Bitstamp review

4.3Last reviewed 2026-08-12

Bitstamp is still a sound, conservative place to buy bitcoin, and it now operates as Bitstamp by Robinhood: Robinhood closed its roughly $200 million acquisition of the exchange on June 2, 2025. Founded in 2011, Bitstamp is one of the oldest surviving bitcoin exchanges and brought more than 50 licenses and registrations across the EU, UK, US, and Asia into the deal.

The Robinhood era has so far strengthened its regulatory position. Robinhood UK secured FCA cryptoasset registration on July 31, 2026 and routes its UK crypto trading through Bitstamp's infrastructure, while Bitstamp continues to run its own exchange for retail and institutional clients.

For buyers, the exchange offers transparent order-book pricing with maker-taker fees that fall with volume, free SEPA deposits, ACH for US customers, and card purchases at a premium. The open question is integration: Robinhood sets the product direction now, so expect continued changes to accounts, branding, and features.

Visit BitstampOpens www.bitstamp.net

Founded: 2011
Headquarters: Luxembourg
Fees: Order-book trading uses maker-taker pricing that falls with 30-day volume. Card purchases and instant buys cost more than order-book trades.
KYC: Required
Payment methods: Credit or debit card, SEPA transfer, SEPA Instant
Status: Operating

How you can pay on Bitstamp

Every deposit rail Bitstamp supports in at least one market.

SEPA (euro area): SEPA Instant SEPA transfer
Card: Credit or debit card

As published by Bitstamp: SEPA transfer (Europe), ACH transfer (US), International wire transfer, Debit and credit cards.

Where Bitstamp offers each rail, country by country

Pros and cons

What works

Operating continuously since 2011, one of the longest track records in the industry
More than 50 licenses and registrations across the EU, UK, US, and Asia
Robinhood ownership adds capital and an FCA-registered UK path since July 2026
Transparent order-book pricing instead of hidden spreads

What to watch

Ownership change means terms, branding, and product direction are set by Robinhood, and further integration changes are likely
Card purchases and instant buys cost significantly more than order-book trades
Growing institutional focus means retail features are not the first priority

Fees in detail

spread note: Instant buys and card purchases include a premium over the order-book price.
deposit note: SEPA deposits are free; international wires and card purchases carry fees.
withdrawal note: SEPA withdrawals carry a small fixed fee; bitcoin withdrawals pay a network fee.

Every Bitstamp cost, by rail and by country

What it costs to use Bitstamp

Bitstamp costs by action, with conditions where they apply.
What you do	What it costs
Buy bitcoin on the spot order book	0.40% taker, 0.30% maker below $10,000 of 30 day volumeAbove $10,000 it drops to 0.30% taker and 0.20% maker, and keeps falling to 0.03% taker past $1bn, where the maker fee reaches zero. Volume counts every pair and is measured in USD, but volume in FX and stablecoin pairs counts at 20% of its value, or 10% for USDT/USD and USDT/EUR.
Buy through the Basic Trading screen	1.8% spread inside the quoted price, plus 0% to 0.5% more when markets are volatileThe 1.8% applies to bitcoin and other crypto assets; stablecoins carry 0.5%. Basic Trading shows one guaranteed price with the spread already built in, so no fee line appears anywhere. It is several times the cost of the same buy on the order book.
Buy bitcoin instantly with a card, Apple Pay or Google Pay	4% instant service feeThat is Bitstamp's charge alone. A credit card issuer may treat the purchase as a cash advance and add its own fee and interest.
Deposit cash by local bank transfer	FreeCovers SEPA in euros, ACH in US dollars, Faster Payments in pounds and PayNow in Singapore dollars. Crypto deposits are free too.
Deposit cash by international wire	0.05%, minimum 7.50 USD/EUR/SGD or 5 GBP, maximum 300 USD/EUR/SGD or 250 GBP
Withdraw cash to your bank locally	3.00 EUR by SEPA, 2.00 GBP by Faster Payments, free by ACH and PayNow
Withdraw cash by international wire	0.1%, minimum 25 USD/EUR/GBP or 35 SGDYour receiving bank may charge on top. A returned wire costs 0.25%, minimum 50 EUR or 50 USD, or 40 GBP. A returned SEPA transfer costs 0.25%, minimum 25 EUR.
Withdraw bitcoin to your own wallet	Variable: Bitstamp's estimate of the network fee plus its own processing feeNo fixed figure is published. The exact amount is shown before you confirm the withdrawal.
Stake ETH or ADA through Earn	15% of ETH staking rewards, 25% of ADA rewardsTaken from the reward pool before distribution, so there is no separate charge to stake or unstake. Quoted APYs are net of it.

Bitstamp's security and regulatory record

Everything on the record we could date and source, newest first, including the parts that count against it.

2026-02-06Licence
Virtual asset service provider registration in the British Virgin Islands
Bitstamp Global Ltd was registered as a virtual asset service provider by the British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission, announced on 6 February 2026. The entity and its BVI supervision appear in the footer of Bitstamp's own site alongside the EU, UK, US and Singapore entities. It is an offshore registration for a separate group company and does not extend the EU or UK regimes to the customers it serves.
Bitstamp by Robinhood: BVI VASP registration
2025-07-03Licence
Major payment institution licence granted by the Monetary Authority of Singapore
The Monetary Authority of Singapore licensed Bitstamp Asia Pte Ltd as a major payment institution, announced on 3 July 2025 under licence number PS20200667. The same entity and licence number appear in the footer of Bitstamp's own site. It is the group's first full operating licence in Asia and came shortly after Robinhood's acquisition of Bitstamp, the exchange now trading as Bitstamp by Robinhood.
Bitstamp: globally trusted and now licensed in Singapore
2025-06-26Enforcement
French appeal court holds Bitstamp Europe liable for serving France without AMF registration
The Court of Appeal of Grenoble ruled on 26 June 2025 that Bitstamp Europe was civilly liable to a customer for having provided a digital asset service in France without registering with the Autorite des marches financiers by the PACTE Act deadline of 19 December 2020. The court ordered Bitstamp to pay 27,950 euros, the value of crypto assets stolen from that customer's account, plus 3,000 euros toward legal costs. The reasoning matters beyond the sum: the court treated the missing registration as a civil fault directly causing the loss, so the customer did not have to prove the exchange had been operationally negligent about the theft.
Goodwin: liability of crypto asset service providers for failure to register with the AMF
2025-05-16Licence
MiCA crypto asset service provider licence issued by the Luxembourg CSSF
The Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier authorised Bitstamp Europe S.A. as a crypto asset service provider under the EU Markets in Crypto Assets regulation, announced on 16 May 2025. It covers operating the trading platform, executing client orders and custody of crypto assets, and passports across the European Economic Area. CASP licence number N00000003 appears in the footer of Bitstamp's own site. MiCA brings custody, capital and disclosure obligations that the earlier payment institution licence did not impose on the crypto side of the business.
Bitstamp: secures CASP licence under MiCA
2023-06-13Licence
Registered as a cryptoasset business by the UK Financial Conduct Authority
Bitstamp UK Ltd was entered on the FCA cryptoasset register on 13 June 2023 under firm reference number 978690, covering custody of cryptoassets, buying and selling cryptoassets for legal tender, and crypto to crypto trading. The firm reference number appears in the footer of Bitstamp's own site. Read the scope carefully: this register is anti money laundering supervision only. It is not FCA authorisation of how the exchange treats customers, and crypto held at a registered firm is not protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
Bitstamp: registered as a cryptoasset business by the FCA
2022-11-18Proof of reserves
Proof of reserves audit described as an aim, not an existing practice
On 18 November 2022, weeks after FTX failed, Bitstamp published its position on reserves. It said its group and legal entities had been audited by a big four accounting firm annually since 2016, pointed to its ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2 certifications, and stated that its aim was to release a proof of reserves audit. That was a stated intention rather than something already in place. Bitstamp does not name the audit firm and does not publish the reports, and there is no Merkle tree proof that lets an individual customer check their own balance is included in a stated total.
Bitstamp: proof of reserves and transparency, the Bitstamp way
2022-03-18Audit
SOC 2 Type 2 attestation and ISO/IEC 27001 certification obtained, reports not published
Bitstamp announced on 18 March 2022 that it had obtained a SOC 2 Type 2 attestation, which tests whether security controls actually operated over a period rather than merely existing on paper, and ISO/IEC 27001 certification of its information security management system. The same post says Bitstamp is audited by one of the Big Four but does not name the firm. Neither report is published, so the findings cannot be checked from outside.
Bitstamp: two new certifications
2019-04-09Licence
New York BitLicense granted to Bitstamp USA
The New York State Department of Financial Services granted Bitstamp a virtual currency licence on 9 April 2019. US customers are served by Bitstamp USA, Inc., which the site's own footer states is licensed by NYDFS to engage in virtual currency business activity and separately licensed by NYDFS as a money transmitter, under NMLS number 1905429. New York is the only US state that reviews crypto firms this way, so the licence is a supervisory check rather than a self declaration.
Bitstamp: Bitstamp obtains BitLicense
2016-04-25Licence
Luxembourg payment institution licence, passportable across the EU
Luxembourg's financial regulator signed Bitstamp Europe S.A.'s payment institution licence on 25 April 2016, to take effect on 1 July 2016 when its Luxembourg headquarters became operational. The application ran close to two years and included security reviews and an audit by Ernst and Young. The licence passported into what were then 28 EU member states. Bitstamp still holds it: CSSF payment institution licence number Z00000012 appears in the footer of its own site.
Finance Magnates: Bitstamp gets payment institution licence in Luxembourg
2015-01-04Breach
18,866 BTC drained from the hot wallet, worth 5.26 million dollars, customers repaid in full
Attackers phished six Bitstamp employees between 4 November and 19 December 2014, using emails and Skype messages carrying Word attachments that ran an obfuscated VBA script and pulled down a remote access trojan. One employee opened a file named UPE_application_form.doc, which gave the attacker his laptop and, through it, a VPN route into Bitstamp's data centre. On 29 December 2014 the attacker took the wallet.dat file from one server and its passphrase from another. On 4 January 2015 the hot wallet was drained of 18,866 BTC, worth 5,263,614 dollars at Bitstamp's clearing price of 279 dollars per bitcoin. Bitstamp suspended the service at 09:00 UTC on 5 January, rebuilt the platform from a clean backup onto entirely new hardware on AWS, and reopened on 9 January 2015 with BitGo multisignature wallets integrated. All balances held before the suspension were honoured in full and the loss was absorbed by the company, not by customers.
Bitstamp incident report, 20 February 2015
2014-05-24Proof of reserves
Cold storage of 183,497 BTC proven by a send to self, observed by a bitcoin developer
On 24 May 2014 Bitstamp moved its cold wallet balance in a send to self transaction with bitcoin developer Mike Hearn observing, proving control of 183,497 BTC. Bitstamp said the reserves covered customer bitcoin held both on the exchange and on the Ripple network, and that a financial statement audit was under way at the time. It was a one off exercise and was not repeated on a schedule.
Bitstamp: BTC proof of reserves, May 2014
2014-02-11Outage
Bitcoin withdrawals suspended for four days by a transaction malleability attack
Bitstamp stopped processing bitcoin withdrawals on 11 February 2014 after a denial of service attack exploited transaction malleability and made its bitcoind wallet report inconsistent results. Failed withdrawal attempts from 10 and 11 February were cancelled and credited back to accounts. Bitstamp said no funds were lost and none were at risk, and announced on 15 February 2014 that fully automated bitcoin withdrawal processing had been restored after testing. Mt. Gox halted withdrawals in the same month citing the same class of attack and collapsed weeks later.
Bitstamp: bitcoin withdrawal processing suspended

The Bitstamp record by kind, and compared with its alternatives

Where we recommend Bitstamp

Countries where Bitstamp ranks in our local guide, each with its rank, the payment methods it takes there and the legal position. Availability beyond these is possible but unverified by us.

Not available to residents of 2 countries by its own list: Canada, Russia.

All 31 countries with rank, rails and legal status

Frequently asked questions

What happened to Bitstamp?

Robinhood closed its roughly $200 million acquisition on June 2, 2025, and the exchange now operates as Bitstamp by Robinhood. The exchange itself keeps running for retail and institutional customers.

Is Bitstamp regulated in the UK?

Robinhood UK secured FCA cryptoasset registration on July 31, 2026 and routes its UK crypto trading through Bitstamp's infrastructure. Bitstamp itself holds more than 50 licenses and registrations across the EU, UK, US, and Asia.

Is Bitstamp good for buying bitcoin?

Yes. It has run an order book since 2011, supports free SEPA deposits and ACH in the US, and its maker-taker fees fall with volume. Card purchases cost more than order-book trades.

Will my Bitstamp account change under Robinhood?

Expect gradual integration: branding, account terms, and product direction are now set by Robinhood. Watch official emails for migration steps rather than acting on rumors.