Top 5 Bitcoin Exchanges in the EU to buy BTC into self-custody

The most popular crypto exchanges require custodial balances and keep the keys to your Bitcoin to themselves. In other words, Bitcoin that you buy & hold on exchanges is not your Bitcoin, as it can be taken away in a whim.

Therefore, for Bitcoiners in Europe who value freedom and sovereignty, buying sats directly into their own wallet is essential.

Whether you’re stacking weekly or converting euros on demand, factors like fees, speed or limits can make or break the experience. There are a few decent brokerages in Europe that offer such onramps into self-custody, so here we have our own TOP 5 comparison between: wave.space, Relai, 21Bitcoin, Pocket Bitcoin & Coinfinity.

1. wave.space - the cheapest & fastest way to stack sats into self-custody

Shocker! We've put ourselves first… But in all seriousness, we fully believe that we've actually created the best tool for Europeans to buy Bitcoin into self-custody. Not only wave.space is among the cheapest, but also so fast that it renders the incumbent custodial exchanges worthless. There's no need to hold funds on exchanges when you can buy from your own bank to your own wallet in under a single minute!

The best part is that you also get your personal vIBAN on wave.space, which means that buying BTC is as simple as sending EUR to yourself. No other exchange among the TOP 5 offers this benefit that is very relevant these days when banks tend to freeze crypto transfers.

❗ FEES: wave.space charges a simple service fee of 1%, and passes on the same price they get from liquidity providers, which can be up to 0.5% worse from the mid-market rate. In total, going from your bank to self-custody will cost you 1.5%, which is the cheapest total cost you can get among such self-custodial Bitcoin brokers.

⚡ SPEED: wave.space is by far the quickest way to stack sats. EUR transfers are credited instantly, BTC is bought automatically within seconds, and then you can withdraw it via Lightning in seconds. The whole flow from EUR in your bank to BTC in your wallet takes less than 60 seconds. You also have a choice to withdraw BTC onchain, which will take 1 block confirmation to finalize.

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🟠 OTHER BENEFITS:

• Personal vIBAN in your own name. Your main bank simply sees interpersonal EUR transfers.
• Selling works the same as buying. You can liquidate BTC in seconds to your bank.
• Buy from 10€ to 100,000€ instantly in a single transaction.

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2. Coinfinity - time-tested and cheap Bitcoin broker

Founded in 2014, Coinfinity is one of Europe’s longest-standing Bitcoin brokers with good reputation. They have a flat fee of 1.5% and we did not detect any further spread beyond that. Lightning support is an added benefit for fast withdrawals, however we had mixed experience when experimenting with EUR deposits - they took longer than anticipated.

❗ FEES: Coinfinity charges a flat 1.5% fee with no further spread. That's in line with the cheapest options out there.

⚡ SPEED: Our bank transfer took around 1 hour to be credited. It's relatively quick, but not ideal in today's world that runs on instant payments, and while they claim that the purchase price is fixed at the point of order, it is very likely that they could back out of the losing trade if the bank transfer arrives a much later when BTC is worth much more than when you ordered.

🟠 OTHER BENEFITS:

• Lightning transfers
• Possibility to sell Bitcoin

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3. Pocket - Direct-to-wallet platform with decent fees

Swiss-based, self-custodial Bitcoin onramp designed all around buying Bitcoin into your wallet. Similarly to Coinfinity and wave.space, Pocket offers the same total fees and Lightning support. However, based on our experience, it took at least an hour to get the EUR deposit in, and even more to withdraw BTC, as they do batched payouts once a day.

❗ FEES: Pocket charges a simple 1.5% fee with no detected spread.

⚡ SPEED: In our tests we had to wait at least 1h for EUR to be credited and trade to be executed. In addition, you will need to wait for the onchain withdrawal which happens once a day. In total that can take anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days (if bank transfer is delayed even more

🟠 OTHER BENEFITS:

• Lightning transfers
• Possibility to sell Bitcoin

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4. Relai - Average fees and not as speedy, decent app

Another Swiss-based exchange that champions self-custody. Relai has been growing very fast in the last years and they offer a very decent app for Bitcoiners to buy into Bitcoin. However, they are slightly more expensive and much slower than competitors. Many users complained about their very tedious KYC process, which is asking for surprisingly much information, compared to verification processes of their competitors.

❗ FEES: Relai charges 1% fees that you can get slightly lower if you got referred by someone, but they also have around 1% in spread, totalling to around 2% in fees going from EUR to BTC in your wallet.

⚡ SPEED: Relai does not offer SEPA Instant, therefore the bank transfer can take up to 1-2 business days to arrive.

🟠 OTHER BENEFITS:

• Possibility to sell Bitcoin
• Buy with a card (3% fees)
• Has a mobile app

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5. 21Bitcoin - One of the fastest exchanges, but more expensive

5th on our list, yet still much much better than Kraken, Binance, Coinbase or any other custodial exchanges, 21 Bitcoin offers easy Bitcoin onramps for a bit more than 2% in total fees, which you can get lower in certain cases..

❗ FEES: 21Bitcoin charges 1.49% basic fee, but you can get it much lower (0.79%) if you use their savings plan and combine it with a referral discount.

⚡ SPEED: While 21Bitcoin doesn't have Lightning support, they do offer instant EUR transfers and the whole process with onchain withdrawals takes 15-30mins in total. That's a respectable speed!

🟠 OTHER BENEFITS:

• Limit orders - set a price when BTC should be bought
• Auto Wallet Transfer - decide when to withdraw to self-custody and save on network fees

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SUMMARY

All 5 mentioned exchanges are head above the giant names like Coinbase simply because they empower self-custody. Having said that, some of them are cheaper while others are faster. Overall, we believe that our bank-to-wallet tool at wave.space is the best way for Europeans to buy Bitcoin into your own self-custodial wallets, because we offer the most seamless way to stack sats while giving you a personal vIBAN in your own name without ripping you off!

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