How We Review Crypto Platforms

What we assess

Whether we are looking at an exchange, a hardware wallet, a lending service or a staking provider, we weigh the same core dimensions — because they are the ones that decide how a platform treats your money:

• Fees and costs. The real, all-in cost of using the service: trading and spread costs, deposit and withdrawal charges, and the quieter fees that only show up once you are committed.
• Security posture. How custody is handled, what protections exist against loss or theft, the platform's track record through past incidents, and whether independent proof backs up its claims.
• Insurance and deposit protection. What is actually covered if something goes wrong — and, just as important, what is not. We are careful to separate genuine insurance from self-funded reserves and marketing language.
• Regulatory standing. Where the platform is licensed or registered, in which jurisdictions its products are available, and where users may be restricted — checked against the relevant regulator, not the platform's own summary.
• Usability. How straightforward the service is to set up and use safely, the quality of its support, and how well it suits the reader most likely to choose it.

What our ratings mean

A rating is a summary of that assessment, not a popularity score. A higher score means a platform does well across the dimensions above for the reader it is aimed at; a lower one flags real trade-offs you should weigh before signing up. The score is always there to be explained by the review, never the other way round.

We do not award a perfect five. No real platform is without weaknesses, and a flawless score would tell you more about the reviewer than the service. For the same reason, every review states its drawbacks: if a page cannot name a genuine downside, it has not looked hard enough. The goal is to leave you understanding the trade-offs, not just the verdict.

Independence

Our ratings and verdicts are not influenced by referral commissions. The site is funded by affiliate links, but which platforms we cover, what we praise, and what we criticise are editorial decisions made on the evidence — before any commercial arrangement is considered. A platform that pays a higher commission does not earn a higher score, and a critical review is published exactly as written.

This is a standing commitment, not an aspiration. If keeping it ever came into conflict with a commercial relationship, the review would stand and the relationship would not.

Keeping reviews current

Platforms change — fees move, products launch or close, security and regulatory situations shift. We refresh a review when something material actually changes, and we date-stamp the figures that decay so you can see how current they are. When we update a page for a real change, its modification date moves with it; we do not bump dates cosmetically to look fresh.

This page describes our review method specifically. For the wider editorial standards behind everything we publish — including how content is produced and verified — see the editorial standards section of our About page.