MoonPay

MoonPay is an on-ramp. That word matters, because it explains the bill. An on-ramp is a payment company that sells you coins with a card or a bank transfer and delivers them to your wallet. There is no order book and no maker or taker charge. It sets a price, quotes you a total, and you accept or walk away. The widget shows up inside partner wallets such as MetaMask, Trust Wallet and Exodus, and the business has been running since 2019.

So why does it cost more than an exchange? Because a single quote absorbs several things at once: the card network's charge, converting your pounds or dollars, the exposure the firm takes on an instant card purchase, and the on-chain sending charge. Buying on an exchange and withdrawing separates those costs and is usually cheaper on larger sums. What you are buying here is speed and the absence of an exchange account.

No headline rate is published in the pages checked on 5 August 2026, so the only reliable test is arithmetic at the till. Note how much coin you will receive, compare it against the spot price somewhere else, and treat the difference as the real cost. Do that once at a small size before committing a large amount.

The registration trail is unusually detailed, and it is genuine. Its licences page lists MoonPay (UK) Limited with the Financial Conduct Authority under FRN 944746, MoonPay USA LLC with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network under 31000301673327 and with Canada's FINTRAC, MoonPay Europe B.V. with the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets, MoonPay AUS Pty Ltd with AUSTRAC, and MoonPay Jersey Ltd with the Jersey Financial Services Commission. MoonPay USA LLC is a Delaware company, registration number 7915104, and holds money transmitter licences state by state across the United States.

Practical points before you sign up. Identity checks are compulsory and can involve biometric verification through third-party providers. Payment runs through cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay, with bank transfers, PayPal and Venmo in selected regions. Data is encrypted in transit with TLS and at rest with AES-256, in centres described as ISO 27001 and PCI DSS compliant. Scale claims vary by page: one counter shows over 35 million verified accounts across 180 countries, while another passage says nearly 30 million customers and close to 500 partner businesses.