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C

Rating report

Gate.io

Grade C, 2.7 out of 5

Gate.io holds a Malta MiCA authorisation and an EU payment-services licence, and has published Merkle-tree plus zk-SNARK proof of reserves with Armanino LLP involved since October 2022, though only its U.S. entity's figures come from a primary source.

By Safety Desk. Facts checked against official sources on .

Findings, check by check

Every KripZen grade comes from the same five weighted checks. Here is how Gate.io scores on each.

  1. Proof of reserves 30%

    Has published proof of reserves since around May 2020 using a combined Merkle-tree and zk-SNARK method, with third-party involvement from Armanino LLP since 19 October 2022; only the U.S. entity's 100% ratio is primary-sourced, and the global platform's reported 124% ratio comes from third parties.

    What “Proof of reserves” means

    Partial or unaudited

  2. Custody 25%

    Roughly 95% of assets in cold storage is reported by third parties, but Gate publishes no cold/hot split we could confirm from a primary source.

    What “Custody” means

    Partial or unaudited

  3. Regulation 20%

    Malta MFSA MiCA CASP authorisation granted 29 September 2025 covering 6 of the 10 service categories, and a PSD2 payment-services licence from 26 February 2026, alongside a Gibraltar GFSC DLT licence and a TCSP registration listed on its own licences page without registration numbers we could check; access is restricted from roughly 30–34 countries including the U.S., UK, Canada and most of Western Europe.

    What “Regulation” means

    Partial or unaudited

  4. Insurance 15%

    No insurance or safety fund is publicly disclosed. That is a statement about what Gate discloses, not a finding that it is uninsured — but an undisclosed fund is one a user cannot rely on.

    Not disclosed

  5. Incident history 10%

    No confirmed major security incident found in our research; Gate claims a 13-year record with no platform-level breach, and holds ISO 27001 certification alongside a CER.live AA rating of 88/100.

    Disclosed

The weights are the same for every exchange. Read the full methodology

Fees, products and reach

Spot fees (base tier)
Not published openly
Proof of reserves
PublishedLatest report seen: 2026-09-13
Products
Spot, Futures, Staking, P2P, Card purchases, Copy trading
Not offered under its own terms in
United States, China, Singapore, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Malta, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Spain, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Myanmar (Burma), Venezuela, Uzbekistan, Austria, India, Indonesia, Japan, Argentina, Cambodia, United Arab Emirates, Thailand, South Korea, Philippines, Pakistan, Vietnam, Russia

Base-tier fees from the exchange’s own fee page. Your real cost depends on order type, volume tier and spread; try your numbers in the Exchange Fee Calculator

Our Gate.io review

Gate.io has been publishing reserve proofs for longer than most of this corpus has existed, and it is still the case that the only figure we could confirm at source belongs to its U.S. entity. A C is what that gap between programme and evidence costs.

What checks out

Reserve proofs have run since around May 2020 using a combined Merkle-tree and zk-SNARK method, with third-party involvement from Armanino LLP since 19 October 2022. On the licensing side, the Malta MFSA granted a MiCA CASP authorisation on 29 September 2025 covering 6 of the 10 service categories, followed by a PSD2 payment-services licence from 26 February 2026. We found no confirmed platform-level breach; Gate claims a 13-year record without one and holds ISO 27001 certification alongside a CER.live AA rating of 88/100.

Where the evidence stops

Only the U.S. entity's 100% reserve ratio is primary-sourced. The global platform's reported 124% comes from third parties, which makes the headline number a report about a report. The roughly 95% cold-storage figure is in the same position — reported by third parties, not published by Gate. Its own licences page lists a Gibraltar GFSC DLT licence and a TCSP registration without registration numbers we could check against a register, and no insurance or safety fund is disclosed at all. Access is restricted from roughly 30 to 34 countries, including the U.S., the UK, Canada and most of Western Europe, so for many readers the practical question is settled before the grade is.

How to read the grade

This is a venue with real, dated, checkable European authorisations and a reserve programme whose numbers mostly reach you second-hand. The C reflects the distance between the two.

Sources

Every fact on this page comes from one of these official pages, checked on October 20, 2026.

  1. gate.com/
  2. gate.com/%20(nav:%20Futures,%20P2P,%20Copy,%20Staking,%20Buy%20&%20Sell%20'Supports%20Visa,%20Mastercard,%20SEPA')
  3. gate.com/proof-of-reserves
  4. gate.com/legal/user-agreement

Where to go next

Other exchanges we've graded

How to read these grades: each is derived from published, checkable disclosures — proof-of-reserves attestations, public regulatory registers, disclosed insurance funds and the documented incident record — using the weighted rubric below. Where an exchange does not disclose something, we mark it unverified rather than assume it. These are not audits and not investment advice; they reflect what was published as of our last review. Cryptocurrency investments carry risk, including loss of principal. Nothing on KripZen is financial advice — always do your own research before buying, trading or moving funds.