Examined Oct 2, 2026 Fee waiver, not cash $100 outside the US and Europe No published terms Strike waives the fee on $500 of bitcoin trading. That is not the same as $500.
Nothing moves from Strike's account into yours. What you receive is a discount on a fee, not a transfer. In plain numbers: a waived fee on $500 of bitcoin buying is worth a few dollars, not $500. Strike's referral rules page does not publish its fee rate, so we will not invent one; the only place to see it is Strike's own fee schedule in the app. Multiply that rate by $500 and you have the real value of this offer.
- Fee-free trading, in the US and Europe$500
- Fee-free trading, if either account is in another supported country$100
- Cash paid to you, anywhere$0
The first two figures are Strike's own, from its referral rules page; if you join from Europe the figure is €500, not $500. The third row is what actually changes hands. If either account is in the UK, you get nothing.
What pays what
| You, in the US, after you verify your account | $500 of fee-free trading |
|---|---|
| You, joining from Europe | €500 of fee-free trading |
| You or the account whose code you use, in another supported country | $100 of fee-free trading |
| You or the account whose code you use, in the United Kingdom | No reward |
| Cash actually paid to you | $0 |
| What the waiver covers | One-time buys and sells, target orders, recurring purchases |
| Where to see what is left | The traded this month card on the bitcoin tab |
| Whether the allowance expires | Not published anywhere |
If one of you is in the UK, neither of you will be able to earn rewards by referring or being referred by the other.
The line above it sets the $100: “each earns $100 in waived fees” if either account is in another supported country. The same article calls the whole reward “a set amount of fee-free trading”, so we read the $100 as trading with the fee removed, like the $500.
Do this, in this order
- Work out what the waiver is actually worth before anything else. Open Strike's fee schedule in the app and multiply the fee rate by $500, or by $100 if either account is outside the US and Europe. That result, and not the headline, is what this referral pays you.
- Check that the program reaches you at all. Strike's rules page says there is no reward if either account is in the UK, yours or the one whose code you use. If either is in another supported country, you get $100 of fee-free trading, not $500. Joining from Europe gets you €500 instead of $500.
- Enter the code during signup, because that is the only moment described. On the mobile app, tap “Add invite code” when you enter your email. You should then see “Invited by” and a username, which confirms the code is applied. There is no published route for adding a code later.
- Verify your account, because that is what starts the waiver. Strike's rules page says you can trade with waived fees “After you verify your account”. It no longer ties your waiver to a first bitcoin purchase. No deadline for verifying is published.
- Spend the allowance on trades you were making anyway. The waiver covers your next $500 worth of bitcoin trades: one-time buys and sells, target orders and recurring purchases. To see how much is left, open the bitcoin tab and tap the “traded this month” card. If you already buy bitcoin weekly, the waiver quietly covers the next stretch of fees.
The fine print that can still cost you
There is almost no fine print, and that is not a good thing.
Strike publishes no referral terms document at all. Its legal library carries a Terms of Service, a privacy notice, a custody summary, a risk disclosure, a commercial policy and several more. There is no referral agreement among them. A one-page support article is the entire rulebook, and it carries no last-updated date.
The geography rules live in two lines. One line of that article is what separates $500 from $100, and another is what excludes the UK. Both count the country of the account whose code you use, not only yours. The “traded this month” card in the app is where you will see which figure you got.
Several questions you would want answered are simply unanswered. Whether the allowance expires, whether multiple referrals stack or overwrite each other, whether Strike can reverse the benefit and on what grounds, whether your account has to stay in good standing, minimum age, any US state restrictions: none of it is published. Here there is no clause to read, which means the answer is whatever Strike decides at the time.
No end date is stated either. The program can simply stop. The one place a current offer or an expiry would actually show up is the referral screen inside the app.
None of this is a warning about Strike itself. Strike is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the New York State Department of Financial Services. The complaint on this page is about a referral program with a misleading-looking headline and no written rules.
Is it worth your time?
If you already want Strike, take the code. It is free, it starts once you verify your account, and waived fees on trades you were making anyway are a small win with no downside. Judged as a reason to open an account, it is one of the weakest offers in this group: Kraken and Gemini will put crypto worth real money in your account for a comparable ten minutes of work, and even the smaller bitcoin apps pay you in bitcoin rather than in discounts. Judged as a small courtesy attached to an app you had already chosen, it is fine.
If you refer friends once you have an account, each one who joins with your code and makes a first trade earns you fee-free trading under the same country rules. Whether these stack is not published.
