Richard Ramberg
As we at Cryptowisser.com have the world’s largest Exchange List and the world’s largest Derivatives Exchange List, where all information on fees is updated on a monthly basis, we feel that it is our duty towards the members of the crypto community to publish a study of what actually is the average crypto spot trading fee and the average crypto contracts trading fee. Consequently, we have created this report.
Q3 2021 Fees Report: Summary
This particular report is our fourth full-blown empirical study. Compared to the previous report, for Q2 2021 published in July 2021, we note that:
- The average spot trading taker fee has remained at 0.221% in Q3 2021 (exactly the same, 0.221%, in the previous quarter), and that the average spot trading maker fee has made a microscopical increase to 0.178% in Q3 2021 from 0.177% in the previous quarter.
- The average contracts trading taker fees for Q3 2021 has decreased to 0.0591% compared to 0.065% in the earlier quarter, and the average contracts trading maker fee has also dropped somewhat, to 0.0215% (0.024% in Q2 2021).
- The average BTC-withdrawal fee has been reduced from 0.00057 BTC per BTC-withdrawal in the last quarter to 0.00053 BTC per BTC-withdrawal this quarter. This development is due to the network fees dropping, and a large portion of the exchanges in the study only charging network fees as withdrawal fees.
Average Spot Trading Fee
In our Exchange List, taker and maker fees are listed for 386 different spot trading exchanges. The taker fees range from nothing (there are 19 exchanges that have 0.00% as their taker fee) to 1.99% (American exchange Gemini). The maker fees range from -0.25% (SINEGY Marketplace), meaning that you get paid 0.25% of the order value if you are the maker, to 1.99% (again, American exchange Gemini...).
The market average spot trading fee is 0.221% for takers and 0.178% for makers.*
The following bar chart shows the allocation of fees between the spot trading exchanges in the study:
Average Contracts Trading Fee
Out of the 40 exchanges offering contracts trading in the exchange list where we could determine what taker and maker fees they charged, the taker fees ranged from 0.04% (two exchanges: Huobi and Mexo) to 0.10% (also two exchanges: DragonEx and dYdX).
Maker fees range from -0.025% (6 different exchanges have -0.025% as their contracts trading maker fee) up to 0.075% (three exchanges: Bexplus, Bitwells and BW.com).
The market average contracts trading fee is 0.0591% for takers and 0.0215% for makers.
The following bar chart shows the allocation of fees between the contracts trading exchanges in the study:
Average BTC-withdrawal Fee
Out of the 315 exchanges we have been able to retrieve fixed BTC-withdrawal fees from, the withdrawal fees range from 0 (18 different exchanges) to 0.005 BTC (two exchanges: Coinsbank). 0.005 BTC is a really hefty withdrawal fee and corresponds to USD 311.66 on the date of preparing this report (18 October 2021).
Many exchanges don’t charge any fees at all, but when you withdraw from these exchanges, you still have to pay the network fees to the miners in the network. Accordingly, we have inputted the network fee (updated monthly) in our database as the withdrawal fee for such exchanges. The network fee on the date of publishing this report was 0.00005 BTC per BTC-withdrawal, which is a more than 75% drop compared to the network fee on the date of the publication of the previous report (then it was 0.00021 BTC).
The average BTC-withdrawal fee is 0.00053375 BTC per BTC-withdrawal.**
The following bar chart shows the allocation of BTC-withdrawal fees in the study:
Concluding Thoughts
The results from the report are somewhat inconclusive. The spot trading fees and contracts trading fees have stayed at roughly the same level as they were at during Q2 2021.
Withdrawal fees in this report have however dropped approx. 7%, down to 0.00053 BTC per BTC-withdrawal. This is in large parts explained by the lower network fees (0.00005 BTC per withdrawal vs 0.00021 BTC per withdrawal last time) and that more and more exchanges just charge the network fees.
This report is the fifth report in Cryptowisser.com’s crypto trading fee report series, and the next report will be prepared and published in the beginning of Q1 2022.
* The following types of exchanges have been excluded from the calculations of spot trading fees, contracts trading fees and withdrawal fees:
(i) exchanges not offering spot trading, such as crypto stores, or market places where users can post ads for selling Bitcoins etc.,
(ii) exchanges where we have not been able to find unambiguous data on the relevant trading fees, and
(iii) exchanges that were not in operation on 30 September 2021.
Furthermore, the trading fees used for the calculation are always excluding any and all discounts based on trading volume or holdings of an exchange’s native token etc.
** The following groups of withdrawal fees have been excluded from the calculations:
(i) percentage based withdrawal fees; and
(ii) hybrid models (where one part of the withdrawal fee is percentage based and another part of the withdrawal fee is a fixed cryptocurrency amount).
