Exchange register

The exchange register

Photo: Maxim Hopman / Unsplash

Centralised crypto exchanges we have read the binding terms of and checked against the register of the authority each one claims. Which legal entity holds which registration, whether a proof-of-reserves claim is signed by anyone outside the company, what the freeze, withdrawal and insolvency clauses let them do with your funds, and, because this is where most crypto casino deposits start, what each one’s terms say about sending money to a gambling site and which networks it withdraws USDT on. There is no score on this page.

24 exchanges · 14 with a registration confirmed in an issuing register · 23 of 24 binding documents retrieved · 16 with a gambling clause · no numeric score · updated 2026-09-28

The same questions asked of the decentralised side, where players swap once funds leave an exchange, are in the DEX register: who runs each interface, where its terms bar you from, and whether it screens wallet addresses.

Head to head, from the two records and with no winner declared: Coinbase vs Kraken, Binance vs Coinbase, Crypto.com vs Coinbase, Kraken vs Gemini, Coinbase vs Robinhood Crypto, Bybit vs OKX, KuCoin vs MEXC, Cash App vs Coinbase. All 8 with the fields each one turns on: compare exchanges.

The register

24 rows. The columns are the questions the documents answer differently: who you are contracting with, whether any authority confirmed it, what the reserve disclosure is worth, what the terms say about insolvency, and what they say about gambling. Every cell links to the evidence for that cell.

Disclosure: we hold no commercial relationship with any of the 24 exchanges on this register and have been paid nothing by any of them. There is no affiliate link on any page in this section, and none of these companies has been contacted, given notice of publication or offered a right of reply before it. Corrections go to the corrections page and are published with a date.

Can you send money from an exchange to a casino?

On 6 of these 24 exchanges the terms say no, whatever the casino’s licence. Most crypto casino deposits leave a centralised exchange first, so the exchange’s terms decide whether that transfer is a breach, and the answer splits three ways. Six prohibit gambling as a category, with casino games or internet gaming named and no carve-out for a licensed operator. Ten restrict only gambling that is unlawful, unregulated or illegal, which means the casino’s licence and the player’s location decide it. Four say nothing about gambling anywhere in the documents read.

Gate attaches the heaviest stated sanction: its list includes “Unregulated casino/online betting/gambling platform”, and a suspected breach lets Gate “freeze or confiscate funds”. The agreement does not define regulated. OKX’s list ends with activities “that we consider similar in nature at our absolute and sole discretion”. Binance’s Terms of Use and its separate Prohibited Use Policy were both searched, and neither contains the word gambling. The full clauses, the documents searched and the dates are on each entry, and the post where crypto casino deposits come from reads the same question across the DEX register.

Which networks does each exchange withdraw USDT on?

9 of the 13 exchanges whose list could be read withdraw USDT on Tron. Each list was read from the exchange’s own public network data or API on 2026-09-28, for USDT, the asset most casino deposits are made in. Coinbase and Crypto.com Exchange list no Tron network for USDT at all.

A network listed with withdrawals disabled at retrieval is not counted. Bitget’s public endpoint reported every USDT chain as not withdrawable to a request from a United States address, and MEXC’s data could not be retrieved, so neither is counted.

Proof of reserves, and what it is worth

9 of 24 publish a proof of reserves. Two of those 9 are signed by somebody named who is not the exchange. The count is computed the same way for every row: a disclosure counts as third-party signed when a signer is named and it is not the exchange. A signer the page describes but does not name does not pass.

Reserve coverage of on-book customer balances is not solvency. At best these exercises prove that on-chain holdings equal or exceed the balances the exchange chose to put in the tree. Kraken’s page states the limit in its own words: the procedure “cannot identify any hidden encumbrances or prove that funds had not been borrowed for purposes of passing the review.” Hacken’s KuCoin report says it “should not be considered a comprehensive financial audit of all assets, liabilities, or the organization’s overall financial position.” Crypto.com’s Mazars engagement was agreed-upon procedures under ISRS 4400, which report findings and give no assurance, and it is dated December 2022.

Registrations, and what a confirmed one covers

The register searched is the official ESMA interim MiCA register, downloaded as the published CSV files: on 22 September 2026 for the first four exchanges, and again on 28 September 2026 for the eight added since. A row counts as a confirmed registration only where it is an authorisation and where it was found in the authority’s own register. MEXC appears in an ESMA register, and the register it appears in is the one for entities providing crypto-asset services without the required licence.

A money-services registration is not a licence to operate an exchange. Bitget’s claimed AUSTRAC registration is an anti-money-laundering reporting registration, and OKX’s second Maltese permission is a payment services licence. Binance claims licences from the Abu Dhabi Global Market’s regulator inside its own terms and holds no EU authorisation. Only the MiCA authorisations in the table are licences to provide crypto-asset services in the EU, and several, Coinbase’s, KuCoin’s and Crypto.com’s among them, do not include operating a trading platform.

Who you are contracting with

Four of the 24 binding documents name no legal person. MEXC’s agreement is concluded with “MEXC Trading Platform”. Gate’s is with “Gate”. KuCoin’s is with “the Platform” and deems every activity to take place in the Turks and Caicos Islands. HTX’s counterparty is “all parties that run the Platform”. At the other end, Binance names three Abu Dhabi companies with their register numbers in its first paragraph, and Bitstamp gives a London company number.

What the documents say about insolvency

Nine of the 24 say nothing at all. Of those that do, OKX says pooled users share a shortfall pro rata. Crypto.com grants itself the rights to all assets on the exchange, reduces the user to a contractual claim and says that “in the worst case, a total loss of On-Exchange Assets may occur”. Kraken says customer assets are not its property and adds that “a court may disagree”. Binance and Coinbase state that assets are held on trust or are not subject to creditors’ claims, and Bybit EU’s protection is statutory under MiCA and described as intended.

• Gate: no insolvency clause.
• HTX: no insolvency clause.
• KuCoin: no insolvency clause.
• Bitget: no insolvency clause.
• MEXC: no insolvency clause.
• CoinDCX: no insolvency clause.
• CoinSpot: no insolvency clause.
• Swyftx: no insolvency clause.
• ZebPay: no insolvency clause.

Freezing an account

23 of the 24 reserve the right to freeze or suspend an account in terms this register could read, and the twelfth, Bybit, could not be read. Bitstamp is the one exchange whose freeze clause is conditioned on notice, and it sits next to a separate power to suspend or terminate “for any reason”. Gate is the one that sets a notice period, 45 days, for termination without a reason.

• Gate: 3 freeze clauses recorded, exercisable without notice.
• HTX: 2 freeze clauses recorded, exercisable without notice.
• KuCoin: 2 freeze clauses recorded, exercisable without notice.
• Bitget: 4 freeze clauses recorded, exercisable without notice.
• Cash App Bitcoin: 2 freeze clauses recorded, exercisable without notice.
• Coinbase: 1 freeze clause recorded, exercisable without notice.
• Crypto.com Exchange: 2 freeze clauses recorded, exercisable without notice.
• MEXC: 3 freeze clauses recorded, exercisable without notice.
• Robinhood Crypto: 2 freeze clauses recorded, exercisable without notice.
• Uphold: 1 freeze clause recorded, conditioned on notice.
• Gemini: 2 freeze clauses recorded, exercisable without notice.
• Kraken: 1 freeze clause recorded, exercisable without notice.
• OKX: 3 freeze clauses recorded, exercisable without notice.
• Shakepay: 2 freeze clauses recorded, exercisable without notice.
• WazirX: 3 freeze clauses recorded, exercisable without notice.
• Binance: 2 freeze clauses recorded, exercisable without notice.
• Bitstamp: 2 freeze clauses recorded, conditioned on notice.
• CoinDCX: 3 freeze clauses recorded, conditioned on notice.
• CoinSpot: 3 freeze clauses recorded, conditioned on notice.
• eToro: 2 freeze clauses recorded, conditioned on notice.
• Independent Reserve: 2 freeze clauses recorded, conditioned on notice.
• Swyftx: 1 freeze clause recorded, conditioned on notice.
• ZebPay: 3 freeze clauses recorded, exercisable without notice.
• Bybit: not recorded. The global terms of service could not be retrieved, and the EU documents are not a substitute.

What could not be retrieved

A register that hides its gaps is not a register. The largest gap remains the global bybit.com terms of service, which could not be retrieved on 22 September or on 28 September 2026. The account-freeze, withdrawal-suspension, forced-liquidation, arbitration and gambling clauses binding a non-EEA Bybit user are not in this register, and they must not be inferred from the Bybit EU documents.

Also unretrieved: proof-of-reserves pages for Coinbase (HTTP 403), Bitstamp and HTX (not found); the FSRA register for Binance’s Abu Dhabi licences; the AUSTRAC, CNAD and MFSA financial services registers; the name of the accountant behind Kraken’s review; and MEXC’s withdrawal network data. Absence from a field here is a statement about our coverage and not about the exchange.

How an exchange gets onto this list

By having its binding document read, not by being added. An entry appears once the terms that bind a retail user have been read in full, once every registration the exchange claims has been checked against the issuing authority’s own public register or recorded as unconfirmable, and once every clause published here has been captured verbatim with its URL and the date it was retrieved. The same method is applied to crypto casinos, to wallets and to decentralised exchanges, and the clause library that reads one clause across every register is at clause watch.

The registers this section was checked against

• ESMA interim MiCA register of authorised crypto-asset service providers · retrieved 2026-09-22 and 2026-09-28
• ESMA register of non-compliant entities providing crypto-asset services · retrieved 2026-09-22 and 2026-09-28

Compiled by the CryptoGuardz register team. First published 2026-09-22, last reviewed 2026-09-28. Research and drafting are AI-assisted and reviewed by a named editor before publication.