Bitstamp Review: Robinhood Ownership, Licences, Fees and Safety

Verdict: Bitstamp, trading since 2011 and owned by Robinhood since 2 June 2025, is one of the cheaper regulated order-book exchanges for small accounts: 0.30% maker and 0.40% taker below $10,000 of monthly volume. It holds a MiCA licence in Luxembourg, an FCA registration in the UK, a New York BitLicense and a MAS licence in Singapore. Its simple “Basic Trading” screen is expensive, with a fixed 1.8% spread on most crypto, so use the order book.

This review is based on Bitstamp’s fee schedule (valid from 21 October 2026, with a revised version taking effect on 24 November 2026), its legal-entity disclosures, Robinhood’s quarterly report to the SEC and the ESMA MiCA register. It covers ownership, entities and availability, safety and the 2015 hack, fees, ID checks, products and how Bitstamp compares with Gemini. Crypto assets are volatile, nothing here is financial advice, and we show no live prices.

What are the key facts about Bitstamp?

Bitstamp has operated since 2011 and is now part of Robinhood Markets, which bought all of its equity on 2 June 2025 for about $224 million in cash. Customers are served by different Bitstamp companies depending on residence: Bitstamp Europe S.A. in the EEA, Bitstamp UK Ltd in the UK, Bitstamp USA, Inc. in the US, Bitstamp Asia Pte. Ltd. in Singapore and Bitstamp Global Ltd. elsewhere.

Is Bitstamp now owned by Robinhood?

Yes. Robinhood Markets acquired all outstanding equity of Bitstamp on 2 June 2025, according to its quarterly report to the SEC, for consideration valued at about $224 million after purchase-price adjustments, paid entirely in cash. Robinhood said the deal accelerates its expansion across the EU, the UK and Asia. The exchange now brands itself “Bitstamp by Robinhood” and reports its trading volume as a separate line in Robinhood’s results.

The acquisition did not merge your account into the Robinhood app. Bitstamp still runs its own platform, apps and legal entities, and Robinhood reports “Bitstamp Notional Volume” separately from trades in the Robinhood app. Some Robinhood app users in the UK and EU are routed to Bitstamp’s entities behind the scenes, and Bitstamp’s fee schedule has a separate section for them: Bitstamp Europe S.A. charges those clients 0.95% on crypto trades, and from 24 November 2026 Bitstamp UK Ltd does too.

Which Bitstamp entity serves you, and where is it available?

Bitstamp assigns you to a legal entity by residence. EEA residents are served by Bitstamp Europe S.A. in Luxembourg under MiCA, UK residents by Bitstamp UK Ltd, US residents by Bitstamp USA, Inc., Singapore residents by Bitstamp Asia Pte. Ltd., and clients in other supported countries by Bitstamp Global Ltd. in the British Virgin Islands. Each entity has its own terms and regulator.

• EEA: Bitstamp Europe S.A. appears on ESMA’s interim MiCA register with custody, operation of a trading platform, exchange, order execution, reception and transmission of orders and transfer services, passported to every EEA country. Unlike several rivals it is authorised to operate a trading platform itself. See our MiCA explainer for what that licence covers.
• UK: Bitstamp UK Ltd is on the FCA’s cryptoasset register under the Money Laundering Regulations. As its own UK pages state, cryptoasset services are not regulated by the FCA in the way investments are, and you are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong.
• United States: Bitstamp USA, Inc. holds a New York BitLicense and money transmitter licences; Bitstamp lists 41 state-level money transmitter licences plus a Louisiana virtual currency licence.
• Singapore: Bitstamp Asia Pte. Ltd. holds a MAS major payment institution licence.
• Elsewhere: Bitstamp Global Ltd., a BVI virtual asset service provider, serves other supported countries.

Bitstamp does not publish a single public restricted-countries list that we could open, so check eligibility at sign-up. Fiat rails differ by entity: SEPA for euros, Faster Payments for pounds, ACH for dollars and PayNow for Singapore dollars.

Is Bitstamp safe?

Bitstamp keeps customer crypto and cash separate from company funds, holds most crypto offline, and says it has been audited every year since 2016 by a Big Four accounting firm, with SOC 2 Type 2 attestations and ISO/IEC 27001 certification. Its main incident was a January 2015 hack of less than 19,000 BTC from operational wallets; customer balances were honoured in full.

How does Bitstamp hold customer assets?

According to Bitstamp, all customer crypto and fiat assets are stored separately from corporate funds and crypto is kept mostly offline. Customer cash is held with independent third-party custodians, and Bitstamp’s financial control team reconciles customer funds against those custodians’ records. Bitstamp says its custodians provide insurance for client assets held in cold wallets, but it does not publish the amount.

Bitstamp does not publish a Merkle-tree proof of reserves. Its assurance comes from annual external audits, SOC 2 Type 2 reports on security controls and supervision in Luxembourg, the UK, New York and Singapore. Since June 2025 it has also been part of a US-listed group that files audited accounts with the SEC. For the general risks of leaving funds on any platform, see is it safe to keep crypto on an exchange?

What happened in the 2015 Bitstamp hack?

On 5 January 2015 at 9am UTC Bitstamp suspended its service after attackers took less than 19,000 BTC, worth more than $5 million at the time, from its operational (hot) wallets. The chief executive said the loss was a small part of total reserves, most of which sat in offline cold storage, and that balances held before the suspension would be “honored in full”. Service resumed within about a week.

We found no later hack of customer funds in the sources we opened. Phishing remains the main day-to-day risk: no genuine support agent needs your password or two-factor codes, and links in unexpected emails should never be used to log in.

How much does Bitstamp charge?

Bitstamp’s order book starts at 0.30% maker and 0.40% taker below $10,000 of 30-day volume, falling to 0.20% and 0.30% above $10,000 and 0.10% and 0.20% above $100,000. Stablecoin and FX pairs are far cheaper. Basic Trading, the simple buy screen, instead adds a fixed 1.8% spread on most crypto (0.5% on stablecoins) plus a volatility spread of up to 0.5%.

On an illustrative $1,000 market buy at the entry tier, Bitstamp’s 0.40% taker fee is $4.00 and a 0.30% maker order is $3.00. The same purchase through Basic Trading costs about $18 in fixed spread alone, and by card about $40 in Instant Purchase fees. That gap is the main reason to learn the order book. For how the big three compare on the same maths, see our Binance vs Kraken vs Coinbase fee comparison.

Tier volume is counted across all pairs in US dollars, but FX and stablecoin volume is discounted: $100 traded on most stablecoin pairs counts as $20 toward your tier, and $100 on USDT or RLUSD pairs counts as $10. The minimum order is 10 units of the quote currency (for example 10 EUR or 10 USD) or 0.0002 BTC on bitcoin-quoted pairs.

How does Bitstamp compare with Gemini?

Bitstamp is cheaper and more international than Gemini. Its entry order-book rates are 0.30% maker and 0.40% taker against Gemini’s 0.60% and 1.20%, its card fee is 4% against Gemini’s 3.49%, and it keeps licensed operations in the EEA, the UK, the US and Singapore while Gemini is winding down in the UK, Europe and Australia. Gemini’s edge is its New York trust charter and US product range.

For a US resident who wants the lowest order-book cost, Bitstamp’s 0.40% entry taker rate beats Gemini’s 1.20% by a wide margin: $4 against $12 on an illustrative $1,000 market order. Our full Gemini review covers the trust charter, the Earn settlements and Gemini’s European exit in detail.

What ID checks does Bitstamp require?

Bitstamp verifies every account before trading: you give personal details and a government ID, and the entity serving you applies its own anti-money-laundering rules. Expect source-of-funds questions for large deposits, and in the EEA, travel-rule checks when you withdraw more than €1,000 to a self-hosted wallet, where Bitstamp may ask you to prove the wallet is yours.

UK customers also see the mandatory UK financial promotion warnings and risk summary before investing. Bitstamp cannot return fiat balances under 25 EUR or USD when an account is closed (this does not apply to Bitstamp USA clients), so withdraw small balances before closing an account.

What products does Bitstamp offer?

Bitstamp offers spot trading on its order book and Basic Trading, a mobile app, recurring buys, staking (Earn Stake), crypto lending (Earn Lend), an institutional service and multi-asset perpetual futures covering crypto, commodities, FX and equity indices. Derivatives are provided by Bitstamp Financial Services in Ljubljana, a MiFID investment firm, so availability depends on where you live.

• Perpetual futures: launched as “multi-asset perpetual futures” trading crypto, commodities, FX and equity indices from one pool of capital; provided by Bitstamp Financial Services under Slovenian MiFID supervision.
• Staking: ETH at a 15% commission and ADA at 25%, quoted net on the Earn page. Compare it with other routes in how to stake Ethereum.
• Lending: Earn Lend pays a return for lending assets; like any crypto lending it adds borrower risk on top of exchange risk.
• Institutional: high-volume “FastPass” pricing for $500,000+ traders and partner services.

How do you withdraw from Bitstamp safely?

To withdraw safely from Bitstamp, enable two-factor authentication, whitelist your destination addresses, check that the network matches your receiving wallet, read the variable withdrawal fee on the confirmation screen and send a small test first. Crypto deposits are free; withdrawals cost an estimated network fee plus a Bitstamp processing fee, disclosed before you confirm.

1. Turn on two-factor authentication with an authenticator app.
2. Copy the destination address from your own wallet and check the first and last characters.
3. Pick the network your wallet supports; for USDT this matters most.
4. Confirm the fee, then send a small test before the rest.
5. In the EEA, be ready to confirm ownership of a self-hosted wallet for transfers above €1,000.

Our walkthrough on moving crypto from an exchange to your own wallet goes through each step.

What are the alternatives to Bitstamp?

In Europe, the closest alternatives are Kraken (MiCA via Ireland), Coinbase (MiCA via Luxembourg) and Bitpanda (MiCA via Austria). In the US, Coinbase and Kraken are the main regulated rivals, and Gemini remains an option for US residents. On entry order-book fees Bitstamp’s 0.40% taker sits below Kraken Pro’s 0.80%, Coinbase Advanced’s 0.90% in the US and Gemini’s 1.20%.