The number of hoops you need to jump through to add crypto to a fintech app has dwindled significantly over the years. Just a few years ago, it required building out sophisticated blockchain-focused infrastructure.
Today, crypto integration for fintech can be conveniently accessed through an exchange API. This requires little to no infrastructure to be built, with features becoming fully available the moment integration is complete. This, in turn, gives fintech companies access to the $2 trillion+ crypto market.
In this article, we’ll be going over 5 ways you can add crypto functionality to your fintech app without putting in time, resources, and funds toward building out infrastructure.
Key Takeaways
- Building out a comprehensive crypto infrastructure can take years, requiring significant funding and manpower just to get the ball rolling.
- Integrating crypto via a 3rd-party provider lets you skip building infrastructure and go straight to offering features to your users.
- You don’t have to offer everything immediately. You can start simple with a feature like portfolio tracking before moving on to more sophisticated features like Bitcoin-backed lending.
- Choosing the right API and infrastructure provider is crucial, as it determines your costs, UI customizability, and the features you can offer to the user.
- For multinational fintech companies, a provider that handles the ever-shifting crypto regulation landscape is ideal.
Top Crypto Infrastructure Providers for Fintech Apps
Some of the best companies working on crypto integration for fintech, in our experience, are as follows:
Short Reviews of the Top Crypto Infrastructure Providers for Fintech Apps
Take a moment to learn more about the providers before choosing the best one for your needs.
Overview of the 5 Ways to Add Crypto Features to a Traditional Fintech App Without Rebuilding Infrastructure
| Casino |
Welcome Bonus |
Our Rating |
|
MEXC
|
Deposit $100, Get an Extra $300 in GOLD! |
4.7 |
|
Bitunix
|
Receive up to $100,000 worth of exclusive gifts for newcomers upon registration. |
4.0 |
|
ChangeNow
|
Experience a 1-minute swap on a non-custodial platform. |
4.0 |
|
BTCC
|
Get up to 10,055 USDT when you register, verify, and make the first deposit and the first trades. |
4.0 |
|
WEEX
|
Enjoy up to 30,000 USDT Bonus when you sign up and complete tasks. Get a 10 USDT coupon when you sign up, and link your phone number and email. |
3.0 |
|
Youhodler
|
Get up to 10,000 USDT in rewards when you deposit and trade! |
4.0 |
|
BuyUcoin
|
Get Free Bitcoin everyday upto Rs2000 INR on Sign Up, Referral, Deposit & Bitcoin Trading. |
4.0 |
|
Kraken
|
Get $10 in Bitcoin when you register through a referral link from an existing member. |
4.5 |
|
CEX.IO
|
Get up to 1,000 USDC on your Trading Fee Balance when you register, complete identity verification, and place your first spot trade. |
4.0 |
|
Uniswap V2
|
|
4.0 |
Disclaimer: Investing in cryptocurrencies carries significant risk. Values are highly volatile. Never invest more than you can afford to lose. This site does not provide financial advice. Act based on your own research and consult with a financial professional before making decisions. Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest.
Why Rebuilding a Crypto Stack From Scratch Is Risky
The appeal of building out your own crypto infrastructure from the ground up is that you get complete control over features and UI design, without allocating funds to a third-party provider.
That said, as Web3 complexity grows, many fintech companies find that the risks of development far outweigh the potential returns. Let’s take a look at four of the biggest reasons why fintech apps have been switching to third-party providers.
Regulatory complexity
Crypto regulations vary wildly across different states and countries. A feature that’s perfectly legal in the US might be prohibited in the EU or Australia. On top of that, the regulations are constantly changing, sometimes throwing entire sectors of the space out of balance. Each of these changes adds more responsibilities to your business.
The hurdles you need to overcome to become regulated can also be more difficult than with traditional financial services. For example, in the US, you’d need to register as a Money Services Business (MSB) with FinCEN, obtain state-by-state money transmitter licenses, comply with SEC regulations if dealing with securities, and adhere to CFTC rules for derivatives.
To stay on top of all this, you’ll need a dedicated legal and compliance team. This is because compliance mistakes can result in massive penalties or even cause operational shutdowns.
This issue is lessened when using a 3rd-party integration solution. Many providers offer assistance with navigating regulations, while others handle all regulatory concerns for you.
Liquidity
Most crypto functionalities, like swapping, trading, and lending, require a deep pool of liquidity. Users generally expect quick trades executed at competitive prices, with minimal slippage.
To accomplish this, you’ll need to build connections with liquidity providers, maintain your own pool of crypto holdings, and/or develop order-routing protocols to aggregate liquidity from multiple sources.
Liquidity gaps may force you to charge higher fees than competitors, cause failed transactions during volatile periods, or prompt users to settle for unfavorable exchange rates.
If you’re competing with established exchanges that already have a vast web of connections, millions in crypto holdings, and high trading volume, any of these can be disastrous.
By integrating a crypto exchange API instead, you can access your provider’s liquidity, ensuring you match up to users’ expected standards. Not all exchange APIs rely on a single liquidity source. Infrastructure providers such as ChangeNOW aggregate pricing from both centralized and decentralized venues, dynamically routing orders to optimize execution depth and reduce slippage exposure. For fintech apps, this eliminates the need to maintain proprietary reserves or engineer complex routing logic internally, while still offering competitive market pricing to end users.
Security
Security infrastructure in crypto operations demands different expertise and investment than TradFi security does in fintech. Blockchain transactions are generally irreversible, and crypto is difficult to track, making it an attractive target for malicious actors.
A robust approach to Web3 security often involves enabling multi-signature wallets, utilizing hardware security modules (HSMs), on-chain monitoring for suspicious activities, and more.
A lapse in security when handling users’ tokens can cause significant, irreversible damage. Unlike traditional finance, where malicious transactions can often be reversed, stolen crypto is often entirely unrecoverable. In 2025, an estimated $3.5 billion in crypto was stolen, and some platforms have stopped functioning entirely due to breaches.
The kind of security needed to prevent this requires specialized talent and sophisticated teams. You’ll want to undergo regular audits, maintain bug bounties, ensure users’ funds are insured, and more.
If crypto is the core of your business, this is a manageable challenge. However, if crypto is an add-on to a more traditional fintech app, the additional revenue may not be enough to offset security risks.
Because of this, relying on a third-party infrastructure provider to handle user funds, insurance, and security is often the best way to ensure your users and your business stay safe.
Engineering Cost
Rebuilding infrastructure to accommodate crypto is expensive. Generally, it requires integration with multiple blockchain networks, blockchain node infrastructure, reconciliation systems, and more, depending on the features you need.
Building this out requires a specialized set of skills, and may take even a full engineering team 12-24 months to complete. It’s not a one-time cost either; it often mandates ongoing maintenance as security patches come out, old networks get upgraded, and new ones emerge.
The more you adjust the scope of your crypto integration, the more expensive it becomes. It’s also likely you’ll need to rebuild some of your existing infrastructure to account for your new infrastructure, adding even more costs.
Even once all of that is finished, there’s no guarantee your offerings will compete with the quality of existing brands that have poured millions into crypto.
1. Embed Instant Crypto Swaps via API
Crypto swap integration is a straightforward way to add substantial crypto functionality to your fintech app. This approach lets users exchange a token for another in-app through an external API.
Providers like ChangeNOW offer simple, non-custodial ways to handle this without ever holding the user’s funds. With support for over 1,500 assets, this turns a standard banking app into a comprehensive trading terminal. More importantly, they enable cross-chain functionality, allowing a user to swap Bitcoin (BTC) directly for a Solana-based token without bridging. The integration process itself tends to be fairly straightforward, with just a few days’ work to implement API endpoints and set up the UI.
The biggest benefit of a non-custodial model is a reduced regulatory burden and less security liability if things go awry.
Generally, embedded swaps operate under a revenue-sharing model. The infrastructure provider takes a cut of the fees generated on your platform in exchange for providing you with infrastructure.
Another benefit of embedded crypto swaps is their speed-to-market. The entire process from finding a provider to rolling out features to your users can often be completed in days.
The biggest considerations with this model are UX and transaction fees. You want to look for a provider with low fees that still gives you enough room to customize the UI to fit your brand.
2. Add Crypto Payment Processing
Crypto payment processing is one of, if not the most important, crypto integrations for fintech apps. It simply allows users to use crypto as payment on your platform or facilitates peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions between your users.
This effectively unlocks more of your users’ funds to be used on your app. With crypto adoption growing, it also gives you an edge against competitors who don’t accept crypto. This edge is especially important for sectors like e-commerce, where any reduction in UX friction translates to an increase in revenue.
For fintech companies providing merchant services, crypto payments also offer the advantage of lower fees compared to credit/debit card processing. International payments, which can take days to resolve with TradFi banking, are complete in minutes.
Building the infrastructure for this yourself can be quite expensive, necessitating monitoring blockchain networks for transactions, meeting confirmation requirements, regulating transaction reconciliation, and navigating money-transmission legislation.
Many of the best crypto exchange APIs, like ChangeNOW, for example, offer crypto payment processors you can integrate into your system with minimal effort. With these, you can skip building out the infrastructure and start handling crypto payments as soon as integration is complete.
3. Offer Portfolio Tracking Features
Portfolio tracking is one of the easiest crypto features for a banking app to implement. It addresses a user’s need without you having to handle crypto custody or transactions. When your users accumulate a significant amount of crypto assets across platforms, they’ll want to be able to look at their portfolio in one spot.
Generally, portfolio tracking works via APIs connecting to exchanges and blockchains to retrieve and display the user’s balance and transactions. For a slightly more advanced implementation, you can monitor the user’s wallet addresses directly and aggregate them in one place.
While portfolio tracking is unlikely to directly generate significant revenue by itself, it adds convenience for your existing user base. On top of this, it makes it easier to embed crypto trading and other crypto features into your app.
If you’re planning to monetize portfolio tracking directly, we recommend implementing more advanced features. These include, but are not limited to:
- PnL tracking
- Cost basis tracking for tax purposes
- Token price alerts
- Portfolio rebalancing automation
- Integration with tax-filing tools
That said, user engagement and retention are the biggest benefits of a portfolio tracker. If users return to your app often to check their portfolio’s performance, you have an opportunity to promote other services. Data from users’ crypto holdings can also help you better understand your users and tailor your services accordingly.
4. Add Bitcoin-Backed Lending
Bitcoin-backed lending is one of the highest-impact ways to add crypto to a fintech app. It entails allowing users to borrow fiat or stablecoins using Bitcoin or other tokens as collateral. This lets users access liquidity without selling their tokens, while you earn interest on the loan. The interest on these loans is generally higher than TradFi loans, 7% to 16% per year.
In the past, the biggest hurdle was setting up all the necessary DeFi infrastructure. Today, platforms offer white-label solutions and API access, letting you set up lending without building your own infrastructure. Some providers handle everything from collateral management to LTV ratio monitoring, interest calculation, and liquidation processes when collateral value drops.
While this method offers high upside, it also carries significant risks. The first of these is regulatory compliance, as many countries have complex legal landscapes for crypto lending services.
On top of this, the volatility of the market can cause major shifts in collateral value, which can eat into your profits. Security and compliance errors are also costlier than with most other crypto integrations.
If you plan to include Bitcoin-backed lending in your app, there are a few things you’ll want to pay close attention to. Make sure you err on the side of caution when determining loan-to-collateral ratios (50% or less is common).
Depending on your experience and appetite for risk, consider how hands-on you want your provider to be. Some providers will handle most of the work for you, including risk responsibility, although these providers generally expect a higher revenue share.
5. Launch a White-Label Crypto Module
Employing a white-label crypto module is one of the most flexible ways to add crypto to a fintech app. A white-label crypto platform provides you with a complete crypto service you can integrate into your systems and brand under your name.
These modules can range from simple wallet creation and management to staking and yield generation options and beyond.
The module itself can be as complex or as simple as you’d like. The provider handles all of the backend infrastructure, custody, compliance, and KYC. Oftentimes, providers will even handle integration themselves, while you retain control over the user experience and design.
The most important factor when choosing this option is to choose a provider you trust. Since they’re handling all of the infrastructure and security of your crypto-oriented infrastructure, you need to ensure you choose a provider with a secure, transparent reputation.
On top of this, make sure to look at your partner’s regulatory licenses, the range of supported blockchain networks, and, especially, the customization flexibility. The degree of customization available in the white-label solution determines how well you can tailor the UI, features, and pricing model to your user base.
Generally, this model works through a revenue share, where you pay the provider a percentage of the income generated by their service. Alternatively, some providers charge fixed setup and maintenance fees.
The downside of using a white-label solution is the cost and the fact that you have less control over which features are available to your users. Nevertheless, you also save all of the time, funds, and resources you’d need to dedicate to building a module from the ground up.
However, some providers are changing this. Solutions like ChangeNOW’s White Label Exchange challenge the high cost assumption by offering modular platforms that require zero coding skills and, in some cases, no initial setup costs, operating purely on a revenue-sharing mode.
Rundown of the 5 Ways to Add Crypto Features to a Traditional Fintech App Without Rebuilding Infrastructure
-
MEXC
-
Bitunix
-
ChangeNow
-
BTCC
-
WEEX
-
Youhodler
-
BuyUcoin
-
Kraken
-
CEX.IO
-
Uniswap V2
Ilija is a CCN writer with 7 years of experience covering all things crypto. Ever since a fateful run-in with Litecoin in 2013, he's been an avid investor and writer in the space. When he's not maniacally hacking away at his keyboard, Ilija spends his time either hiking in nature or holed up in his apartment gaming.
