Some exchanges try to screw us with hidden fees - be aware of "spread".

This week I spent hours looking for a nice exchange (tl;dr: it's Kraken, at least in my country). After signing up with a (supposedly) nice exchange called Bison ("no fees"), I saw that the price of BTC didn't seem right. And would you look at that, they have different prices for buying and selling:

https://preview.redd.it/esile3525pfb1.jpg?565&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b51c361484ee424b5b3889581df2b11e02328698

The difference is 666,88€, or 2.4%. By the way: the price was around 26,800€ at the time. It's not fraud, it's called "spread" (TIL).

This means that if you buy $1,000 worth of bitcoin, you will be charged (approximately) $12 when you buy and another $12 (if you sell for the same price), which is basically a $24 fee.

Here's Kraken:

same price for buying and selling

Whether you're buying or selling, all fees are transparent (0.16% for a limit order, 0.26% for a market order).

Don't fall for "free" trading, there is no such thing. The other side of the coin: withdrawal and deposit fees. Withdrawals are important, and what's the point of low fees if Binance takes $18 to withdraw bitcoin? At least that's what happened to me last year.

update: Some of you pointed out that Crypto.com is even worse, I couldn't verify that, but there are many comments about it. I've also heard that eToro has an insane spread. Always check Trustpilot and others before signing up for any financial service.