IG vs Crypto.com for UK Crypto: Fees, Custody and What You Own (2026)
- expertise:
- CFD Trading, Forex, Derivatives, Risk Management
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- Chartered ACII (2018) · Trading since 2012
- tested:
- 40+ forex & CFD platforms with live accounts
- expertise:
- Broker Comparison, ISA Strategy, Portfolio Management
- credentials:
- Active investor since 2013 · 11+ years experience
- tested:
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How We Test
Real accounts. Real money. Real trades. No demo accounts or press releases.
What we measure:
- Spreads vs advertised rates
- Execution speed and slippage
- Hidden fees (overnight, withdrawal, conversion)
- Actual withdrawal times
Scoring:
Fees (25%) · Platform (20%) · Assets (15%) · Mobile (15%) · Tools (10%) · Support (10%) · Regulation (5%)
Regulatory checks:
FCA Register verification · FSCS protection
Testing team:
Adam Woodhead (investing since 2013), Thomas Drury (Chartered ACII, 2018), Dom Farnell (investing since 2013) — 50+ platforms with funded accounts
Quarterly reviews · Corrections: in**@*******************co.uk
Disclaimer
Not financial advice. Educational content only. We're not FCA authorised. Consult a qualified advisor before investing.
Capital at risk. Investments can fall. Past performance doesn't guarantee future results.
CFD warning. 67-84% of retail accounts lose money trading CFDs. High risk due to leverage.
Contact: in**@*******************co.uk
Quick Answer: IG or Crypto.com for UK Crypto?
Both sell you real coins, and they win on completely different rows. IG is the cheap, clear route into the majors: 0% commission plus a 0.07% external exchange fee on Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana, about 70 pence on a £1,000 buy, with the fee published before you trade and the coins sitting inside an FCA-authorised broker you may already use for shares and indices. Crypto.com is the crypto-native ecosystem: a far longer coin list, an app and Visa card built around the CRO token, and, crucially, the ability to withdraw your coins to your own wallet, which IG does not yet support in the outbound direction. If your plan is to hold the big coins alongside your other investments, IG is the cheaper and clearer home. If you want breadth, self-custody or the card, Crypto.com earns those rows honestly. Costs there depend heavily on route: the exchange order book is cheap, the app prices the spread into your quote, and card purchases can add up to 2.99%.
Spread bets and CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 69% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how spread bets and CFDs work, and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
Are These Even the Same Kind of Service?
Not really, and the comparison only makes sense once that is said out loud. IG is a multi-asset broker with decades of FCA-regulated history, where spot crypto is one product line alongside shares, indices and forex, run with a broker’s habits: published fees, one login, an institutional custodian holding the coins. Crypto.com is a crypto company top to bottom, an app, an order-book exchange and a payments card wrapped around its own CRO token, and its strengths and its complications both flow from that. This page completes our exchange set alongside IG against Kraken, and Crypto.com is the most ecosystem-shaped rival of the lot.
Who Wins on Fees?
On the majors, IG, and it is not close. A £1,000 Bitcoin, Ethereum or Solana purchase on IG costs 70 pence, 0% commission plus the 0.07% external exchange fee, and you can see that number on the pricing page before you ever place a trade. Crypto.com’s cheapest route, the exchange order book, starts at 0.25% maker and 0.50% taker on its base tier (below $10,000 of 30-day volume, checked August 2026), so £2.50 to £5.00 on the same purchase, falling with volume and CRO lockup. The app is the route that needs watching: pricing there is spread-inclusive, disclosed in the quote at the point of trade rather than as a published percentage, and paying by debit or credit card can add a fee of up to 2.99% on top.
| Row | IG | Crypto.com | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| £1,000 of Bitcoin, Ethereum or Solana | £0.70 (0% + 0.07%) | £2.50 to £5.00 on the exchange base tier; app quote includes the spread | IG |
| Knowing the fee before you trade | Published percentages | App spread shown at the point of trade | IG |
| Coins outside the majors | 1.49% flat | Exchange base tier under 0.5% | Crypto.com |
| Coin range | 150+ advertised (IG, Aug 2026) | 400+ commonly advertised for the app (Aug 2026) | Crypto.com |
| Withdrawing coins to your own wallet | Live since July 2026: desktop only, £10,000 daily limit, usually no fee | Supported on mobile and web, network fees per coin, higher limits | Crypto.com, on maturity |
| Regulated venue alongside other investments | FCA-authorised broker (FRN 195355), crypto register Oct 2025 | Foris DAX UK on the FCA crypto register since Aug 2022 | IG |
| FSCS protection on crypto | No | No | Neither |
The pattern matches the Kraken and Coinbase comparisons: IG owns the majors on cost and clarity, the crypto-native platform owns breadth and the altcoin pricing. IG’s 1.49% flat rate outside Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana is the weakest number on its side of the table, and anyone planning regular altcoin buying will do that cheaper on Crypto.com’s order book.
What Do You Actually Own, and Can You Take It With You?
On both platforms you own real coins, not a price bet, and that matters because the FCA banned the sale of crypto derivatives to UK retail investors back in January 2021. Spot is what a UK retail customer can legally be sold, and spot is what both firms offer. The difference is what happens when you want the coins in your own hands.
Here Crypto.com still edges it, but the gap closed sharply in July 2026. It supports on-chain withdrawals to a self-custody wallet on mobile and web, with a fixed network-based fee per coin and generous limits, so the classic crypto promise of holding your own keys is fully mature there. IG has now switched on the full loop: swaps between coins, transfers in for around 20 tokens, and since July 2026 transfers out to your own wallet or another exchange, with no IG fee and usually no network fee. The IG caveats are real, though: desktop web only at launch, a single default network per token, a wallet-ownership verification step, and a £10,000 daily limit across all assets, per IG's help pages checked 11 August 2026. A self-custody purist moving serious size still finds Crypto.com the smoother exit; for everyone else the row is now much closer to a draw than it was.
How Does the Regulation Compare?
Both are on the right register, and the difference is what surrounds it. Crypto.com’s UK entity, Foris DAX UK Limited, has been on the FCA’s cryptoasset register since August 2022, which covers money laundering supervision for crypto activity. IG’s crypto service joined the same register in October 2025, so on paper the two sit level. The distinction is that IG Markets Ltd is also a fully FCA-authorised investment firm, FRN 195355, for the rest of its business, which means your crypto sits inside a company supervised to investment-firm standards even though the crypto itself is not an FCA-regulated investment.
One protection point applies equally and deserves its own sentence: the FSCS does not cover crypto holdings at either firm. Cash in an IG investment account has FSCS cover; the coins do not, on either platform, and any comparison that implies otherwise is selling something. Our guide to whether IG is good for crypto goes deeper on what the custody arrangement does and does not protect.
What About the Card and the Wider Ecosystem?
This is the row IG does not even contest. Crypto.com’s prepaid Visa card pays cashback in CRO at tiers that scale with how much CRO you lock up, and the app around it handles spending, top-ups and coin-to-coin conversion in a way that makes crypto feel like an everyday balance rather than a holding. If you want your crypto to be usable, not just ownable, that ecosystem is genuinely unmatched among the platforms we have compared with IG.
The trade-off is that the ecosystem runs on its own token. The card tiers, the better rates and several app perks all deepen with CRO commitment, which is fine when CRO is strong and less fine when it is not, and it adds a token-price exposure that has nothing to do with the coins you actually set out to buy. IG’s offer has no ecosystem and no token, just coins at a published price inside a broker, and for a portfolio-first buyer that plainness is a feature rather than a gap.
So Which One Should You Use?
Decide by destination. If the coins are heading for a long-term holding alongside your shares and funds, IG is the one I would use: 70 pence on a £1,000 major-coin buy, fees you can read before you trade, and an FCA-authorised broker doing the custody. If the coins are heading for your own wallet, or you want the long tail of altcoins, or the card is the point, Crypto.com wins those rows on the merits and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. The one caveat I would attach to either choice: on Crypto.com, prefer the exchange order book over card purchases in the app, because up to 2.99% plus a spread-inclusive quote is the expensive way in.
You can check IG’s current crypto pricing here, and the detailed breakdown of the 0% headline sits in our look at what IG really charges on Bitcoin.
Discuss IG vs Crypto.com for UK Crypto
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References
- IG: Buy and sell crypto (UK), including pricing and supported coins
- FCA: Financial Services Register and cryptoasset register entries for IG Markets Ltd (FRN 195355) and Foris DAX UK Limited (registered August 2022)
- Crypto.com Help Centre: app and exchange fee schedules, card fees and withdrawal fees (checked August 2026, no link per editorial policy)
- The Investors Centre: Does IG really offer 0% fees on Bitcoin? and IG vs Kraken for crypto
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