Evaluation finds exchanges promote impulsive trading behavior through incentives and gamification tactics such as rewards, sweepstakes, and challenges
Washington, DC – Consumer Reports released a comprehensive multi-month evaluation of five major crypto exchanges: Binance.US, Coinbase, Crypto.com, Gemini, and Kraken. The analysis was conducted using CR’s Fair Digital Finance Framework, an evaluation tool for financial products and services that prioritizes consumer safety, privacy, transparency, user-centricity, inclusivity, support for financial well-being, and environmental and social governance.
CR’s review of the five customer-facing exchanges found that while all the platforms made buying and selling cryptocurrencies easy, they often lacked transparency around pricing and risks, burying such information in dense, hard-to-find legal disclosures. CR also found that all of these exchanges use gamification tactics such as rewards, sweepstakes, and challenges to encourage frequent trading behavior.
“Consumer adoption of cryptocurrencies has exploded in recent years, as have the size and influence of major cryptocurrency exchanges,” said Delicia Hand, senior director of digital marketplace strategy at Consumer Reports. “Retail investors require clear and accessible information to make sound financial choices. Instead, these platforms obscure risks and rely on gamification tactics, raising serious concerns about consumer financial safety.”
Core findings from the evaluation:
- Gamification of investing: One of the most concerning patterns within all of the crypto exchange apps was the use of gamification tactics such as rewards, sweepstakes, challenges, and celebratory graphics that incentivize frequent trading, which can amplify losses and add tax burden of short-term capital gains. The gamification features, which are similar to those found in online sports gambling apps, amplify the risk of an already volatile investment.
- Hidden risks: No exchange clearly disclosed the lack of key financial protections during the initial onboarding process, including the reality that crypto assets held in exchange-managed wallets lack Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) backstops. In the event of bankruptcy, users risk total asset loss. Gemini stood out for its “trust-based” custody structure, regulated under a New York state trust charter, which keeps investor assets separate via an outside manager.
- Opaque pricing: While transaction fees are presented right before purchase, many of the platforms don’t detail how those fees are calculated. Furthermore, only Coinbase explicitly displayed its specific “spread” value (the delta between the quoted buy price and the underlying market price), which averaged 1% during testing. The other four exchanges hid spreads entirely within transaction flows, masking the true cost of execution.
- Lack of transaction-point protections: Retail investors lost a staggering $17 billion to crypto scams and fraud in 2025, according to Chainalysis. Yet, only Gemini forced users to actively sign off on multiple fraud acknowledgments before executing a transaction. Kraken failed to provide any fraud warnings during the transaction flow, while Binance.US, Coinbase, and Crypto.com utilized single alert blocks that could be easily skipped by users.
Hand added, “It’s not surprising that these platforms are designed to make trading as easy and seamless as possible. That’s central to how they operate and compete. But cryptocurrencies are highly volatile and still evolving from a regulatory standpoint. These companies should step up and provide users with clear, accessible information about risks, costs, and protections so they can make informed financial decisions.”
While no exchange performed strongly across all categories, some platforms stood out in specific areas. Coinbase offered the most intuitive experience for basic transactions, while Gemini provided clearer disclosures around custody and asset protection. However, all of the exchanges evaluated showed gaps in transparency, privacy practices, and responsible-use design.
Contact: cyrus.rassool@consumer.org