Crypto.com is a popular crypto exchange with millions of users the world over. In this Crypto.com review, we’ll go over everything this exchange can do to see if you should become one of its customers.

Key Takeaways: Crypto.com Exchange Review

• Crypto.com gained name recognition thanks to its Super Bowl ad featuring Matt Damon, though since then it’s gained notoriety thanks to a massive hack and a round of layoffs.
• Crypto.com is mobile-only, and the app is glitchy as can be, making for a frustrating user experience.
• Its fee structure is transparent, though, and quite reasonable, which may make up for any interface issues.

In short, we didn’t have the best experience using Crypto.com. Compared to other cryptocurrency exchanges, its interface isn’t great, and we don’t like how the app constantly egged us on to buy ever more crypto. However, it does have a transparent fee structure that may make up for this issue.

Before you go on, know that crypto trades are incredibly risky even in the best of times. Crypto values can rise, but they can also plummet, leaving you wiped out. This risk is multiplied many times over should you start speculating in crypto derivatives.

Crypto.com Review: Pros & Cons

Overview & Background

Crypto.com made a huge name for itself outside of the crypto space in 2022 with a now-famous Super Bowl ad featuring Matt Damon (watch it on YouTube). Working with a major Hollywood star brought the Singapore-based company a lot of name recognition on top of its well-chosen domain name.

However, during the crypto winter of 2022, the video’s tagline, “fortune favors the brave,” was mocked endlessly. Currently, there are a lot more videos lampooning the ad than promoting the service.

It wasn’t just public relations that took a beating in 2022, either. Crypto.com fell victim to a massive hack, with a reported $34 million stolen after criminals undermined the site’s two-factor authentication protocols. It didn’t help Crypto.com’s credibility that reports about the amount stolen kept changing as the exchange scrambled to figure out what was going on. 

Another ill omen for the company were two rounds of layoffs over the course of 2022, which saw it let hundreds of employees go.

On top of all that, the exchange’s own coin, Cronos (CRO), has seen more than a few falls and recoveries. The first major drop was a result of the news in May 2022 that the company would no longer offer staking rewards on CRO, while the decline in November seems to be fallout from the FTX scandal.

All in all, while the exchange likes to brag on its homepage how it’s the “leader in regulatory compliance,” it has other things to worry about than regulations. Buyer beware.

Crypto.com Features Overview

	Visit Crypto.com
Centralized Exchange
Trade cryptocurrencies
Trade NFTs
Trade futures
Trade options
Trade derivatives
Offers crypto staking
Offers debit card
Allows direct withdrawal
Transparent fees
Web/desktop app
Mobile app

Coins Available

Crypto.com offers a fairly standard range of products. Like you’d expect from a cryptocurrency exchange, Crypto.com’s main focus is letting you trade different cryptocurrencies. Currently, it has over 250 coins for sale, with the five biggest sellers being:

1. Bitcoin (BTC)
2. Ethereum (ETH)
3. Tether (USDT)
4. BNB (BNB)
5. USD Coin (USDC)

Besides letting you trade directly in coins (called spot trading), Crypto.com also offers plenty of derivatives, focusing mainly on futures — financial instruments that let you bet on a future price of an asset. You can also trade on margin, effectively borrowing money to speculate on crypto assets, but be warned that this is extremely risky.

Crypto.com also offers the now-standard perk of a debit card you can load up with crypto to make physical payments, though of course you’ll have to find sellers who accept it. You can also get a loan from Crypto.com, using your crypto holdings as collateral to put some fiat currency in your pocket.

Trading Fees & Rates

Crypto.com has a fee schedule not unlike that of Binance, with different fees applying to different types of customers. While it seems very complicated at first, once you figure it out it’s actually not too bad. In fact, transparent fees may be our favorite thing about Crypto.com.

First, you’ll be sorted into one of five tiers depending on how much you trade in a month. Lower trading volumes equal higher fees. If your volume is under $250,000, you’re in level 1, for example, and pay higher fees than somebody in level 2.

Fees also depend on whether you’re a maker (somebody who places an order for crypto but doesn’t want it filled immediately) or a taker (somebody whose order is filled immediately). Market makers are better for the exchange, since they add money without taking any away, so they get better rates.

As such, a level 5 maker will have the biggest trading fee discounts, while a level 1 taker pays the most. You should figure out where you will land on that scale and compare rates with other crypto exchanges. It can be a bit annoying, but at least you’re not dealing with Coinbase and its wait-and-see approach to fees.

User Experience

Crypto.com only has apps for Android and iPhone. There’s no web or desktop of any sort, disqualifying Crypto.com for anybody that prefers not to be glued to their smartphone. Even if you prefer to use your smartphone, though, Crypto.com is a disappointing experience, with glitches and issues popping up regularly.

Signing Up for a Crypto.com Account

The trouble starts when you sign up for an account. Being confined to mobile, you’ll have to tap all your information into the app letter by letter. In fact, because of unnamed “something went wrong” errors, you may have to enter it again and again.

While other exchanges make signing up a breeze, it took us almost 45 minutes to sign up to Crypto.com. This is mainly because documentation for Crypto.com’s know-your-customer protocols requires your phone’s camera, so you need to find a government-issued ID, lay it out just right, and hope the lighting isn’t wrong. The same goes for your own photo, too. 

All this makes things harder than they need to be. What’s worse, we needed to provide proof of address, but we weren’t allowed to upload a document. Instead, we had to find a paper copy of a utility bill and scan that.

Since we live in the 21st century, we don’t have paper copies of anything anymore, so we had to take a picture of our laptop screen, which took more than a few tries to get through. It wasn’t a fun experience, and customer support wasn’t much help. Signup experiences this bad just don’t happen much anymore.

Crypto Trading on Crypto.com

Thankfully, things start looking up a bit once you pass this little gauntlet. The app is still glitchy and slow, with not all changes reflected right away, but there are no outright obstacles placed in your way anymore. For a mobile app, we do have to say Crypto.com offers you a decent overview of what’s going on.

As with most crypto trading apps, this main screen also is your crypto wallet where you can keep an eye on which assets you have and how much they’re worth. It all mostly works, though again it has some weird issues. There are some slowdowns here and there, and at times the app will freeze up until you’ve participated in one of its inane surveys.

This does not make for a good customer experience. Actually buying crypto is also unnecessarily annoying. For some reason, you’re presented with a massive alphabetically ordered list of every coin or asset Crypto.com has on offer, and must use the search function to find what you need.

We doubt most users are interested in all this niche stuff. It’d be better to put top sellers at the top and let the aficionados dig through the full list. Once you’ve picked your crypto, though, it’s pretty easy: You pay with either your credit card or linked bank account and that’s it, though it takes the app a second or two to reflect your new balance.

Overall, we’re not huge fans of the Crypto.com app. Other exchanges do everything it does better. It feels like it puts up hurdles to trading crypto rather than facilitating it. It’s slow and glitchy, and we could imagine that large-volume traders would have a few nervous moments after conducting a large trade and not seeing the balance change right away.

Final Thoughts

Though we’re not particularly huge fans of any cryptocurrency exchange, Crypto.com is pretty unpleasant to use, to the point that not even its transparent fees make up for it. Though it may be a good option for anybody looking for niche coins, we doubt most people will have a good time using it.

What do you think of Crypto.com? Are you a satisfied customer, or have you also walked away? What do you think could be improved? Let us know in the comments below and thank you for reading.

FAQ

• Is Crypto.com Legit?

  Yes, Crypto.com is a bonafide crypto exchange, though that comes with the usual caveats regarding reliability.

• Is Crypto.com Safe in the USA?

  Crypto.com seems to be following regulations, so it’s safe from an FTX-style collapse. However, the recent hack wiped out millions of dollars in customer assets.

• Is Crypto.com Available in New York?

  Crypto.com is currently unavailable in the state of New York and it’s unlikely that will change soon.

• What Is Crypto Earn on Crypto.com?

  Crypto Earn is a way for you to deposit your crypto assets and earn interest on them.