Most Extensive Comparison of Top Crypto Affiliate Programs 2023

Have a sizable base of readers and viewers that are as enthusiastic about cryptocurrencies as you are? If so, crypto affiliate programs can be the best way for you to recommend services or products to your audience. While advocating helpful crypto-related platforms and apps to your crypto-curious audience, you're rewarded with a recurring revenue stream that can potentially help to keep you profitable and sustainable as a content creator for extended periods of time.

This article compiles some of the best crypto affiliate programs for any affiliate marketers, seasoned or new. We’ve also included some factors to consider when deciding which crypto affiliate program will be the most suitable for you.

What Is a Crypto Affiliate Program?

A crypto affiliate program is typically offered by crypto exchanges for budding affiliate marketers or content creators so that they can profit by sharing a referral link for their audience to visit a specific crypto website or platform.

In exchange for promoting these crypto websites or platforms, participating affiliate marketers and content creators can receive various perks on top of a small kickback from the partnership. While they’re sometimes generic, affiliate programs can incentivize specific actions and encourage users who click on your affiliate links to take on a more active role. From fully setting up an account with the required identification details to making a first deposit, each key user action grants you a small commission. 

Curious to find out more? Read on, as we highlight in detail the common types of crypto affiliate programs and describe in detail how they typically work.

Types of Affiliate Programs

The best crypto affiliate programs can generally be sorted into three types: related programs, unattached programs and involved programs.

Related Affiliate Programs

Related affiliate programs involve the promotion of products or services with some type of relationship to the offering. While you might not need to claim that you actively use the product or service, what you’re promoting has to be related to your niche so you’re perceived as an authority, convincing users to check out the affiliate link.

Unattached Affiliate Programs

Unattached programs are closer to what you might see from traditional affiliate marketing platforms. Experienced affiliates would certainly be familiar with this incentivization model, as they’re low on cost and commitment but high in terms of potential rewards. Users simply need to sign up in order for affiliates to receive a one-time commission reward, as affiliates offer zero presence or authority when promoting the product.

Involved Affiliate Programs

An involved program demands the most legwork from affiliates in terms of making a personal recommendation to your audience. It often requires you to directly participate in checking out the service or product you’re promoting, and to create some form of media that highlights the experience. This creates a more personable dynamic between you and your audience, since they’re taking your positive experience as a personal recommendation.

How Does a Crypto Affiliate Program Work?

Crypto exchanges use crypto affiliate programs to grow their platform’s customer base and sales. By utilizing the growth that usually accompanies an affiliate network, exchanges can greatly increase their trading volume. Each affiliate marketer who signs up for the program is given a personalized referral link to share and promote to their audience base. 

If you’re an affiliate marketer who’s already in the cryptocurrency field, the extra steps you'll need to take to participate in new affiliate marketing programs are minimal. Simply add your referral links to your content in order to generate a recurring revenue stream. Depending on the chosen crypto affiliate program, affiliate marketers can earn profit in different ways — such as commissions from a user’s trading activity, commissions on sign-ups and more. While the ways that affiliate marketers earn their profit differ across various programs, the end goal remains receiving a steady stream of revenue.

How Traders/Investors Can Benefit From Crypto Affiliate Programs

Perks such as passive income, exclusive benefits and invites are just some of the many benefits that traders can receive when they participate in some of the best crypto affiliate programs and simply promote their referral links. 

Passive Income

Passive income is likely one of the most popular benefits of participating in crypto affiliate programs, and is undoubtedly one of the most attractive ones. With just a one-time effort, affiliate marketers can reap profits and, over time, earn more through their referral links because of the evergreen nature of their promotional content. This means that your audience could still visit year-old content and click on your referral link, and you’d still be able to earn some form of commission.

For affiliate marketers, traders and investors who are already creating cryptocurrency-related content, participating in affiliate programs is a great way to ensure their content can continue to stay profitable in the long run.

Exclusive Benefits

Besides having the crypto affiliate program as a passive income stream, joining the program as an affiliate marketer could grant you access to exclusive benefits that you would otherwise be unable to obtain. These could benefit both you and your audience, and could potentially unlock even more opportunities for keen investors in the crypto market.

Some attractive campaign benefits could include exclusive giveaways just for your audience, a dedicated account manager, invites to exclusive events and even early access to new tokens. These bells and whistles can certainly give your audience growth rates a nice boost. As they’re exposed to such perks and choose to spread the word, this will further increase the popularity of the promoted platform or product. Depending on your chosen affiliate program, these exclusive benefits may vary as we see big names like Bybit, Binance and Crypto.com offering exclusive access to large-scale events, such as Formula 1 races and professional football matches.

How to Choose the Best Crypto Affiliate Program

Wonder what differentiates one top crypto affiliate program from another? From commission rates to security, these are some key factors to take note of before committing to a long-standing partnership with a crypto platform.

Affiliate Cut

The cut that you receive as an affiliate works exactly like traditional fee structures that you might be familiar with. Users who sign up through your unique link essentially provide you with commissions. This amount can vary among different crypto affiliate programs. While some     platforms might reward you up front with a huge sign-on bonus, others may sweeten the deal by granting you a lifetime affiliate cut that kicks in whenever users make transactions on the platform.

Reputation and Support

If it’s your first time participating in an affiliate program, the world of affiliate marketing can certainly be daunting as you attempt to direct your user base toward an exciting new product or service. Fortunately, some of the best crypto affiliate programs provide account managers who will be more than happy to show you the ropes. From presenting new outreach opportunities to answering affiliate concerns, account managers offer you the support and insights necessary to take your success to the next level.

Security and Data Privacy

The last thing you’ll want is for your user’s funds or data to be compromised because of a security breach on the crypto platform or exchange. Look out for crypto affiliate programs with platforms that offer basic security features, such as multi-factor authentication and Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations.

Payment Methods

Flexibility is important when deciding what’s the best form of payout for you. Whether you prefer being paid in blue chip cryptos like Bitcoin and Ether, or want to be remunerated in fiat currencies, the best crypto affiliate programs grant you freedom to choose so you’re not impeded by payment restrictions that may exist in your country.

Best Crypto Affiliate Programs

Now that we’ve covered the basics of crypto affiliate programs, and what to look for when comparing them, here’s the list of our top picks that we’ve compiled for your convenience. 

Bybit

Bybit’s Affiliate Program is perceived by many to be one of the best crypto affiliate programs in the crypto space, due to the attractive bells and whistles that accompany the program’s exceptional commission system. As soon as you join as an Affiliate, you’ll receive an exclusive welcome package. Affiliates onboarding a huge number of new monthly traders who actively trade will enjoy up to 50% commissions from Spot, Derivatives, Options and Bybit Earn transactions. You can even earn 10% commission from sub-affiliates. Instead of this being a one-off arrangement, Bybit offers lifetime commissions. This rewards affiliates who refer high-value users who actively trade and take advantage of the services we provide.

Lifetime commissions aside, Bybit also offers a suite of affiliate-friendly services to make any affiliate program partnership that much sweeter. For starters, each affiliate is tied to a VIP account manager. This will be extremely helpful for newer affiliate program participants, as account managers can help to show you the ropes and highlight key audience insights that may help in growing your conversion rates when implemented. 

Additionally, affiliates can take advantage of existing campaigns and invitations to exclusive Bybit events. These range from exclusive launchpad allocations, customized airdrops, trading competitions and giveaways to private events and networking, such as Formula 1 events and crypto conferences. 

As a Bybit Affiliate, you’ll also enjoy timely compensation because all payments are calculated and processed on a daily basis, so you don’t have to worry about any delayed payments.

Binance

As one of the world's largest centralized exchanges, Binance also has a popular crypto affiliates program for your consideration. Thanks to Binance’s wide array of products on offer, you're certainly more likely to get active conversions as users dabble with Binance Pool, NFTs, Liquid Swaps, Spot, Futures and margin trading. This makes the Binance Affiliate Program the most suitable and rewarding for affiliates who have an active trading community.

Note that while the incentives are attractive, Binance can be rather stringent in its affiliate selection process. On top of being screened by their team, promoters need to have at least 5,000 followers on social media or 500 active traders in their community before they're considered eligible for the affiliates program. Once you pass these requirements, the onboarding process is simple, as you'll be given a unique and personalized link for sharing with your audience.

Gate.io

Sixty percent — that's the amount of commission that Gate.io is offering as it attempts to outshine other competing crypto affiliate programs. Thanks to its attractive commission rates, many content creators are turning to the Gate.io Affiliate Program in order to maximize their returns when choosing from the many crypto affiliate programs available.

Gate.io is no slouch either when it comes to additional benefits and services. From merchandise packages to additional sub-affiliate rebates, Gate.io affiliates will find no shortage of perks to incentivize you. One notable benefit is its base salary: Unlike other crypto affiliate programs, Gate.io offers its affiliates a monthly salary of up to $600 to provide affiliates with a base for when they’re in a dry season of no conversions.

KuCoin

Pegged as the crypto affiliates program with the highest commissions to date, the KuCoin Affiliate Program has given out more than 50,000,000 USDT to 16,000 affiliates across the globe since its inception. This is no surprise given KuCoin’s aggressive acquisition approach when reaching out to potential affiliates. The overall affiliates program operates on a tiered reward system, where affiliates with higher trading volume and number of valid invitees will enjoy commissions of up to 50%.

While the commission rates may seem attractive, KuCoin is rather strict in terms of its quarterly assessments. If affiliates are unable to meet the minimum Level 1 requirements for two consecutive cycles, their rates will be temporarily adjusted to 0% until they’re able to exceed assessment requirements in the next cycle round.

Paxful

As a peer-to-peer exchange, Paxful might not have visibility compared to a huge centralized exchange. However, it more than makes up for it with its Bitcoin Affiliate Program, which boasts instant income on every trade as it offers a 50% escrow fee each time invitees buy Bitcoin on Paxful. 

To stand out even further from the competition, Paxful’s crypto affiliate program focuses on the cashing-out aspect so affiliates won’t have their funds locked up on the exchange in the meantime. Affiliates simply need to earn $10 worth of Bitcoin in order to qualify for Paxful wallet withdrawals. This bonus liquidity can be extremely helpful if you’re an affiliate who trades on the side and appreciates the fast flow of funds that comes with participating in Paxful’s Bitcoin Affiliate Program.

Crypto.com

Besides offering a stylish crypto debit card, Crypto.com’s other main selling point is its wealth of premium partnerships. Thanks to its strong branding, Crypto.com has nailed partnerships with numerous brands such as UFC, Formula 1 and Paris Saint-Germain F.C. This makes the Crypto.com Affiliate Programme all the more exciting, as becoming an affiliate entitles you to exclusive VIP fan experiences. From attending Formula 1 races to watching global football superstars play, it’s no wonder many content creators are claiming this as the best crypto affiliate program for those seeking unique brand experiences.

When it comes to the exact amount of commission affiliates receive from this partnership, Crypto.com is up-front in letting affiliates choose how they want to be remunerated. From long-term commission payments to one-time incentives, Crypto.com lets you freely decide how you want to monetize your audience when they choose to sign up with the exchange. You do, however, have to have at least 10,000 social media followers in order to qualify for the program.

Coinbase

The most exciting part about the Coinbase affiliate program is its focus on using data to improve your overall performance as an affiliate. Upon successfully being accepted into the affiliate program, you’ll be granted access to Coinbase’s Impact tracking software. By making use of custom landing page tools and campaign deep links, you’ll be able to better understand the behavior of your audience and how they react to promotional content about using Coinbase. 

After each campaign is run, you’ll receive an overarching performance report that helps you make more informed decisions as you’re tweaking and adjusting your message to fit your audience. In this manner, you can further evaluate and improve the effectiveness of your campaign and test it using deep links or unique landing page techniques.

Besides access to its strong data-driven solutions, being a Coinbase affiliate lets you opt to receive your due commissions in whatever currency you desire. Program-wise, note that you will collect 50% of your referee’s trading fees for the first three months of the affiliate program.

eToro

If you’re keen on reaching out to as broad an audience as possible, the eToro Partners affiliate program is definitely best for you. With access to more than 3,000 instruments, eToro is head and shoulders above the competition when considering its robust offerings of cryptocurrencies and stocks. Add to this its social trading aspect, and you’ll certainly have higher rates of conversion when you promote the platform to your audience.

To sign up as an eToro Partner, you can chat with a dedicated affiliate manager to verify your potential reach and come to an agreement regarding commission rates and incentives. Note that your commission rate will also depend on which country you’re based in. 

BitMEX

Being one of the most advanced crypto trading platforms on the market, BitMEX has remained popular among crypto enthusiasts for being the platform to first introduce perpetual swaps to the crypto world. The BitMEX Affiliate Programme enables affiliates to enjoy up to 45% commission and be paid in U.S. dollars. On top of its competitive commission rate, the BitMEX Affiliate Programme also places an emphasis on the size of your audience. For the first three months, affiliates receive a bonus payout, depending on how large their community is. This makes BitMEX’s crypto affiliate program ideal for content creators with a strong following, and for those who want to monetize their audience based on scale.

Trezor

Although it isn’t a crypto exchange, Trezor also has an affiliate program that lets you generate income by promoting its hardware wallets. As a Trezor affiliate, you'll earn about 12% to 15% commission fees for every successful referred sale. While this is less than what you might find from exchange-related affiliate programs, it’s arguable that you’ll be able to reach a broader audience, since hardware wallets are largely viewed as a necessity by crypto enthusiasts.

One big benefit of the Trezor affiliate program is that affiliates with more exciting promotional ideas can opt to promote Trezor’s hardware wallets through unique banners, written copy and video clips. This can work wonders for engagement as you promote Trezor hardware wallets and back them up with rich content that can help potential buyers make an informed decision.

Hashing24

Mining also has its share of crypto affiliate programs, with the Hashing24 affiliate program being one of the most notable. Hashing24 essentially offers cryptocurrency mining services to buyers without requiring them to buy any mining equipment. This is accomplished as a buyer first purchases a mining plan contract. Then, the order is sent to a data center, where mining on state-of-the-art mining equipment with high hash power is conducted. The newly-mined coins are then finally credited to the buyer’s account on a daily basis. In order for the high-end mining equipment to be fully utilized, there has to be a consistent stream of mining plan contracts. That’s where the Hashing24 affiliate program comes into play. 

By promoting the lucrative nature of hash power mining to your audience, they’ll likely want to get into crypto mining by purchasing a contract with Hashing24. Affiliates will then earn up to 10% from each plan that’s purchased. With no required deposit or buy-in on the affiliates' end, it’s definitely a novel promotional idea if pitched to a crypto-curious audience.

CEX.IO

From faulty tracking to unfortunate invitee misclicks, there are plenty of things that can go wrong even though an invitee’s sign-up is legitimate. Fortunately, the CEX.IO Affiliate Program rectifies this by making use of affiliate-friendly cookies. With a 30-day duration, the cookies ensure your efforts as an affiliate aren’t wasted as invitees who click away after being referred by your personalized link still get credited under your name. This ultimately creates a system that fairly incentivizes affiliates for their promotional efforts.

LocalBitcoins

As one of the most popular peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchanges in the crypto space, LocalBitcoins also has a crypto affiliate program that can appeal to users who prefer not to transact on centralized crypto exchanges. Thanks to its peer-to-peer nature, the LocalBitcoins.com affiliate program has a unique way of rewarding affiliates. When you refer the Bitcoin buyer and seller on LocalBitcoins, you’ll earn 20% commission from both parties. This gives affiliates a grand total of 40% in commission earnings when a transaction is finalized and goes through.

Some notable terms and conditions include users being counted as your invitees for only three months, payouts being credited to your LocalBitcoins wallet in BTC daily and affiliates being able to link to any individual page on LocalBitcoins.

Changelly

As a crypto platform that specializes in on-ramping and off-ramping, Changelly is a niche exchange that offers affiliates a choice when it comes to its Changelly Affiliate Program. Compared to conventional crypto affiliate programs, Changelly Earn offers affiliates the flexibility to choose between two earning programs. The first one is called RevShare, and it’s targeted toward social media influencers, community managers and bloggers. RevShare lets you earn up to 50% of purchase and exchange transactions. 

The second option is the CPI, CPA and Hybrid earning program, which is targeted more toward data-centric marketers and SEO specialists. As cost-per-action incentives are separately discussed with Changelly before an agreement is made, we’re assuming this crypto affiliate program stands to benefit more experienced affiliates, who already have a skill set that can maximize their revenue by incentivizing certain actions.

Bitcoin IRA™

Last but not least, the Bitcoin IRA™ Affiliate Program wraps up our comparison of the top crypto affiliate programs. It distinguishes itself from the rest of the entries above by being an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) crypto platform that aims to help Americans retire with a balanced crypto retirement portfolio. This means users can only buy and sell crypto using their IRA funds. While this limits the platform to Americans, it’s a novel niche that many content creators can tap into if they have majority American audiences.

Instead of a percentage fee, Bitcoin IRA rewards affiliates with a $50 kickback per successful invitee. This deal is made all the better with additional performance-related cash bonuses that are doled out over the course of your success as a Bitcoin IRA affiliate. Similar to CEX.IO, Bitcoin IRA also offers a 30-day cookies referral period.

How to Get Started With a Crypto Affiliate Program

Through the comparisons above, we would say that Bybit is currently the best overall crypto affiliate program in the crypto space in terms of commission rates, support, payment methods and security, as well as exclusive perks.

Won over by the perks of our exclusive affiliate program? You can sign up with us by visiting the official Bybit Affiliate Program and opting to apply. Then, simply fill in the quick questionnaire and await approval from our Affiliates team. Everyone from bloggers to publishers is welcome to participate — so hesitate no longer and give Bybit’s Affiliate Program a try today. 

The Bottom Line

From Bybit and Binance to Trezor and LocalBitcoins, we hope our list of the top crypto affiliate programs has been helpful in broadening your understanding of affiliate marketing and how affiliates can effectively monetize traffic. Like their traditional affiliate marketing counterparts, crypto affiliate programs present a great revenue-generating opportunity for content creators and influencers with large followings. 

While it might take a while for an affiliate program to initially gain some traction with users, it’s certainly worth it in the long run since crypto affiliate programs tend to have an evergreen appeal. Affiliates simply need to ensure that the promotional content they’ve previously created remains up-to-date so that they’re presenting an accurate representation of the product or service they’re promoting.

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