Methodology
How we rate platforms
Five criteria, published weights, applied identically to every platform whether or not we have a commercial relationship with it. Here is the whole method, including the parts that are judgement rather than measurement.
The five criteria
Every exchange score on this site is built from the same five components, weighted for a Nevada buyer specifically. Each is scored out of five.
| Criterion | Weight | What we look at |
|---|---|---|
| True cost on $1,000 | 30% | All-in cost across every funding route the platform offers, including the spread, not just the headline fee |
| Nevada licensing transparency | 25% | Whether a state money transmitter licence exists, and how easy the platform makes it to verify |
| Withdrawal freedom | 20% | Can a Nevada account actually move coins to a wallet it controls, and with what friction |
| Funding rails for Nevada banks | 15% | ACH, wire and card support, and how they behave with Nevada banks and credit unions |
| Support responsiveness | 10% | What happens when something goes wrong: channels, escalation, published response times |
Why these weights
Cost at 30% because it is the only variable that affects every reader on every transaction, and because the industry works hard to obscure it. A platform can advertise a 0.60% fee and charge you 3.99% for the same purchase depending on which interface you use.
Licensing transparency at 25% because Nevada regulates money transmission under NRS Chapter 671, and a platform that publishes a verifiable licence number is giving you a regulator to escalate to. We score the ease of verification, not just the existence of a licence — a company that makes you dig is telling you something.
Withdrawal freedom at 20% because a platform you cannot leave is not holding your coins in any meaningful sense. This is where Robinhood loses heavily for Nevada accounts.
Funding rails at 15% because the theoretical availability of a cheap route matters less than whether it works with the institution you actually bank with.
Support at 10% because it matters enormously in rare situations and not at all the rest of the time.
How we price a purchase
The cost criterion is the most involved, so it is worth setting out what we actually do.
Price every route, not the headline
Consumer widget, professional order book, debit card and bank transfer are priced separately. A single "fee" figure for a platform that runs two storefronts is not useful.
Include the spread
Where a platform prices by spread rather than commission, we compare the quote against an independent reference. A 1% spread is a 1% fee regardless of what it is called.
Use the base tier
Volume discounts are real and irrelevant to most readers. We score what a new account pays, and note where tiers improve materially.
Weight towards what people actually do
A platform whose cheap route is buried behind an interface most users never find is scored on that reality, not on its best possible number.
The kiosk figures
A great deal of this site turns on the claim that Nevada crypto kiosks cost roughly 16% all-in, so the sourcing deserves stating plainly.
The ~16% median figure comes from research by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City on US crypto kiosk transaction costs. Industry analyses generally place the practical range at 10% to 25%.
Operator-specific figures — CoinFlip at approximately 8.99% on buys and 4.99% on sells, RockItCoin ranging from roughly 7% to 20% by location — come from operator disclosures and industry reporting, and are noted as ranges rather than guarantees because pricing is set per machine.
Corridor ranges in our city pages are our own characterisation based on observed pricing patterns and competitive density. We present them as ranges and as indicative, because they are.
Every kiosk figure on this site excludes nothing: we combine the displayed transaction fee with the exchange-rate markup, because that combination is what actually leaves your pocket. Our fee analysis works through the arithmetic.
Fraud and regulatory data
Where we cite numbers, they come from primary sources and we name them on the page.
- Crypto fraud loss figures: the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center annual reporting
- Nevada licensing requirements: NRS Chapter 671, NAC Chapter 671, and the Nevada Financial Institutions Division
- Licence numbers and status: NMLS Consumer Access and the FinCEN MSB registrant search
- Operator failures: bankruptcy filings and contemporaneous reporting
- Gaming position: the Nevada Gaming Control Board's stated position
- Population figures: US Census Bureau and state demographic estimates
Where we could not confirm something — the exact current count of operating kiosks in a given city, for instance, or whether a specific physical OTC office exists — we say so rather than estimating. You will find several such statements on this site.
Judgement, and where it enters
Three of the five criteria involve measurement. Two involve judgement, and it would be dishonest to present the scores as purely quantitative.
Licensing transparency is partly a judgement about how discoverable a licence page is. We score a platform that publishes state licence numbers on a clearly linked page above one that holds the same licences and buries them.
Support responsiveness is a judgement informed by published channels, documented response times and the pattern of reader reports we receive. It is the softest criterion, which is why it carries the lowest weight.
Where our score reflects a view rather than a measurement, the review says so in the verdict section.
What commercial relationships affect
The clearest evidence we can offer is what the reviews actually say. Every exchange review on this site tells readers to avoid the consumer buy button, which is the single largest revenue source in retail crypto. Our top-rated platform's review notes that its card pricing is materially worse than its spot pricing. We rank OKX and Binance.US on cost despite having no relationship with them, and we mark Binance.US down heavily on funding reliability for reasons we set out in full.
We have no relationship of any kind with any crypto kiosk operator, which is worth stating given how much of this site is about their pricing.
Our full commercial disclosure is on the editorial policy page.
Updates and corrections
We review the full site at least quarterly and update individual pages whenever something material changes. Every page carries a review date.
Scores are recalculated when a platform's fees, licensing or product change — not on a fixed schedule, because a schedule would mean publishing figures we know to be stale.
If you find an error, write to contact@nevada-crypto.com. We correct promptly and note material corrections on the page.
The method matters less than the conclusion
Across every platform we score, the same finding holds: the funding method and the interface you use determine your cost far more than which company you pick. Get those two right on any licensed platform and you are most of the way to the best available outcome.
Partner link. Digital assets are volatile and are not FDIC- or SIPC-insured. Nevada Crypto does not give investment advice.