Why Plumbline exists
Plumbline is an independent guide to choosing a crypto exchange. We grade venues on things you can verify — security, fees, regulation, custody — and never on where a coin's price might go.
A plumb line is the oldest honest tool in building: a weight on a string that shows true vertical, no matter how crooked the wall behind it. That is the job we set ourselves here. The crypto-exchange search results are a crooked wall — full of pages that rank whichever venue pays the most, dressed up as a review. Plumbline is the weight on the string: one fixed reference for what actually makes an exchange worth trusting.
What we do
We research where you can buy, hold and sell crypto, and we rank those venues on six objective factors: security and track record, regulation and licensing, the all-in cost of trading, supported assets, how easily you can move money to a wallet you control, and everyday ease of use. That framework produces our ranking of the best crypto exchanges. Security carries the most weight, because the worst thing that can happen on an exchange is not a bad trade — it is the exchange failing with your money inside it.
What we will not do
We do not predict prices, name coins to buy, or promise anyone will get rich. That is not modesty — it is the line between research and financial promotion, and we stay on the research side of it. We do not cover presales, meme tokens, 'guaranteed yield' schemes, or gambling products, and we do not link exchanges we cannot legally recommend to a reader's market. When a query like 'what crypto should I buy' brings someone here, we answer the only honest version of it: how to research a coin and judge your own risk, not which ticker to pick.
How we stay independent
Some outbound links are affiliate links, which means an exchange may pay us a commission if you open an account after clicking. That money funds the research; it does not buy a ranking. To prove the point, we recommend at least one exchange that runs no affiliate programme at all — it pays us nothing, and it still earns a place on merit. The full accounting is in our affiliate disclosure. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any exchange named on this site.
How our facts are dated
Exchange fees, licences and country availability change constantly, so every such figure on this site carries the month we checked it and points you to the exchange's own page to confirm the current number. Where we could not verify something, we say so rather than guess. If you spot a figure that has gone stale, tell us — accuracy is the whole product.