All offers / Crypto / CEX.IO
Examined Jul 27, 2026 Nothing for the new user A correction Someone sends you a CEX.IO link. They earn 30% of what your trading costs you, and you earn nothing.
That is the whole answer, and it took reading three CEX.IO documents together to see it, because no single page states it. The 30% is described only from the sharer’s side. The reader’s side is not described at all, which is a quiet way of saying $0.
Where the 30% actually goes
- The person whose link you used, out of the fees you go on to pay30% of your fees
- You, the new user, under the standing programme$0
The standing programme only. The 25 USDC promotion is a separate thing, and it ends on 31 July 2026.
Every sentence advertising it is addressed to the sharer. CEX.IO’s own homepage banner reads “Earn 30% on your friends. Join the Referral Program to earn 30% on your friends’ activity on CEX.IO.” Its help centre, in an article dated 20 May 2026, tells customers they can “potentially earn 30% of the fees from every transaction and trade made by your referrals.” The “you” is always the person doing the inviting.
The terms put a number, and a quota, on the sharer’s side. The Affiliate Terms of Use set the revenue share at “thirty percent (30%)” which “may be amended by CEX.IO at any time”, and add: “In order to maintain RevShare income, you need to attract at least 5 new Members every month. If no new Members have been attracted within 3 months, RevShare charges may be reduced or disabled at our sole discretion.”
The new-user reward is missing, and we checked for it deliberately. An absence is harder to prove than a number, so we went looking for one. Across CEX.IO’s affiliate and referral terms, its promotion terms and its getting-started article, the phrases sign-up bonus, signup bonus and welcome bonus do not appear at all in the programme documents. Nothing is promised to the referred friend.
Two programmes share one rulebook. The terms define an “Affiliate Program”, which needs a specialist partner account or an external account with a tracking provider, and a “Referral Program”, which only needs an ordinary CEX.IO account. A friend sharing a link is in the second one. Both pay the same 30% to the same side. Neither one pays you.
What pays what
| You, as the new user, under the standing programme | $0 |
|---|---|
| The person whose link you used, standing programme | 30% of your fees, ongoing |
| That same person, if they stop bringing in 5 new members a month | May be reduced or disabled |
| You, inside the 17 to 31 July 2026 promotion, in an eligible country, after a $100 fiat deposit | 25 USDC |
| The person who shared the link, same promotion | 25 USDC |
| You, in the US, UK, Canada or the EU, same promotion | Not eligible |
| You, as qualifying referral number 101 | $0 |
| Anyone who has ever held a CEX.IO account | $0 |
| Residents of the United Kingdom | Programme suspended |
Do this, in this order
- Read the link you were sent as what it is. It pays the sender a running share of your trading costs, and it should not be the reason you pick an exchange.
- Check whether a promotion is actually running. CEX.IO publishes each promotion as its own dated rules article in its help centre. The one we read runs from 17 July 2026 to 31 July 2026 and pays 25 USDC to each side; USDC is a stablecoin pegged one for one to the US dollar. After 31 July that article governs nothing.
- Check the country list, because it is short. That promotion is open only to residents of thirty named places, among them South Africa, the Philippines, Serbia, Saudi Arabia, Jamaica and Georgia. The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and every EU country are outside it.
- If you are covered, deposit regular money, not crypto. The qualifying action is “a Deposit of Funds to the Account in an amount of not less than $100 ... using Fiat currency”. Sending in crypto you already own does not qualify you.
- Assume the 100 slots are already going. The promotion pool is “capped at the first 100 Qualifying Referrals, awarded strictly on a first-come, first-served basis”, so the window can be open while the money is gone. You must also be genuinely new: the rules exclude anyone who has ever created, registered for, opened, held or maintained a CEX.IO account, including one that was later closed or suspended.
- Judge the exchange on its fees, not on its referral. The only thing left to compare is what trading there actually costs you, which is also the thing the sharer earns 30% of.
The fine print that can still cost you
Where you live can rule you out twice. CEX.IO states that “the Affiliate Program and Referral Program for the UK is currently suspended until further notice”. Separately, its jurisdictional restrictions clause says participants shall not target, solicit, market to or direct promotional activity toward residents of the United Kingdom, residents of Spain, or any other jurisdiction where CEX.IO has suspended the programme.
If you become the sharer, the 30% comes with a landlord. Beyond the five-members-a-month quota, the terms forbid using words such as “cex.io”, “cex” or “cexio” or any look-alike in your advertising, forbid posting your own referral link as a paid advertisement on search engines, and require every single communication carrying the link to reproduce a specific disclaimer “in full, without alteration or abbreviation”. CEX.IO also reserves the right to monitor your website and to terminate your participation.
Disclosure is not optional. The promotion rules list as prohibited conduct any “failure, when promoting the Referral Link in any public or semi public forum ... to clearly and conspicuously disclose that the Referring User may receive a reward or other benefit in connection with the referral”. If a friend or a video sends you to CEX.IO without saying they are paid on your fees, that is the rule they are breaking.
Why we can never carry a CEX.IO link
To join CEX.IO’s programme you must accept a non-disparagement clause: “In exchange for receiving Reward, you agree that you will not publicly disparage CEX.IO or any of its products or services or owners, directors, or staff, whether during or after your participation in the Program.”
A second clause bars using the CEX.IO brand alongside “disparaging or defamatory content” and adds: “You agree that CEX.IO has sole discretion to make the determination as to whether such content is present.” Signing that would hand CEX.IO the final word on whether a verdict like the one at the top of this page is allowed to exist. So we hold no CEX.IO referral link, we will not apply for one, and the buttons below are ordinary links to CEX.IO’s own documents.
Is it worth your time?
As a way to get paid for opening an account, no. The only path that puts anything in your hands is a fortnight-long promotion covering thirty countries, capped at a hundred people, ending 31 July 2026 and requiring $100 of ordinary money to go in first. If you live in one of those thirty places, the promotion is still running and you were opening a CEX.IO account regardless, take the 25 USDC. Otherwise compare the exchange on its trading fees like any other.
