Bitstamp

Nejc Kodrič and Damijan Merlak started Bitstamp in Slovenia in August 2011 as a European alternative to Mt. Gox. They moved its registration to the UK in April 2013 and then to Luxembourg in 2016, where it received a payment-institution licence that let it serve the whole EU. It still keeps an office in Ljubljana. A Belgian investment company, NXMH, bought it in 2018, and Ripple took an undisclosed stake in 2023. Robinhood announced a $200 million all-cash purchase on 6 June 2024 and closed it on 2 June 2025. Jean-Baptiste Graftieaux remains CEO.

Bitstamp is a group of regulated companies, each covering one region, not a single exchange with one licence:

At the time of the deal Robinhood said Bitstamp held more than 50 licences and registrations and listed over 85 assets for spot trading. That is a short list next to offshore venues, and the choice is deliberate. Institutions matter more to Bitstamp than to most retail exchanges. Its API is connected to the main institutional order-management systems, and Bitstamp offers lending, staking and a white-label service to banks. BBVA uses it to offer bitcoin and ether trading to retail customers in Spain.

Robinhood bought Bitstamp for its licences and its institutional clients. Robinhood's own crypto business was US-only and retail. Bitstamp gave it an EU licence, a UK registration and an institutional client base in one deal. Since the deal closed, the exchange has been rebranded Bitstamp by Robinhood, and it now carries more of Robinhood's crypto trading:

The volume shows the shift. Robinhood's metrics for August 2026 put Bitstamp's notional volume at $10.1 billion, up 53% on July, compared with $7.4 billion in the Robinhood app. Bitstamp still has its own website, app, fee schedule and customer agreements. If you already have a Bitstamp account, your contract is with the Bitstamp entity for your region, not Robinhood Markets, Inc. The UK app is the exception: Robinhood UK customers trade crypto through Bitstamp UK Ltd, and external crypto transfers were not available at launch.

In 15 years Bitstamp has had one theft. On 4 January 2015 attackers took just under 19,000 BTC, about $5 million at the time, from an operational hot wallet. Bitstamp suspended trading, said balances held before the suspension would be "honored in full" and reopened about a week later. It absorbed the loss itself. A year earlier, in February 2014, a DDoS attack forced it to suspend service, and it refused a 75 BTC ransom demand.

There have been no fines or enforcement actions against Bitstamp since. When US regulators went after crypto staking and certain tokens in 2023, Bitstamp withdrew. It stopped ETH staking for US customers in September 2023 and delisted several tokens there, instead of fighting the SEC. Being part of a listed company adds another layer of oversight: Bitstamp's results are now included in Robinhood's SEC filings, although Robinhood doesn't publish separate audited accounts for Bitstamp.

Independent market-quality reviews rate it highly. CoinDesk's May 2026 Exchange Benchmark gave Bitstamp by Robinhood the top score of the cycle, 90.26 (AA), and it came second in Kaiko's Q1 2026 exchange benchmark. These benchmarks measure governance, security disclosures and market quality. They are not a reserve audit.

Bitstamp uses a maker/taker ladder based on 30-day volume, and the first $1,000 a month trades free. Stablecoin and FX pairs get an 80% discount on the rates below:

• SEPA deposits are free; SEPA withdrawals cost €3.
• Card and PayPal instant buys add a processing fee of about 4% plus spread, so they cost far more than funding by bank transfer and trading on the order book.
• Crypto withdrawal fees vary by asset and network; check the amount on the withdrawal screen before confirming.

At the first paid tier Bitstamp's taker rate (0.40%) is half of Kraken Pro's entry taker rate (0.80%) and below Coinbase Advanced's EU entry rate (0.50%). The free first $1,000 a month means a small monthly buyer can pay no trading fee at all if they fund by SEPA.