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.
Q2 2021 Fees Report: Summary
This particular report is our fourth full-blown empirical study. Compared to the previous report, for Q1 2021 published in April 2021, we note that:
- The average spot trading taker fee has increased to 0.221% in Q2 2021 from 0.215% in the previous quarter, and that the average spot trading maker fee has increased to 0.177% in Q2 2021 from 0.162% in the previous quarter.
- The average contracts trading taker fees for Q2 2021 has increased to 0.065% compared to 0.063% in the earlier quarter, and the average contracts trading maker fee is 0.024% (0.018% in Q1 2021).
- The average BTC-withdrawal fee is down from 0.00059 BTC per BTC-withdrawal in the last quarter to 0.00057 BTC per BTC-withdrawal in the recent quarter. This change is even bigger than what you might expect, seeing as 0.00057 BTC was worth USD 16.96 when writing this report (19 July 2021) and that 0.00059 BTC was worth USD 35.32 on 12 April 2021 (the date of the previous report). So in effect, the average withdrawal fee is down by USD 18.36 (51.98%).
Average Spot Trading Fee
In our Exchange List, taker and maker fees are listed for 396 different spot trading exchanges. The taker fees range from nothing (there are 14 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 0.2213% for takers and 0.1774% 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 47 exchanges offering contracts trading in the exchange list where we could determine what taker and maker fees they charged, the taker fees range from 0.00% to 0.20% (dYdX and Bit-Z both charges 0.20% as their contracts trading fee for takers).
Maker fees range from -0.025% (10 different exchanges have -0.025% as their contracts trading maker fee) to 0.20% (again, Bit-Z).
The market average contracts trading fee is 0.065% for takers and 0.024% 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 328 exchanges we have been able to retrieve fixed BTC-withdrawal fees from, the withdrawal fees range from 0 (17 different exchanges) to 0.005 BTC (two exchanges: Vaultoro and Coinsbank). 0.005 BTC is a really hefty withdrawal fee and corresponds to USD 148.64 on the date of preparing this report (19 July 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 average BTC-withdrawal fee is 0.000571949 BTC per BTC-withdrawal.**
The following bar chart shows the allocation of BTC-withdrawal fees in the study (exchanges charging network fees have been listed as 0.00021 BTC, being the average transaction fee on 19 July 2021, the date of publishing this study):
Concluding Thoughts
The results from the report are somewhat inconclusive. The fees have stayed at roughly the same level as they were at during Q1 2021.
The slight increase in taker and maker fees might simply be because of the death of a couple of low fee exchanges (included in the Q1-report but now excluded in the Q2-report), and the consequent increase in averages. We do not dare to draw any further strong conclusions based on our review of the fee averages this time.
This report is the fourth report in Cryptowisser.com’s crypto trading fee report series, and the next report will be prepared and published in the beginning of Q4 2021.
* 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 June 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).
