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Wallets, exchanges and services rated on published criteria, shown against the highest value measured in their category, and ranked by the weighting you set. The numbers are ours. The ranking is yours.
No pay-to-rank. Partner links labelled. Non-partners rated with the same detail.
Photo: mdreza jalali (Unsplash License)
Product categories
One rating logic for every category
Each category has its own criteria catalogue on a shared structure, so you learn the logic once. Where a catalogue is not finished, products are described but not rated.
Exchanges and brokers
Platforms where customers buy, sell and hold crypto assets through an account, either on an order book or with the platform as counterparty. The platform usually holds the assets for its customers until they withdraw them to their own address. Rated on security, control, cost, regulatory status, privacy, usability, liquidity and execution, and fiat access.
Rated8 criteria · no rated products yetReviewed
Ranking by your weighting: Exchanges and brokersHardware wallets
Dedicated physical devices that generate and hold private keys offline and sign transactions on the device, used together with companion software on a computer or phone. Rated on security, control, cost, regulatory status, privacy, usability, recovery options and compatibility.
Rated8 criteria · no rated products yetReviewed
Ranking by your weighting: Hardware walletsMobile wallets
Wallet apps for phones, custodial (the provider holds the keys and the user holds a claim) or non-custodial (the user holds the keys on the phone). The custody model is stated on every product and measured under the control criterion. Rated on the same criteria as hardware wallets.
Rated8 criteria · no rated products yetReviewed
Ranking by your weighting: Mobile walletsOn-ramps
Services that convert money in a national currency into crypto assets, or back, typically for a single purchase or sale by card or bank transfer, often with delivery to an address the customer chooses and without a lasting trading account. Rated on the same criteria as exchanges.
Rated8 criteria · no rated products yetReviewed
Ranking by your weighting: On-ramps
How a rating is made
From a published catalogue to a public changelog, in four steps
Criteria catalogue
Each category has a published list of criteria and what counts as evidence for each: security, control, cost, regulatory status, privacy, usability and category-specific ones such as recovery.
The cataloguesEvidence and sources
Fees, features and licences are documented facts with a source and a retrieval date. Each value carries a confidence label from the number and quality of its sources.
Source registerCommittee for qualitative criteria
Qualitative criteria such as the security track record are assessed by the rating committee in sessions with published minutes.
Sessions and minutesChangelog and disputes
Every change gets a public entry with its reason. Makers and readers can challenge a value with evidence; receipt, review and decision are public.
The dispute process
Illustration · overall, default weighting
Reading a rating
Five parts, each one there for a reason
- A whole number, 0 to 100Calculations are finer internally. A published 83.27 would claim a precision that qualitative criteria cannot deliver.
- The frontierThe highest value measured in the category. 82 / 85 is close to the field’s highest; 82 / 96 would leave room. It shows whether a product is strong in absolute terms or only ahead of a weak field.
- The bar and its tickThe bar runs from 0 to 100, the tick marks the frontier. Always ink, never green or red: a rating is a measurement, not a verdict.
- Confidence, as a pattern and a wordSolid for high, hatched for medium, outlined for low, dashed for an estimate. It depends on how many sources there are and how good they are.
- The method linkEvery value links to the methodology version that produced it and the evidence lines behind it.
The ranking is the reader’s. The numbers, the criteria and the sources are the platform’s.
Independence
Commercial relationships never affect what we write, rate or rank.
We may earn from some referrals after you have compared. That is a conflict of interest, so the rules that contain it are public and checkable.
No pay-to-rank
No paid placement, verification, prioritisation or visibility of any kind. The ranking code has no access to commercial data.
Every partner link labelled
In plain text beside the link, in every language, saying that WhatTheChain may receive a commission.
Non-partners rated the same
A product is rated whether or not its maker is a partner, with the same detail, in the same list, by the same sort.
No preview
No provider, partner or payer sees a rating or a change before it is published, including in a dispute.
Latest rating changes
Full changelogNo rating has changed since the first release.
Rating alerts
Hear when a rating changes. No account.
One e-mail per change, with the old value, the new value and the reason. No price alerts, no market commentary, no offers.
How we know
Everything behind a rating is public
Source: WhatTheChain RatingsMethod: 1.2.0Reference release: method-v1.2.0, How ratings are made