Compare
BF Bitfinex VS BS Bitstamp
Both exchanges offer Spot. The differences below come from our individual reviews of Bitfinex and Bitstamp.
| Bitfinex | Bitstamp | |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2012 | 2011 |
| Regions | Blocked for US persons and entities since a 2021 New York Attorney General settlement. Available in most other regions, with licensed derivatives operations in El Salvador; verify local availability before signing up. | Available across the US, UK, and EU/EEA (MiCA-licensed since May 2025), plus a range of other regions; unavailable in a small number of jurisdictions with sanctions or licensing restrictions. Perpetual futures are limited to eligible EU and institutional users and not offered to US, Canadian, or Japanese customers. |
| Products | Spot, Margin, Peer-to-peer margin funding, Perpetual and dated futures, Securities and OTC block trades | Spot, Staking, Perpetual futures (EU/institutional only), OTC / institutional block trading |
| Maker fee | 0% as of a December 2025 platform-wide change; verify this remains current, since fee policy can shift again | 0.30% at the lowest 30-day-volume tier, stepping down to 0.00% at the highest tier (above roughly $1 billion in monthly volume) |
| Taker fee | 0% as of a December 2025 platform-wide change; verify this remains current, since fee policy can shift again | 0.40% at the lowest 30-day-volume tier, stepping down to roughly 0.03% at the highest tier |
Bitfinex pros
- Eliminated maker and taker fees across spot, margin, derivatives, and OTC trading platform-wide in December 2025, with no volume tiers or token-holding requirements
- Deep order-book liquidity and a mature peer-to-peer margin funding market that lets users lend idle assets directly to traders for yield
- One of the longest continuous operating histories in the industry, dating to 2012, and still functioning after surviving its own major hack
- A meaningful share of the bitcoin stolen in 2016 is now being returned to the exchange following a landmark US Department of Justice forfeiture case
Bitstamp pros
- The longest continuously operating major exchange, trading since 2011 without ever losing customer funds to a hack, including through a 2015 breach that cold-storage reserves absorbed
- Deep, long-standing regulatory footprint: a Luxembourg payment institution license since 2016, UK FCA cryptoasset registration, and a MiCA CASP license (May 2025) covering the full EEA
- Now backed by Robinhood's balance sheet and infrastructure following a $200 million acquisition that closed in June 2025, without (so far) folding Bitstamp into Robinhood's own product
- Nasdaq-built matching engine and a dedicated OTC desk, giving it institutional-grade infrastructure most retail-first exchanges don't build themselves
This table is generated from the same data behind our individual exchange reviews. See methodology for how it's put together. Fee figures marked "not yet verified" need confirming against live terms before this page is treated as launch-ready.