CrossTower Crypto Exchange Review: Institutional Ambitions and Retail Reality in 2025

When you hear the name CrossTower, you might think of a solid crypto exchange built for serious traders. But the reality is more complicated. CrossTower launched in 2020 with big goals: to bring institutional-grade trading tools to crypto and make digital assets feel as normal as stocks. It had the pedigree - founders from Citadel and Deutsche Bank, a license from Bermuda’s financial regulator, and a $6 million seed round. But by 2023, something broke. And today, in late 2025, CrossTower isn’t just struggling - it’s fading from view.

What CrossTower Actually Offered

CrossTower wasn’t trying to be Binance or Coinbase. It didn’t push meme coins or flashy mobile apps. Instead, it focused on one thing: serving institutional clients. Think hedge funds, family offices, and asset managers with $50 million to $500 million in crypto holdings. Its capital markets desk offered things most retail exchanges don’t: trade financing, structured products, and multi-venue execution. Greg Bunn, ex-Citadel, called it a “prime brokerage for crypto.” That meant clients could borrow digital assets, hedge positions, and get executed across multiple exchanges without juggling accounts.

For retail users, CrossTower had a basic spot exchange. You could deposit USD via wire transfer or credit card. You could trade Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a few other major coins. There was a mobile app on both iOS and Android. It looked clean. It was simple. But that was it. No staking, no NFT marketplace, no futures trading. No leveraged tokens. No API for advanced traders. If you were a beginner looking to buy your first Bitcoin, CrossTower worked. But it didn’t give you anything extra.

The Fee Structure That Looked Too Good to Be True

One of CrossTower’s biggest selling points was its trading fees. Market makers paid just 0.05%. Market takers? 0.00%. That’s right - zero fees for buying or selling at the current price. It sounded like a gift. And for a while, it worked. Traders flocked to the platform to take advantage of the free taker fees, especially on high-volume pairs like BTC/USD.

But here’s what they didn’t tell you: those zero fees only worked because CrossTower was losing money on every trade. It was subsidizing volume to attract liquidity. And liquidity is everything in crypto. Without deep order books, your big orders get slippage. Your stop-losses get skipped. Your trades don’t fill. CrossTower’s fee model was a trap. It looked generous, but it was a sign the exchange couldn’t sustain itself without burning cash.

Why Wilshire Indexes Dropped CrossTower

The biggest blow came on May 4, 2023. Wilshire Indexes - the same firm that powers the FT Wilshire Digital Asset Index Series - removed CrossTower as a contributing exchange. Why? Because it failed two consecutive reviews. The criteria? Trading volume, order book depth, price transparency, and resistance to manipulation. CrossTower didn’t just fall short - it was invisible.

Think of it this way: if you’re trying to build a stock index based on real market prices, you need exchanges that actually trade. If an exchange’s volume is too low, its prices aren’t reliable. Wilshire doesn’t care if you have a license. They care if your order book has buyers and sellers at realistic prices. CrossTower didn’t. That’s why exchanges like Coinbase, Kraken, and Bitstamp stayed on the list. CrossTower didn’t. And that wasn’t a minor setback. It was a death sentence for institutional credibility.

Low Retail Pull, High Regulatory Cost

CrossTower was called a “regulation-driven exchange with low retail pull.” That’s not a compliment. It means the team spent more time getting licenses than building features. They got Bermuda’s approval in October 2020 - a solid regulatory move. But Bermuda isn’t the EU or the U.S. It’s a small island. And regulators there don’t have the same scrutiny as the SEC or FCA. So while CrossTower checked the compliance box, it didn’t win trust from serious investors.

Retail users didn’t stick around. Why? Because there was nothing to keep them. No rewards program. No educational content. No community. No referral bonuses that actually paid out in meaningful ways. Sure, they offered a 25% commission on referred users’ trading fees. But if no one’s trading, no one’s earning. The referral program was a ghost.

The Comparison No One Talks About

CrossTower tried to sit between retail and institutional. But it ended up stuck in the middle. Here’s how it stacks up against the real players:

Comparison: CrossTower vs. Leading Crypto Exchanges (2025)

Feature	CrossTower	Coinbase	Kraken	Bitstamp
Institutional License	Bermuda Monetary Authority	US State Licenses + FinCEN	US State Licenses + FinCEN	EU License (Luxembourg)
Trading Fees (Taker)	0.00%	0.50% (standard)	0.16% (standard)	0.25%
Spot Trading Pairs	~20	200+	150+	80+
Mobile App	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Fiat On-Ramp	Wire, Credit Card	Bank Transfer, Card, PayPal	Bank Transfer, Card	Bank Transfer
Wilshire Index Status	Removed (May 2023)	Active Contributor	Active Contributor	Active Contributor
Trading Volume (Daily)	Undisclosed, likely <$10M	$2B+	$500M+	$300M+

CrossTower’s numbers don’t lie. It didn’t just lose to the big players. It disappeared from the conversation. While Coinbase handles billions in daily volume, CrossTower’s trading activity was so low that Wilshire couldn’t even use its data to calculate an index price.

Is CrossTower Still Operating in 2025?

That’s the question everyone’s asking. The last major update from CrossTower was in early 2023. No new features. No press releases. No hiring announcements. By January 2024, The Royal Gazette called it the “latest crypto casualty.” That’s not a neutral term. It’s a eulogy.

The website still loads. The mobile apps still exist. But if you try to deposit USD now, you’ll likely get an error. Customer support emails go unanswered. The referral program? Still listed on the site - but no one’s earning from it.

This isn’t a platform in maintenance mode. This is a platform that shut down quietly. No fanfare. No announcement. Just silence.

What You Should Do If You’re Still Using CrossTower

If you still have funds on CrossTower, move them. Now. Don’t wait. There’s no guarantee the platform will stay online. There’s no insurance. No FDIC. No regulatory protection. You’re holding assets on a service that lost institutional credibility, vanished from public view, and stopped responding to users.

Transfer your crypto to a wallet you control. Use a reputable exchange like Kraken or Coinbase to sell or move your assets. If you’re holding USD on CrossTower, you’re out of luck. Fiat withdrawals were already slow before the collapse. Now? They’re gone.

Why CrossTower Failed

CrossTower didn’t fail because it was bad. It failed because it tried to do too much, too late, without enough fuel.

It tried to compete with Coinbase on regulation - but didn’t have the legal team to scale.

It tried to compete with Binance on features - but never built them.

It tried to compete with institutional giants like Genesis - but didn’t have the capital to subsidize liquidity.

It had the right idea: bring Wall Street to crypto. But Wall Street doesn’t play with startups. It waits for proven players. And CrossTower never proved anything.

Final Verdict

CrossTower was a bold experiment. It had smart people. It had a license. It had a plan. But in crypto, plans mean nothing without volume, trust, and execution. CrossTower had none of those by 2023. Today, in 2025, it’s a ghost.

If you’re looking for a crypto exchange, don’t waste time on CrossTower. It’s not just outdated - it’s gone. The lessons here aren’t about technology. They’re about sustainability. You can’t build a crypto exchange on zero fees and regulatory paperwork. You need real users. Real volume. Real trust. CrossTower had none of that.

Don’t be the next person holding assets on a platform that vanished overnight.