Three different products hide behind the phrase cryptocurrency app, and mixing them up is how people end up with four apps they do not need. An exchange is where you buy. A wallet is where you hold. A tracker is where you watch. Most people need the first, sometimes the second, and almost never the third.
This page is deliberately short. For each app you get what it is best for, what a trade costs, what you can actually trade on it, and the one thing that will annoy you. Every figure below was pulled from the company’s own site or public API on September 1, 2026, and every app was confirmed to still be open to US users.
One rule covers every app here. Crypto held in an exchange account is not insured. The FDIC states that deposit insurance does not apply to crypto assets and does not protect you against the failure of the custodian holding them, and SIPC protection does not cover digital assets that are not securities. Some apps park your idle US dollars at an insured bank. That protects the cash and never the coins.
Best cryptocurrency exchanges at a glance
| App | Best for | Coins with a USD market | What a trade costs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kraken | Anyone buying more than pocket money | 662 | 0.40% maker and 0.80% taker on Kraken Pro |
| Coinbase | Beginners who want the biggest US name | 401 | Not published outside the app |
| Gemini | Knowing the fee before you deposit | 156 | 0.600% maker and 1.200% taker at the entry tier |
| eToro | One number to remember, plus copy trading | Over 100 | 1% to buy or sell |
| Public | Crypto sitting beside stocks and bonds | 60 plus | Not published |
Asset counts came from each exchange’s own public API on September 1, 2026, not from marketing pages. Fees came from each company’s published schedule.
The five exchanges worth your time
Kraken
Kraken has the longest asset list of any exchange here and the clearest pricing. Its Pro interface starts at 0.40% maker and 0.80% taker at Tier 1 and falls as your 30 day volume rises. The app now sells stocks alongside crypto, so one account covers both.
Open a Kraken account and place your first order through Pro rather than the instant buy button.
Coinbase
Coinbase is the largest US exchange and a public company, which means audited financials you can actually read. Its public API listed 401 assets with live USD markets when we checked. The app has also grown well past crypto into stocks, prediction markets and derivatives, so the coins are now one tab among several.
Open a Coinbase account if you want the largest and most heavily regulated US option.
Gemini
Gemini publishes a fee schedule you can read in full before you deposit a cent, which is rarer than it should be. The schedule in force is dated July 9, 2026 and starts at 0.600% maker and 1.200% taker for everyone at the entry tier, dropping steadily with volume. Its API listed 156 US dollar trading pairs.
Open a Gemini account if you would rather know the number up front than hunt for it.
eToro
eToro charges one fee and states it plainly. Its own fee page says the company charges “a straightforward, transparent fee of 1% for buying or selling crypto,” with over 100 cryptoassets available to US users. Copy trading, where you mirror another trader’s positions automatically, is still its signature feature.
Open an eToro account if a single predictable fee matters more to you than the lowest possible one.
Public
Public is the pick if you want crypto in the same app as your stocks, ETFs, options and bonds instead of a separate login. It advertises a growing collection of 60 plus assets trading around the clock, and it now offers crypto inside an IRA.
Open a Public account if consolidating everything into one brokerage is worth more to you than a published fee.
Wallets, and when you actually need one
You need a wallet when the amount would ruin your month if the exchange failed. Below that line, leaving coins on a large exchange is a defensible trade for most people. Above it, move them. None of the three below pays us anything, so treat this as a straight recommendation.
Ledger Nano X
The hardware wallet to buy if you want your phone to be the interface. It connects over Bluetooth rather than a cable, manages more than 15,000 coins and tokens, and holds up to 100 apps at once. It now sits in Ledger’s Classics line rather than at the top of the range, so compare it against the current models on Ledger’s own site before you order.
Trezor Safe 5
The touchscreen alternative, listed at $129 and in stock, with an EAL6+ certified secure element. If you own the older Model T, Trezor has stopped selling it but commits to software updates until at least 2031 and critical security fixes until at least 2036, so there is no reason to rush a replacement.
Zengo
A software wallet with no seed phrase to lose. It splits your key using multi party computation instead of handing you twelve words to hide in a drawer, covers more than 380 assets, and the iOS app was last updated on August 31, 2026. The wallet itself is free, and the optional Zengo Pro subscription is listed at $19.99 a month or $129.99 a year. Good for a phone sized balance. Not the place for the amount you would put in hardware.
Portfolio trackers
Skip this entirely if all your crypto sits on one exchange, because that exchange already shows you the same numbers. A tracker earns its place only once you hold coins in more than one spot. CoinMarketCap is the free one and is enough for most people. CoinStats is the paid step up at $13.99 a month after a free trial, with a 14 day money back guarantee, and it pulls crypto, NFT and DeFi balances into one place instead of leaving you to type them in.
Three things to check before you sign up
- Your state. US crypto availability is decided state by state, and eToro’s exclusions above are not the only ones in the market. Confirm your state is supported before you move money in, not after.
- The fee on the order screen, not the fee page. Almost every exchange here runs a cheap professional interface and an expensive simple one. The gap between them is usually larger than the gap between two different exchanges.
- What happens if the company fails. Nothing you hold on an exchange is insured by anyone. That is the argument for a hardware wallet once the balance gets serious, and the argument for spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs in an ordinary brokerage account if you would rather skip custody risk altogether.
If you would rather earn a little crypto than buy it while you learn how wallets and transfers behave, our guide to getting free Bitcoin and crypto walks through the legitimate routes.
Frequently asked questions
Of the published schedules, Kraken Pro is cheapest at 0.40% maker and 0.80% taker at its entry tier, against 0.600% and 1.200% at Gemini and a flat 1% at eToro. Coinbase and Public do not publish a consumer crypto fee at all. The bigger saving is not the exchange you choose but the interface you use, because the simple buy button on any of these costs several times what the professional interface on the same exchange charges. Open a Kraken account and trade through Pro if fees are your deciding factor.
Not to buy, and not for a small balance. The exchange holds the coins for you and that is fine while the amount is one you could shrug off. You need your own wallet at the point where losing the balance would genuinely hurt, because an exchange account is a claim on a company rather than possession of the asset. The Ledger Nano X and Trezor Safe 5 are the two hardware devices worth considering, and Zengo is the software option if you want something on your phone with no seed phrase to lose.
No, and no exchange insures it either. The FDIC has said plainly that deposit insurance does not apply to crypto assets and does not protect against the failure of the platform holding them. SIPC does not cover digital assets that are not securities. Where an app advertises FDIC coverage it is referring to your uninvested US dollars sitting at a partner bank, never to the coins.
Yes, two ways. You can hold spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs inside any ordinary brokerage or IRA, which means you pay a fund fee but take on no exchange custody risk. Or you can hold the coins themselves in a crypto IRA. Public offers crypto IRAs alongside its regular brokerage account, which keeps everything under one login.
Where to go next
If the goal is to accumulate crypto without spending cash, read how to make money with Bitcoin before you fund anything. If mining is what brought you here, we keep a separate list of Bitcoin mining software that is still maintained, along with an honest answer about who it is actually worth it for. And if the total you are working with is small, the general rules in our guide to investing with little money apply here just as well.
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