Researched and last reviewed September 2026 · Written by the GiftMeCrypto research desk
A bonus is worth taking when the qualifying activity is something you were going to do anyway and the operator has a regulator you can verify. Everything else — the headline number, the marketing, the countdown timer — is noise. Four checks, four minutes, and most offers eliminate themselves.
- Check first
- The regulator, on its own register
- Check second
- The qualifying condition, priced in fees
- Check third
- What the bonus is paid in
- Check fourth
- The withdrawal and expiry clause
- Never
- Pay a fee to unlock a bonus
The four checks
1. Find the regulator, not the trust badge
Look for a company name, a registration number and a jurisdiction, then verify the number on the regulator's own public register. Anyone can copy a badge onto a page; nobody can add themselves to a register.
- FinCEN MSB registrant search — United States
- FCA Financial Services Register — United Kingdom
- Gibraltar Financial Services Commission — DLT providers
- CySEC — Cyprus investment firms
- AUSTRAC — Australia
2. Price the qualifying condition
Multiply the required trading volume by the venue's fee rate. That is what the bonus costs you to unlock. If the condition is a deposit that must remain for a period, the cost is the opportunity cost plus the price risk of holding.
3. Check what the bonus is paid in
Bitcoin, ether or a major stablecoin is money you can withdraw. A platform-specific point or token that trades only on the issuing venue is a coupon, and its value is whatever the issuer decides. This distinction is frequently the difference between a real $50 and a nominal $50.
4. Find the withdrawal clause
Specifically: lock-up period, minimum balance, expiry date, excluded countries and excluded funding methods. If the terms do not state when you can withdraw, treat the answer as "at our discretion" and price the bonus at zero.
The maths that matters
Two worked examples, using round numbers, to show how a headline figure can invert.
| Offer A | Offer B | |
|---|---|---|
| Headline bonus | $100 | $25 |
| Required trading volume | $20,000 | $500 |
| Fee rate per side | 0.25% | 0.25% |
| Cost to unlock | ≈ $100 | ≈ $2.50 |
| Paid in | Platform token | Bitcoin |
| Lock-up | 90 days | None |
| What you actually keep | ≈ $0, in a token | ≈ $22.50, in bitcoin |
Swipe sideways →
Offer A has four times the headline and a worse outcome. That inversion is common enough that we would not publish a bonus ranking based on advertised amounts — it would actively mislead.
Bonus structures compared
| Structure | How it works | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Deposit match | A percentage of your first deposit, credited | Holding period; withdrawal voids it |
| Trade-volume bonus | Credit after a qualifying volume | Fee cost can exceed the bonus |
| Verification credit | Small amount for completing KYC | Usually clean and genuinely free |
| Learn-and-earn | Quiz completion pays a featured token | Small, finite, honest |
| Referral pair | Both sides paid after a real trade | Only pays if the invitee actually trades |
| Staking or card rewards | Ongoing yield or cashback | Terms change; not a sign-up bonus |
Swipe sideways →
Note that the two structures with the smallest headline numbers — verification credits and learn-and-earn — are the two we rate most highly, precisely because there is nothing hidden in them.
Our own disclosure
We link to one exchange promotion across this site, so it is only fair to state why and on what basis.
I stopped chasing sign-up bonuses after working out what two of them had actually cost me in fees. The headline was $150 across both; the trading volume required to unlock them cost around $170 in commission, and one paid in a platform token that was worth less by the time the lock-up ended. The bonus was real and I lost money collecting it.
What I do now is the four checks, in order, and I stop at the first failure. Most offers fail at check two — the qualifying condition costs more than the bonus. The ones that survive are usually the small, unexciting ones, which is the opposite of how they are marketed.