A referral code page is only useful if you can trust the numbers on it. Crypto platforms change their welcome offers often, run different promotions in different countries and describe the same reward in three slightly different ways across their own pages. So instead of copying whatever figure is easiest to find, we follow a fixed process for every program. Here is that process, step by step.
Official sources only
Every fact on a program page has to be confirmed on the platform’s own domain. In practice that means four kinds of documents:
- The referral or invite page the platform shows to users who want to invite friends.
- Help-center articles and FAQs about the referral program, welcome rewards and vouchers.
- Terms and conditions for the referral program and for specific promotions.
- The fee schedule, because a fee kickback is meaningless until you know the fee it is calculated from.
Third-party sites, social posts, forum threads and other code pages are useful as leads. They often point us to a new promotion or a change before we have spotted it. But a figure that only exists on a third-party site does not go on our page as a fact. If a platform announces something only through an official social account, we treat that as an official source but note it, because such posts are easier to delete or edit quietly than a help-center article.
Each program page lists the official URLs we relied on in its sources section, so you can check the same pages yourself.
What we check for every program
We answer the same set of questions for each offer, and those answers become the summary table at the top of every program page.
| What we check | The question we answer |
|---|---|
| Sign-up bonus | What does a new user get, in what form, and how much is it worth? |
| Referrer reward | What does the person who shares the code receive, and for how long? |
| Fee kickback | What share of your own trading fees comes back to you, and is it permanent? |
| Unlock conditions | What deposit, trading volume, holding period or time window is required? |
| KYC | Is identity verification needed, and at which level? |
| Withdrawability | Can the reward be withdrawn, or is it a voucher, fee credit or futures bonus? |
| Regions | Which countries are excluded or get a different offer? |
A few of these deserve more explanation, because they are where offers most often mislead.
Sign-up bonus: the form matters as much as the amount
We record the headline figure, then break it down. A “$100 welcome bonus” might be $20 + $30 + $50 across three tasks, it might be paid only in the platform’s own token, or it might be a set of vouchers that offset trading fees. We describe exactly which, because $100 of fee vouchers that expire after three days is worth far less to a casual buyer than $100 in a Spot balance.
Referrer reward and kickback: two sides of one commission
Most exchange referral systems work by splitting a commission. The platform pays the inviter a percentage of the fees you generate, and the inviter may share part of it with you as a kickbackA kickback is a part of your own trading fee that is returned to you. With a 10% kickback, $10 of fees effectively costs you $9.. We check both sides and make sure the page says which number belongs to whom, because “20% commission” for the inviter is often presented as a “20% discount” for the new user. Our guide to referral kickbacks covers the maths in depth.
Unlock conditions: deposits, volume and deadlines
We list every condition attached to the reward: minimum deposit, minimum trading volume (and whether Spot, futures or both count), holding periods, time windows after registration and whether the code must be entered at sign-up. If a condition is ambiguous in the official terms, we say so rather than picking the friendliest reading.
KYC and withdrawability
We note whether identity verification is required for the bonus, and at what level. The KYC requirements behind bonuses are explained in our guide to KYC for crypto bonuses. For withdrawability we ask one blunt question: can this reward end up as money you can move off the platform? If the answer is “only after you trade it” or “never”, the page says that directly.
Regions
Offers vary heavily by country. Some platforms do not serve certain regions at all, others run a smaller welcome package for some markets. We note known exclusions from the official terms. Where the platform says terms vary by region without listing them, we say that as well and tell you to confirm the live offer on the sign-up page.
How the four scores work
Every program gets four scores from 0 to 5, with one decimal place. The overall score shown on the page is the plain average of the four, with no hidden weighting. Two programs with the same overall score can therefore be strong in very different ways, which is why we always show the breakdown.
| Score | What it measures | What pushes it up | What pulls it down |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bonus value | Realistic value to a typical new user | Cash or withdrawable rewards, low entry thresholds | Vouchers, heavy volume requirements, short expiry |
| Terms clarity | How clearly the platform explains the offer | Full terms in one place, worked examples | Conditions scattered or missing, vague wording |
| Fee kickback | The ongoing discount on your own fees | A meaningful, long-lasting kickback | No kickback, or one that ends quickly |
| Ease of claiming | How simple it is to actually receive the reward | Few steps, low deposit, wide availability | Strict KYC tiers, region limits, code only at sign-up |
Roughly, the scale reads like this. A 5 is as good as this kind of offer gets in the market we cover. A 4 is strong with small catches. A 3 is decent but with conditions that will stop some users. A 2 means the offer is weak or hard to obtain for most people. A 1 is close to symbolic, and a 0 means the element does not exist at all, for example a program with no fee kickback scores 0 on that line.
Bonus value is judged on what a typical user can realistically receive, not on the maximum advertised. If a “$5,000 package” requires futures volume that only a professional trader would reach, we score it on the part a normal user could unlock. Terms clarity is where hidden conditions are punished most directly: a program that buries its deposit requirement in a separate terms document will lose points here even if the bonus itself is generous.
Scores are relative to the category. A hardware wallet discount code and a derivatives exchange referral program are not trying to do the same thing, so we compare each program mainly against others of its type in hubs such as exchanges.
How we treat claims we cannot verify
Sometimes the official sources simply do not say. A platform may not publish the invitee’s fee discount, showing it only once a code is entered. A help article may describe a promotion as “up to” a figure without saying what determines the actual amount. A referral page may be visible only to logged-in users in certain countries.
In those cases we do three things:
- We write plainly that the figure is not published, rather than filling the gap with a guess or with a number from another code site.
- We describe what you will see instead, for example “the sign-up page shows the discount once the code is applied”.
- We reflect the gap in the Terms clarity score, because a missing condition is a real cost to you as a user.
We never invent numbers, and we do not round a vague “up to” figure into a firm promise. If a claim looks too good to be true and we cannot trace it to an official page, we treat it as a red flag, and our guide to fake crypto bonuses explains the patterns we look for.
How often we re-check
Programs are re-checked on a rolling basis rather than on a fixed calendar. The most-read programs and those that change their promotions frequently, typically the large derivatives exchanges, are revisited most often. Smaller or more stable programs, such as hardware wallet discount codes, are checked less often because their terms move less.
Some events trigger an immediate re-check: a reader reports a change, a platform announces a new welcome campaign, a referral program is suspended or relaunched, or a platform changes its fee schedule. When we update a page, we re-read every source on it, not only the line that changed, because promotions tend to shift several conditions at once.
You will not see “updated on” dates on our pages. That is a deliberate choice: a date only tells you when someone last touched the page, not whether the terms on it are right. The sources list tells you where to confirm each fact, which is more useful.
How to report an outdated offer
If something on one of our pages no longer matches what the platform shows you, please tell us. Email contact@cryptoreferral.org and include:
- the address of our page,
- what is different (amount, condition, code, availability),
- a link to the official page or a screenshot of the terms you see,
- your country, if the difference might be regional.
We check every report against the platform’s official sources before changing anything, so a link to the relevant help-center article or terms page speeds things up considerably. If the report is confirmed, the page is updated and the scores are re-assessed. If we cannot confirm it, we keep watching the program and may add a note that the offer appears to vary. More about what we can help with is on our contact page.
