Best Crypto Exchanges in the EU/EEA and UK in 2022

Unlike the US, who has the Securities and Exchange commission (SEC) deciding on the exchanges (CEXs) its residents can use, Ontario in Canada, who has the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) getting involved, and China, who’s government have put an outright ban in place on holding cryptocurrency in the country, the EU/EEA and the UK have avoided too much meddling from government or local law enforcement up until now. This is of course outside of the FCA debacle in the UK, that saw a number of banks no longer allow UK investors to pay money into Binance accounts, by either bank transfer or debit/credit card, for a short period of time. 

With this in mind, this region is one of the most fruitful, in terms of the choice of crypto exchanges on offer, and in terms of the staking rates available.

Taking this lack government interference into account, there are a number of great exchanges that are available to EU/EEA and UK residents. Here are our top picks when choosing an accessible EU/EEA, or UK exchange: 

Nexo, founded in 2017, is the first world’s first instant crypto-backed loans provider to market. 

Since the exchanges initial launch, the Swiss based platform has released the Nexo card, a card that gives investors an instant line of credit, with rates starting at 0% depending on the users loyalty tier. The card, like their loans offering, lets you retain ownership of your crypto, rather than sell it. The exchange currently offers some of the most competitive interest rates, staking rates, earn rates, or whatever name you know it by in the European market. 

The native token of the exchange is the ERC-20 native Nexo token. The CEX incentivises its investors to hold their token by giving a number of benefits, that are dependant on the percentage of the portfolio that the token makes up. These include more competitive staking rates, and borrowing rates for investors.

The exchange has 38 cryptocurrencies available for purchase on-site, which is lower than some of the bigger exchanges. 

In recent years, Binance has become synonymous with crypto. 

The exchange was founded in 2017, by Changpeng Zhao (CZ), off the back of an initial coin offering, that saw $15 million raised. In only 8 months, CZ turned Binance into the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, by trading volume. 

Binance has over 500 cryptocurrencies available to purchase on the platform, a huge number compared to any of the other major exchanges on the market. 

Binance Coin (BNB) is the native coin of the Binance Chain, and the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). Use of the coin on Binance sees investors receive a discount on exchange transaction fees, and is also used as gas for the Binance Chain, and the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). 

Trading on the CEX incurs a fee of 0.1%. Although, users who pay trading fees using BNB receive a 25% discount on these fees.

Binance offers a huge selection of staking options for a number of the tradable coins available on the exchange.

Crypto.com, originally Monaco (MCO), re-branded in 2018. To make this brand change possible, the CEX purchased the domain from the American researcher Matt Blaze, for an estimated sum of anywhere between $5 million to $12 million for the privilege. 

Since the re-brand, and more recently, Crypto.com has been on a marketing spree, that has seen the platform spend an eyewatering amount of money to help increase its market share in the crypto space. This has seen the CEX take over the naming rights for the Lakers stadium, and put sponsorship deals in place with the UFC, and F1, to name a couple of the other recent big name partners they’re now working with.

The biggest selling point of the Crypto.com platform is their crypto debit card. The card allows users to turn their crypto to fiat, whether it be Sterling (GBP), or Euros, and spend it instantly. It also gives investors, who hold a certain amount of Cronos (CRO), the exchanges native token, a number of benefits. 

There are 5 tiers of this debit card available, ranging from the Midnight Blue card, that doesn’t have any staking requirements attached to it, and offers 1% cashback, all the way to the Obsidian card, that requires £300,000 worth of CRO to be staked, which offers a plethora of benefits, from enhanced cashback, subscription services, airport lounge access, and a 12% APR staking rate. 

Trading fees, which the CEX calls maker and taker fees, start at 0.4%, and over 250+ cryptocurrencies are tradable on the platform. 

Up until recently, Crypto.com offered some of the most competitive staking rates available to the EU/EEA and UK markets. However, these rates have since dropped across a number of the major coins, with new thresholds also being put in place, allowing the highest staking rates only being available on the first $30k of an investors funds.

Other EU/EEA and UK Exchanges

This is far from an exhaustive list of crypto exchanges available to EU/EEA and UK residents though, and the likes of BitFlyer, Wirex, Coinbase, and Gemini, to name a few, are also major players in this space.