North America · USD
How to buy crypto in the United States
Which routes actually work here, what each one costs, and how much verification it asks for. Facts only — we do not rank and we are not paid by anyone on this page.
Legal status Legal. Federal rules plus state-by-state licensing; New York requires its own BitLicense.
Ways to buy in the United States
Verification is described as it is, not as something to avoid. Every route here is legal; they differ in cost, speed and paperwork.
| Method | Available | Verification | Rails | Cost | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Local bank transfer Move your own currency to an exchange over the local payment system, then buy. | Available | Full verification Government ID and Social Security number; the account must be in your own name. | ACH, wire, FedNow where offered | 0–1.5% | ACH 1–5 days, wire same day |
| Debit or credit card Fastest route and almost always the most expensive one. | Limited | Full verification Same as bank transfer, plus the card must belong to you. | Visa, Mastercard debit | 3–5% | Minutes |
| Peer-to-peer You pay another person directly; the exchange holds the coins until you confirm. | Limited | ID document Platforms verify you even though the payment is between two people. | Bank transfer, payment apps | 0–2% | 15 min – 2 h |
| Crypto ATM Cash in, coins to your wallet. Convenient, and the most expensive of the cash options. | Available | ID document Phone number for small amounts; identity document above modest thresholds. | Cash | 8–20% | Minutes |
| Cash desk / OTC A physical counter or a desk for larger amounts, usually with an appointment. | Available | Full verification Full identification and, above certain sums, a source-of-funds check. | Wire transfer | 0.5–2% | Same day |
Platforms that serve the United States
Listed, not recommended. The year each one launched is there so you can weigh it yourself.
| Platform | Deposit methods | Currencies | Verification | Founded | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coinbase ↗ Widest state coverage; the simple buy screen costs more than the trading view. | ACH, wire, card | USD | Full verification | 2012 | 25 Aug 2026 |
| Kraken ↗ Long-running; check whether it serves your state before planning around it. | ACH, wire | USD | Full verification | 2011 | 25 Aug 2026 |
| Gemini ↗ Supervised by New York as a limited purpose trust company. | ACH, wire | USD | Full verification | 2014 | 25 Aug 2026 |
| Robinhood ↗ Broker, not an exchange. Coins can be withdrawn to your own wallet — check the note before assuming. | ACH, debit card | USD | Full verification | 2013 | 25 Aug 2026 |
| Cash App ↗ Bitcoin only. Deposits and withdrawals to your own wallet are supported. | Bank, debit card | USD | Full verification | not verified | 25 Aug 2026 |
Check a platform in the official register
There is no single federal list. Crypto platforms are licensed state by state, so the practical check is a state licence lookup, with two federal and one New York source behind it.
Start here
Searchable
NMLS Consumer Access
State financial regulators, through the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System (NMLS)
- What it covers
- Firms holding a state money transmitter licence, which is the licence most US crypto exchange and custody businesses actually need, state by state.
- What it does not prove
- A licence is per-state and covers money transmission conduct. It says nothing about whether the platform's products are lawful securities or derivatives offerings, nor about solvency or how your coins are held.
- Worth knowing
- A licence in one state is not a licence in yours — check your own state. This is the system of record used by state regulators rather than a government domain of its own.
Also check
Searchable
Money services business registrant search
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, US Department of the Treasury (FinCEN)
- What it covers
- Money services businesses registered under federal anti-money-laundering law. Crypto exchangers count as money transmitters and must appear.
- What it does not prove
- Registration here is self-filed and not checked. FinCEN publishes what the firm submitted, does not licence anyone and does not verify the contents.
- Worth knowing
- Filings take weeks to appear and lapsed registrations are deleted once a year, so absence can mean expired rather than never registered. Crypto firms appear as money transmitters, not under any crypto category.
Also check
Static list
Virtual currency businesses — regulated entities
New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS)
- What it covers
- Firms holding a BitLicense, money transmitter licence or limited purpose trust charter for virtual currency activity involving New York or a New York resident.
- What it does not prove
- New York only, and a BitLicense is not federal approval. It does not mean the regulator has approved any particular coin the platform lists.
- Worth knowing
- A static table on the page itself. Licences are surrendered as well as granted, so read it fresh rather than relying on an article about it.
Being on a register is one box ticked, not a safety rating — it says nothing about solvency or whether your coins are segregated. The rest of the boxes are here.
Notes on United States
One country, fifty-one answers. This is the page where a single row in the table above can mislead you, and it is worth saying plainly. Federal rules apply everywhere, but money transmission is licensed state by state, so whether a given platform will open an account for you depends on where you live. New York is the sharpest example: since June 2015 anyone carrying out virtual currency business activity there needs a BitLicense or a limited purpose trust charter from the state's Department of Financial Services, which is why some well-known platforms simply do not serve New Yorkers. Check the platform's own state list before you plan anything around it.
Tax, and the part that surprises people. The IRS treats digital assets as property, not currency. That single classification decides everything else: every disposal is a taxable event, and disposal is broader than selling for dollars. Swapping one coin for another is a disposal. Paying for something with crypto is a disposal. Spending a token to cover a transaction fee can be one too. In each case you are treated as having sold at market value, and the gain or loss is calculated against what you paid for it.
Holding period decides the rate. One year or less is a short-term gain, taxed at your ordinary income rate. More than a year is a long-term gain, which is taxed more favourably. So the same trade can carry a materially different bill depending on a date you may not have recorded.
Every federal return asks a yes or no question about digital assets, near the top of the form. Answering it wrongly is its own problem, separate from any tax owed.
From the 2025 tax year, US brokers report your disposals to the IRS on Form 1099-DA and send you a copy. Two things follow. Your figures and theirs are now compared, so a return assembled from memory is a bad idea. And the obligation runs the other way regardless: you must report all income, gains and losses from digital asset transactions whether or not a form arrives.
Stablecoins now have a federal framework. The GENIUS Act was signed on 18 July 2025 and created the first federal regime for payment stablecoins, requiring issuers to hold reserves fully backed by liquid assets such as dollars and short-term Treasuries, and to disclose the composition of those reserves every month. It also requires issuers to be able to freeze or burn tokens when legally compelled — worth knowing before treating a stablecoin balance as equivalent to cash in your pocket.
Brokers and payment apps, which is how most Americans actually start. Plenty of people buy their first coins inside an app they already had — a stock broker such as Robinhood, or a payment app such as Cash App — rather than opening an account on a crypto exchange. That is a perfectly ordinary route and the table above includes it.
There is one question to ask about any of them, and it is not the fee. Can you send the coins to a wallet you control? On some products the answer is yes: Robinhood supports transfers to external wallets in every state, and Cash App supports bitcoin deposits and withdrawals. On others you hold price exposure and nothing more — the position can be sold but never moved, which means you never own the asset in the sense the rest of this site means it. Find the answer before you decide how much to put in, because it decides what happens if the company restricts your account.
Being large and familiar is also not the same as being clean. New York's regulator fined Robinhood Crypto 30 million dollars in August 2022 over anti-money-laundering, cybersecurity and consumer protection failings, and settled with Block, the owner of Cash App, for 40 million dollars in April 2025 over an inadequate anti-money-laundering programme. Neither is a reason to avoid them and neither is a secret; both are on the regulator's own site, and they are the kind of record worth knowing about anybody holding your money.
Machines, and the reason for the warning in the table. The United States has the largest crypto ATM network in the world and also the largest problem attached to it. The FTC reported more than $110 million lost to Bitcoin ATM scams in 2023, and $65 million in the first half of 2024 alone — close to a tenfold rise since 2020. The median individual loss was $10,000, and people over 60 were more than three times as likely as younger adults to report losing money this way. The pattern is not machine failure: somebody phones with an urgent story and directs the victim to a machine, because cash into a crypto ATM is fast and does not come back.
Payments. ACH transfers are cheap and slow, and platforms often hold the funds for several days before allowing a withdrawal in crypto. Wires cost more and clear the same day. Card purchases are patchy — many issuers decline crypto purchases outright or treat them as cash advances with a separate fee and interest from day one.
Tax, and the part that surprises people. The IRS treats digital assets as property, not currency. That single classification decides everything else: every disposal is a taxable event, and disposal is broader than selling for dollars. Swapping one coin for another is a disposal. Paying for something with crypto is a disposal. Spending a token to cover a transaction fee can be one too. In each case you are treated as having sold at market value, and the gain or loss is calculated against what you paid for it.
Holding period decides the rate. One year or less is a short-term gain, taxed at your ordinary income rate. More than a year is a long-term gain, which is taxed more favourably. So the same trade can carry a materially different bill depending on a date you may not have recorded.
Every federal return asks a yes or no question about digital assets, near the top of the form. Answering it wrongly is its own problem, separate from any tax owed.
From the 2025 tax year, US brokers report your disposals to the IRS on Form 1099-DA and send you a copy. Two things follow. Your figures and theirs are now compared, so a return assembled from memory is a bad idea. And the obligation runs the other way regardless: you must report all income, gains and losses from digital asset transactions whether or not a form arrives.
Stablecoins now have a federal framework. The GENIUS Act was signed on 18 July 2025 and created the first federal regime for payment stablecoins, requiring issuers to hold reserves fully backed by liquid assets such as dollars and short-term Treasuries, and to disclose the composition of those reserves every month. It also requires issuers to be able to freeze or burn tokens when legally compelled — worth knowing before treating a stablecoin balance as equivalent to cash in your pocket.
Brokers and payment apps, which is how most Americans actually start. Plenty of people buy their first coins inside an app they already had — a stock broker such as Robinhood, or a payment app such as Cash App — rather than opening an account on a crypto exchange. That is a perfectly ordinary route and the table above includes it.
There is one question to ask about any of them, and it is not the fee. Can you send the coins to a wallet you control? On some products the answer is yes: Robinhood supports transfers to external wallets in every state, and Cash App supports bitcoin deposits and withdrawals. On others you hold price exposure and nothing more — the position can be sold but never moved, which means you never own the asset in the sense the rest of this site means it. Find the answer before you decide how much to put in, because it decides what happens if the company restricts your account.
Being large and familiar is also not the same as being clean. New York's regulator fined Robinhood Crypto 30 million dollars in August 2022 over anti-money-laundering, cybersecurity and consumer protection failings, and settled with Block, the owner of Cash App, for 40 million dollars in April 2025 over an inadequate anti-money-laundering programme. Neither is a reason to avoid them and neither is a secret; both are on the regulator's own site, and they are the kind of record worth knowing about anybody holding your money.
Machines, and the reason for the warning in the table. The United States has the largest crypto ATM network in the world and also the largest problem attached to it. The FTC reported more than $110 million lost to Bitcoin ATM scams in 2023, and $65 million in the first half of 2024 alone — close to a tenfold rise since 2020. The median individual loss was $10,000, and people over 60 were more than three times as likely as younger adults to report losing money this way. The pattern is not machine failure: somebody phones with an urgent story and directs the victim to a machine, because cash into a crypto ATM is fast and does not come back.
Payments. ACH transfers are cheap and slow, and platforms often hold the funds for several days before allowing a withdrawal in crypto. Wires cost more and clear the same day. Card purchases are patchy — many issuers decline crypto purchases outright or treat them as cash advances with a separate fee and interest from day one.
Sources
Where the regulatory and tax claims on this page come from. Each was read on the date shown, and each is a page you can open yourself.
- Digital assets are property; selling, exchanging one for another and paying with them are all taxable disposals — IRS 25 Aug 2026
- Form 1099-DA from brokers, and the duty to report whether or not you receive one — IRS 25 Aug 2026
- BitLicense required for virtual currency business activity in New York since June 2015 — NY Department of Financial Services 25 Aug 2026
- Bitcoin ATM scam losses: $110m in 2023, $65m in the first half of 2024, median loss $10,000 — Federal Trade Commission 25 Aug 2026
- Robinhood: crypto transfers to external wallets, available in every US state — Robinhood support 25 Aug 2026
- $30m penalty on Robinhood Crypto, 2 August 2022 — NY Department of Financial Services 25 Aug 2026
- $40m settlement with Block over Cash App anti-money-laundering failures, 10 April 2025 — NY DFS 25 Aug 2026
- GENIUS Act, Public Law 119-27, signed 18 July 2025: federal framework for payment stablecoins — GovInfo 25 Aug 2026
Whatever route you take, finish the same way
Buying is the easy half. Move the coins off the platform to a wallet you control, starting with a test transfer of a few dollars. An exchange is a place to buy, not a place to keep.
How to set up a wallet →Before you send money anywhere
- Not support, not a wallet developer, not an exchange, not the company that made your hardware wallet. There is no procedure anywhere that requires it. Anyone who asks is trying to rob you, and that is true without a single exception.
- Legitimate platforms deduct fees from what they send you. A demand to pay before you can withdraw is the oldest pattern in this industry, and paying it produces a second demand rather than a withdrawal.
- That code is the last thing standing between somebody and your account. Nobody legitimate needs to hear it, and support will never read it back to you.
Last checked 19 Oct 2026. Rules and availability change — verify anything that matters against the platform itself.