MoonPay Fees Exposed: Hidden Spreads and Exorbitant Costs

MoonPay is an on-ramp and off-ramp service that exchanges euros for crypto assets and back again, often embedded in wallets and platforms without being named directly. The company claims a presence in more than 160 countries and over 300 integrated applications. When users tap 'Buy' inside a wallet, they may not be buying from the wallet itself but rather from MoonPay, as is the case with Ledger, Trust Wallet, and MetaMask.

MoonPay's fees are broken down into four layers: the network fee, which ranges between 0 and 10 percent; the MoonPay fee, which can reach up to 4.5 percent for card payments and up to 1 percent for bank transfers; an ecosystem fee charged by partners, typically between 0 and 2 percent; and a transaction fee that sits between 0 and 10 percent.

The spread is not explicitly listed but is included in the displayed rate as a markup. This means users cannot quantify it before making a purchase. For a typical case of buying €200 of bitcoin by card through a wallet, the MoonPay fee would be up to €9.00, the ecosystem fee up to €4.00, and the transaction fee around €2.00.

MoonPay Europe B.V., registered in Amsterdam, is authorized to provide exchange services for crypto assets in the European Economic Area, including Germany. The company's authorisation is passported into 30 EEA states. MoonPay describes its MiCA authorization as allowing custody and issuance of stablecoins, but these services do not appear in the registers.