Best Crypto Affiliate & Referral Programs for US Publishers

Verified against primary sources: August 2, 2026 · How we verify.

If you have an audience that cares about crypto, the exchanges will pay you for referrals. What they will not do is make the terms easy to compare. Rates live in program agreements, payout rules differ by track, and some programs that look open to everyone quietly exclude US participants. We read the agreements. This page is what they say.

Quick verdict

• For ongoing revenue share: Coinbase pays 50% of your referred users' trading fees for the first 3 months, and Crypto.com markets up to 50% across its product suite with earning windows that typically run 180 to 365 days per user.

• For payout speed: Kraken's direct partner track settles weekly and pays in USDC — the fastest cadence of any major US program.

• For simplicity: Gemini pays a flat $25 per converted account. It is the easiest program to model and reconcile.

If you refer people occasionally rather than professionally, you probably want the consumer referral bonuses instead. They require no application and pay both sides.

At a glance

Coinbase

• The program: Coinbase's affiliate program, run through the Impact partner network.

• What it pays: 50% of your referred users' trading fees for their first 3 months.

• How you're paid: in local currency through Impact, by PayPal or bank transfer.

• US publishers: open and accepting applications. The UK program is closed to new affiliates until further notice, and terms differ for EU affiliates under MiFID rules.

• Worth knowing: Coinbase also runs a separate Advanced referral track paying 30% of exchange fees in USDC, documented on our bonuses page.

• Verified: 2026-08-02.

Crypto.com

• The program: Crypto.com's affiliate program, also run through Impact, with a live US landing page.

• What it pays: up to 50% revenue share from referred users' activity across the product suite, with typical earning windows of 180 to 365 days per referred user.

• How you're paid: through Impact on its standard payout rails.

• US publishers: open and accepting applications.

• Worth knowing: the terms couple your promotion scope to product availability. Partners cannot promote in countries where the app is not offered, so your targeting has to match their map.

• Verified: 2026-08-02.

Kraken

• The program: two tracks. An Impact-based affiliate program, and a direct partner track aimed at creators and publishers, both governed by Kraken's published affiliate agreement.

• What it pays: up to 50% revenue share on eligible volume, varying by product and partner profile, alongside per-action bounties for specific products such as card activations.

• How you're paid: the direct track settles weekly and pays in USDC, which is the fastest published cadence among major US programs. The Impact track pays in fiat on network rails.

• US publishers: open. The agreement's counter-party is Kraken's US parent company, and it contains no geographic bar on affiliates.

• Worth knowing: the agreement gives Kraken broad discretion on attribution and adjustments, and it can modify terms by posting updates. That is standard for the industry, but read it before you sign it.

• Verified: 2026-08-02.

Gemini

• The program: Gemini's affiliate program, tracked through Impact.

• What it pays: a flat $25 for every new user who signs up and places a trade.

• How you're paid: through Impact.

• US publishers: open.

• Worth knowing: Gemini's old affiliate revenue-share tiers of 15 to 25% remain closed to new participants — but the same percentages have resurfaced on the consumer side. The Gemini Referral Club now pays both parties 15% of a referral's trading fees for a year once that referral trades $5,000, rising to 25% at $50,000, attached to an ordinary consumer referral link rather than to this program. If a site tells you Gemini pays lifetime affiliate revenue share, its information is years old. If it tells you no fee share exists at Gemini at all, it missed the Club.

• Verified: program 2026-08-02 · Referral Club capture 2026-08-12.

OKX, and why "global program" doesn't mean you

OKX markets an affiliate program with commissions up to 50% on its global pages. The US platform is a different story: OKX serves American users through a separate US entity, and the affiliate program is simply not offered there. The US affiliate page returns a regional block. This is worth internalizing as a general rule, because several offshore exchanges run generous affiliate programs that US publishers cannot lawfully join. The rate a program advertises is irrelevant if your jurisdiction is not eligible.

The pattern behind the rates

Put the US programs side by side and a structural pattern appears. American platforms pay bounded compensation: flat bounties, capped windows, or revenue share that expires after a defined period. Offshore platforms routinely advertise lifetime revenue share at higher percentages. That difference is not generosity. It tracks the regulatory environment each platform operates in, and it has a practical consequence for US publishers: your economics depend on steady new referrals rather than a compounding book of old ones. Plan your content accordingly.

The second pattern is durability risk. These programs are contracts that the platform can change or close, and they do. Coinbase closed its UK affiliate program outright. Gemini shut its revenue-share tiers to new participants. Kraken's agreement, like most, allows modification by posting. None of this makes the programs bad. It makes diversification across several programs the only sensible structure for a publisher who depends on the revenue.

If you just want to refer a few friends

Skip everything above. The consumer referral programs pay both you and the person you refer, require no application, and are compared with all their requirements on the bonuses page.

Every rate and term above was verified against each program's own published terms and agreements on the dates shown, and the method is documented here. Programs change terms without notice, and your agreement governs over anything on this page. Disclosure: Slot Stack has applied or may apply to programs described on this page.