How US licensing works
The American arrangement confuses people because there is no single national crypto licence. There are two layers and they do different jobs.
Federal. A crypto exchange serving US customers registers with FinCEN as a Money Services Business. That brings anti-money-laundering obligations, recordkeeping requirements and reporting duties. It is a registration rather than a licence. It does not authorise the business to operate in any particular state.
State. Each state licenses money transmission separately through its own banking regulator. An exchange must hold a licence in each state where it serves customers, or qualify for a specific exemption there. That is why a platform can be fully operational in Texas and unavailable in a neighbouring state.
New York runs its own regime on top of this, the BitLicense, administered by the Department of Financial Services. It is demanding enough that several major platforms simply do not serve New York residents, which is why New Yorkers see a noticeably different market.
This is why offers differ by state
A promotion cannot be advertised to somebody the platform is not licensed to serve. When a friend two states away sees an offer you do not, that is usually licensing rather than a targeting accident.
Verify a licence yourself
Two free public registers settle the question in about two minutes, and neither requires taking a company’s word for anything.
NMLS Consumer Access is the national registry where state money transmitter licences are recorded. Search the legal entity name or the NMLS ID and you will see every state licence held, with licence numbers and status. As an example, the exchange we link to on this site operates under NMLS ID 1804170 with licences across more than forty states — Alabama 792, Texas 3223, Washington 550-MT-117925 and so on, all individually listed and checkable.
The FinCEN MSB registrant search confirms federal registration. It is a simple lookup by name or state.
Note the distinction: the legal entity name is frequently not the brand name. Exchanges commonly operate a US-facing corporate entity that is separate from their international one, and it is the entity that holds the licences. If a search returns nothing, check the terms of service for the actual registrant name before concluding anything.
What US offers look like
American welcome bonuses have settled into a narrow band of structures, and knowing them makes any specific offer easy to evaluate.
| Structure | Typical value | Qualifying action | Window |
|---|---|---|---|
| First-purchase bonus | $10–$30 | Verify, then buy crypto with fiat | Up to 90 days |
| Trade-threshold bonus | $50–$75 | Trade $100–$200 of non-stablecoin crypto | 15–30 days |
| Referral reward | Per referral, capped | Referred user verifies and trades | Ongoing |
| Learn-and-earn | A few dollars | Watch a lesson, pass a quiz | Campaign rotates |
The sequencing rule applies universally and is worth repeating because it is where most US bonuses are lost: open the referral link before the account exists. Adding a code to an existing account almost never works, and no amount of contacting support recovers it.
Bonuses are income
This is the part that surprises people who treat a bonus as a gift rather than as compensation.
A crypto bonus received for completing a task is generally treated as ordinary income at its fair market value on the date you received it. That value then becomes your cost basis for the asset. If you later sell it for more, the difference is a capital gain measured from that point.
The IRS treats virtual currency as property for federal tax purposes, which is the foundation of most of the treatment here. A $50 bonus in Bitcoin is $50 of income now and a $50 basis going forward, regardless of what happens to the price afterwards.
Practically, that means keeping a record of the date and value at receipt for every bonus. Exchanges issue tax documentation for some of this and not all of it, and the gaps are yours to fill. Our tax guide covers the gifting side separately.
Gift cards in the US
Worth a note because the United States has the strongest consumer protection on gift cards of any market we cover, and it changes how the rest of this site applies to American readers.
The CARD Act requires most gift card funds to remain valid for at least five years from the date of issue, restricts inactivity fees and mandates clear disclosure of any that apply. The CFPB enforces the related rules. Most large retailers go further and do not expire balances at all.
Coverage is also the deepest anywhere: American buyers have more brands available through crypto marketplaces than any other market, and the markups are correspondingly competitive. See our retail page for the practical side.
The check we would run first
Before opening any US crypto account, search the entity on NMLS and confirm it holds a licence in your state. It takes one minute, it is free, and it is more informative than any review including ours.
An exchange operating in your state without the relevant authorisation is a problem you will only discover when you try to withdraw.