Best Brokers For Trading Ethereum 2026

Author

Michael MacKenzie

Michael is a UK-based investment writer with over 10 years of experience in the journalism industry. Michael has critically evaluated many of the largest investment brokers in the UK.

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James Barra

James is a UK-based writer and investor with consultancy experience at some of Britain's largest financial organisations. James authors, edits and fact-checks content for a row of investing websites.

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Fact Checker

Tobias Robinson

Tobias is a UK director and partner at Investing.co.uk. He provides commentary on the financial markets in the UK and supports the testing team with first-hand observations from over two decades of active trading.

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Ethereum exploded onto the scene in 2015 to become one of the most prominent cryptocurrencies and a main rival to Bitcoin. Today, it is one of the few crypto assets that’s gained mainstream recognition, and investors in the UK can choose from many different brokers to buy, sell and trade ETH.

Dive in to our list of the best Ethereum brokers – reviewed and rated by our team of experienced traders, that includes investors who have held ETH on various platforms for many years.

How to Choose an Ethereum Broker

We’ve found that the best ETH brokers consistently perform well in these areas:

Trust

A broker’s reliability and regulatory status are the first things we evaluate in each review – if we’re not convinced that a broker or exchange is secure enough to invest our money, then none of the fees or other criteria matter.

For ETH brokers, the first step in determining a reliable broker is simple – we check whether it’s regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Any broker with an FCA license must live up to stringent standards to obtain it, and they must prove their continued compliance hang onto their license.

However, in some cases Ethereum investors choose a crypto exchange or offshore broker that doesn’t have an FCA license.

We’ve found that these, too, can provide reliable service to traders, though you need to do your due diligence and choose carefully.

The reliable ETH exchanges and offshore brokers have years in the industry serving large numbers of clients without reports of dishonest practices. Many also implement similar protections to those mandated by the FCA, such as segregating clients’ funds and undergoing regular third-party audits.

IG Index offers spot trading of ETH and other cryptocurrencies.

Charting Platform

Choose an ETH broker with a strong trading platform that allows you to efficiently analyse price movements and execute trades with a strong range of in-built tools and indicators.

We’ve found that online brokers often support tried-and-tested third-party platforms like MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5, as well as popular contemporary platforms like TradingView.

Crypto exchanges are more likely to use proprietary platforms, which can take some getting used to if you’ve regularly used a more conventional trading platform.

Pricing

You should looks for a broker that offers low average fees when trading Ethereum – especially if you plan to make frequent trades, as fees will add up and cut into your profits.

Also look out for non-trading fees, such as on deposits and withdrawals or for accounts that remain inactive – the latter can be an issue if you plan to buy and hold ETH for long periods, as they will add up over months.

Trading ETH on IQCent’s proprietary platform

Account Options

You should make sure the ETH broker’s account options suit you before signing up, and avoid any that require larger minimum deposits than you’re comfortable with.

Over years trading ETH, we’ve found that most brokers accept new clients for an initial deposit of between £50 and £250, though some will go as low as £5 or even £0.

Other account options to look out for include perks like interest payments on your uninvested account balance, or the opportunity to stake your ETH tokens in return for a yield.

Leverage

Not all ETH investors need leverage, but if your trading style requires it you’ll need to look for an exchange or higher-risk offshore broker, since the FCA doesn’t allow this trading style for the retail market.

We’ve found that the leverage available on crypto products like ETH usually doesn’t exceed 1:100. This is already a very large amount of leverage for a volatile instrument, so we suggest sticking to far lower levels.

When trading with leverage, you’re using borrowed funds that you’ll need to pay back if the trade turns against you. If you’re trading with leverage of 1:100, then for every pound you lose, you’ll need to add another 100 to your losses. Since cryptocurrencies like ETH are prone to very large price movements, this makes for very risky trading so I personally steer clear of highly leveraged ETH trades.

Michael MacKenzie

Author

Chart

How to Trade Ethereum

Trading Vehicles

In the UK, crypto investors have a few options to choose from if they want to trade ETH tokens:

1. Spot trading – Most commonly, UK investors buy and sell ETH tokens on the spot market. This is the only way to directly trade ETH and other cryptocurrencies with an FCA-regulated broker.
2. CFDs – Many crypto traders use contracts for difference to bet on ETH price movements, often using leverage and in pairs with fiat currencies such as ETH/USD or other crypto tokens like ETH/BTC. While this is a popular way to trade Ethereum, it’s not permitted by the FCA, so UK investors must use a riskier offshore broker to do so.
3. Other derivatives – Besides CFDs, there are other popular crypto derivatives used to trade ETH such as futures and perpetual swaps. There are usually found on dedicated crypto exchanges, which are not generally licensed by the FCA.
4. Indirect ETH trading – A few stocks correlate with Ethereum to some degree, such as crypto mining companies like Hive Digital Technologies (TSVX: HIVE). Some of these are available on FCA-regulated brokers, allowing UK traders to make leveraged plays on assets that reflect ETH price movements. There are also several ETH ETFs, though these are not available to UK retail traders.

Broker Vs Exchange

Crypto exchanges are the most common destinations for trading Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies, and they have some advantages such as tight spreads, large ranges of crypto tokens and the opportunity to trade ETH derivatives with leverage.

The drawback is that these exchanges are not typically licensed by the FCA in the same way as some online crypto brokers, so they don’t have the same protections. Traders who sign up with FCA-regulated brokers can be assured their firm:

• Regularly submits financial reports to ensure continued compliance with the FCA’s stringent standards
• Holds client funds in segregated accounts so they don’t mix with business funds
• Implements negative balance protection to prevent traders’ losses from exceeding their account balance
• Participates in the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), ensuring that up to £85,000 of each client’s funds are insured in case of business failure.

Investing or Trading?

Ethereum investors usually hold assets for the medium- to long-term, while traders will often buy and sell an asset more quickly to try to profit from shorter-term price movements.

Since they’re seeking gains from much smaller time frames, and often from small price movements, traders will look for the tightest spreads – the difference between the buy and sell price – and low or no commission fees. Exchanges often have an advantage when it comes to this pricing, especially those that discount frequent traders.

Exchanges also often support leveraged trading via ETH derivatives. These can also be found in some offshore brokers in the form of Ethereum CFDs.

However, the spread and leverage become less important when you’re holding your ETH tokens for the long term, and especially if you plan to invest a large amount in Ethereum and hold it for the long term, we see stringent regulation as far more important.

Over years of trading and investing in Ethereum, I’ve seen the risks of trading with unlicensed brokers and exchanges play out time and again as massive players like FTX collapse and their clients face millions in losses.

If you’re just looking for a place to invest in ETH tokens, an FCA-regulated broker will be the most secure place to do so.

Michael MacKenzie

Author