HTX: crypto exchanges rating breakdown
Crypto exchange · reviewed against our published rubric, no affiliate links
It claims the largest protection fund in this table — 20,000 BTC — at an address it will not publish. Over $100m was lost across two 2023 incidents with reimbursement pledged and never independently confirmed. The FCA began legal proceedings against it in February 2026.
How the score is built
Each criterion is scored 0–10 and weighted. The median column is the middle score across every entry in this ranking, so a row reads as a position rather than a number.
| Criterion | What we measured | Weight | Score | Category median | Rank | Weighted gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Custody of funds | — | 40% | 3 | 5 | 19 of 28 | -0.80 |
| True cost of trading | 0.2062 % effective cost on a $10,000 buy · computed · 2026-07-14 · source0.2 % published taker fee · published · 2026-07-14 · source0.2165 % effective cost on a $100,000 buy · computed · 2026-07-14 | 16% | 6 | 6 | 14 of 28 | 0.00 |
| Liquidity and execution | 0 % BTC spread · measured · 2026-07-1492.2157 BTC depth within 0.1% of best ask · measured · 2026-07-14328.7695 BTC depth within 0.5% of best ask · measured · 2026-07-14 | 11% | 10 | 6 | 1 of 28 | +0.44 |
| Assets and networks | — | 9% | 6 | 6.5 | 15 of 28 | -0.04 |
| Fiat on/off ramp | — | 11% | 5 | 5.5 | 15 of 28 | -0.06 |
| KYC and access | — | 8% | 3 | 6 | 25 of 28 | -0.24 |
| Product, API and docs | 468 ms API response latency · measured · 2026-07-14 | 5% | 5 | 5.5 | 15 of 28 | -0.03 |
Measured 14 July 2026 · weights and method · decided by custody of funds, worth -0.80 points against the median
Custody of funds: 3/10
Proof-of-reserves: does it exist, who attests it, does it include liabilities (a PoR without liabilities is close to meaningless), how often. Insurance fund: size, is the address public, and has it ever actually paid out. Hack history — and above all whether users were made whole. Licences by jurisdiction, and the enforcement record behind them. Every claim here is sourced to a primary document: a regulator’s register, a court filing, or the venue’s own published proof.
Scored 3 of 10 against a category median of 5, which places it 19th of 28 among centralised exchanges on this criterion. At a 40% weight that is 0.80 points below the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 9, the worst 1.
A monthly Merkle-tree proof covering liabilities, published for over forty consecutive months — a genuinely long streak. But it refers to verification “by a third-party audit agency” and names none. Reserve ratios hover just above 100%, so there is no meaningful buffer. A stated 20,000 BTC security reserve, described as platform-owned and held at “an independent address” — an address HTX does not publish. So the largest protection fund claimed by anyone in this table is also one you cannot verify. Weigh that against its record: HTX and its associated bridge lost well over $100m across two incidents in 2023.
True cost of trading: 6/10
Measured by us, not read off a fee page. We walk the live order book and fill $1,000 / $10,000 / $100,000 of BTC/USDT, then add the venue’s published taker fee. That sum — fee + spread + realised slippage — is the effective cost. Separately: the markup on network withdrawal fees, and the hidden spread inside “convert” / “buy in one click” flows.
Scored 6 of 10 against a category median of 6, which places it 14th of 28 among centralised exchanges on this criterion. At a 16% weight that is exactly level with the median of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 1.
Liquidity and execution: 10/10
Order-book depth within ±0.1% and ±0.5% of mid, measured from the live book. Uptime over 12 months from the status page. Behaviour under stress: were there outages on days the market moved more than 5%.
Scored 10 of 10 against a category median of 6, which places it 1st of 28 among centralised exchanges on this criterion. At a 11% weight that is 0.44 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 1.
Assets and networks: 6/10
Number of pairs, adjusted for quality: the share of listings delisted within a year. Which networks are actually supported for deposit and withdrawal — not merely “supports USDT”.
Scored 6 of 10 against a category median of 6.5, which places it 15th of 28 among centralised exchanges on this criterion. At a 9% weight that is 0.04 points below the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 1.
~581 spot pairs across ~568 coins
Fiat on/off ramp: 5/10
Which methods are actually available per country, their fees, and their limits per verification tier — read from the venue’s published terms and cited. Where a venue does not publish this, that opacity is itself the finding, and it scores accordingly.
Scored 5 of 10 against a category median of 5.5, which places it 15th of 28 among centralised exchanges on this criterion. At a 11% weight that is 0.06 points below the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 1.
EUR and GBP round-trip; other currencies are deposit-only, card, or P2P. No fiat fee schedule is published.
KYC and access: 3/10
Verification tiers and their limits, what is genuinely usable without verification, and the country deny-list — from the venue’s published policy, cited. A venue that will not tell you your withdrawal ceiling before you sign up is marked down for it.
Scored 3 of 10 against a category median of 6, which places it 25th of 28 among centralised exchanges on this criterion. At a 8% weight that is 0.24 points below the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 9, the worst 1.
Tiers exist but carry no published numbers — the only figure we could source is a 0.06 BTC/day cap for unverified users. United States: The United States is a Restricted Jurisdiction barred from all services under HTX’s user agreement. European Union: None — absent from the ESMA register. Its user agreement, updated 18 June 2026 — days before the MiCA transition closed — added “all member states of the European Union” to the list barred from all services.
Product, API and docs: 5/10
API documentation quality, whether rate limits are documented, whether a public status page with uptime history exists, and the API response latency we measured ourselves while pulling the order book.
Scored 5 of 10 against a category median of 5.5, which places it 15th of 28 among centralised exchanges on this criterion. At a 5% weight that is 0.03 points below the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 9, the worst 4.
Documented API and rate limits. No status page.
Its nearest neighbours in this ranking
Sources
Questions about this score
Why did HTX ban EU users?
+
Because it did not obtain a MiCA licence and the transition period was closing. Rather than seek authorisation or operate unlicensed, HTX amended its user agreement on 18 June 2026 to bar all EU member states from all services, days before the 1 July deadline. That is a cleaner response than the venues that simply kept serving EU users without a licence — and it means European access is gone.
Is HTX legal in the UK?
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No. It is on the FCA warning list, its own terms bar the UK, and in February 2026 the FCA started legal proceedings against HTX for illegally promoting cryptoasset services to UK consumers, asking app stores and social platforms to block access. That is a more active enforcement posture than a warning listing alone.
Where can HTX still be used?
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Outside the US, the UK, the EU, mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore — which is to say, in markets without an active supervisor examining crypto exchanges. That is the practical shape of this business today, and it is the context for every custody claim it makes about itself.