The badge that costs you 4%

“Zero commission” is the most expensive phrase in currency exchange. The fee didn’t disappear — it moved into the exchange rate, where it’s much harder to see.

The honest benchmark is the mid-market rate: the midpoint between global buy and sell prices, the number you see when you search the rate online. Anything worse than that is a markup, whatever the marketing says.

How to spot a fair rate

Compare the offered rate against the mid-market rate, add every fixed fee, and compute the total cost of moving 1,000 units. Do that once and the “free” services rarely win.

CoinMove shows the mid-market rate and a single transparent fee before you hit send. If the math changes, you see it change — before, not after.