals immediately, reimbursing all of the affected accounts, and introducing withdrawal-address change policies, as well as stronger multi-factor authentication procedures.

Of course, the general risk of holding your crypto on a centralized exchange is present. You do not control your private keys and your security is only as strong as that of the platform. This could be both good and bad, depending on your own security standards, but the rule of thumb for “not your keys, not your crypto,” applies.

Final Verdict & Conclusion

After spending substantial time using Crypto.com and dabbling with a lot of its features, I can say that it does deliver a very complete ecosystem, suited for users of different skill levels. If you just want to convert fiat to crypto and invest casually, there is sufficient and easy-to-use tooling for that.

If you want to trade somewhat professionally, the platform offers a robust set of trading tools for that as well.

I personally think that Crypto.com is oriented more towards the casual retail user as opposed to the professional traders, but I can see how it can be easily adapted to their needs as well.

Naturally, there are some trade-offs. If you’re not staking CRO, the fees can be steep, and it feels like a lot of the better offerings are tied to the token, but that’s somewhat expected in 2025.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Is Crypto.com secure to use?

Yes. Crypto.com uses strong security practices, including multi-factor authentication, cold storage, custody, insurance coverage, and numerous industry certifications.

What fees does Crypto.com charge?

Trading fees follow a maker/taker model and vary based on your 30-day volume. Instant purchases and card buys have higher fees. Staking CRO can significantly reduce trading fees.

Does Crypto.com support staking or earning rewards?

Yes. Through Crypto Earn, users can earn rewards on a wide range of assets. Higher APYs typically require locking assets for longer periods and staking CRO.

Is Crypto.com good for beginners?

Yes. The mobile app is designed to be beginner-friendly, with simple buy/sell options, easy onboarding, and clear navigation. However, fees may be high for users who rely on instant purchases.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

This is informational content sponsored by Crypto.com and should not be considered as investment advice. Trading cryptocurrencies carries risks, such as price volatility and market risks. Before deciding to trade cryptocurrencies, consider your risk appetite.

Crypto.com services, features and other benefits, including rewards and fee reduction, referenced in this article may be subject to eligibility requirements, jurisdictional limitations, token holdings, and other requirements that may change at the discretion of Crypto.com.

Participating in Level Up does not guarantee access to all services or benefits. Services and potential benefits remain subject to local jurisdictional requirements, availability, and terms and conditions, among other things. All benefits, offers, and rewards conferred by Crypto.com, including but not limited to merchant rebates and CRO Rewards, are subject to change at Crypto.com’s sole discretion. See https://crypto.com/us/levelup for details.