US guide · updated 2026-07-30
BitMart alternatives for US users
Here's the uncomfortable part first: the exchanges that most resemble BitMart — the wide catalogs, the fast listings, the low fees — do not accept Americans. MEXC, Bybit, Bitget, HTX, CoinEx, BingX: all explicitly block US residents. BitMart was one of the few offshore-flavored exchanges that served the US openly, which is exactly why its US users now have the hardest migration. What follows is what actually works, what sort of works, and why the VPN shortcut is a worse idea than it looks.
Can US citizens use BitMart right now?
Existing accounts, yes — for withdrawals. BitMart served US customers, and its shutdown timeline applies to them like everyone else: trading ends 26 Aug 2026, 01:00 UTC, and withdrawal requests are recommended by 05:00 UTC that day. New registrations are closed everywhere. If you're here, the job is picking a destination and executing the exit.
The realistic options
Coinbase — the default, for a reason
Publicly listed, regulated in all the ways that matter, available in every state, and the May 2025 insider data breach aside, your funds have never been at question. The trade-offs are honest ones: roughly 405 listed coins against BitMart's 1,000+, and base fees of 0.40%/0.60% on Coinbase Advanced that make MEXC's 0%/0.05% look like a different industry. For the majors and the larger alts in your bag, it simply works. We have no affiliate deal with Coinbase — it's here because it's the right answer for a lot of Americans.
Kraken — the track record pick
Operating since 2011 with no major hack, which no other exchange on this site can say. Around 722 CoinGecko-tracked coins — nearly double Coinbase — and available in most states, though not New York. Base Pro fees (0.40%/0.80% taker) are steep but fall quickly with any volume. Also unpaid on our side; also recommended anyway.
OKX US — the newest door
OKX entered the US in April 2025 after settling with the DOJ ($505M — priced-in history, but history), and now serves around 40 states from a California HQ; New York and Texas are notably absent. Fees (0.08%/0.10%) are the closest thing to offshore pricing legally available to Americans. The catalog is majors-and-large-alts, not BitMart's long tail.
The DEX route — for everything the exchanges above won't list
Here's the part most US guides skip: your BitMart small-caps mostly are not moving to Coinbase, Kraken, or OKX, because those venues won't list them. For tokens with on-chain liquidity, a self-custody wallet plus Uniswap or Raydium is the continuation of your BitMart habit — permissionless, no sign-up, and legal to use. The delisted-tokens playbook covers checking liquidity on DexScreener and moving tokens safely; it was written mostly with US users in mind, because you're the ones with the fewest CEX options.
About the VPN idea
Yes, a VPN will get you through MEXC's front door. It will not change what happens later: offshore exchanges run periodic compliance sweeps — IP history, KYC documents, device fingerprints — and the standard outcome for a discovered US user is a frozen account and a forced-exit process, sometimes months long. MEXC spent 2025 publicly apologizing for freezing accounts of traders who hadn't broken any rules. You'd be volunteering to be the account they're supposed to freeze, during exactly the kind of migration where you need withdrawals to work on the first try. Moving funds out of a shutting-down exchange into an account that can be frozen on sight isn't an upgrade.
A note on state taxes and your BitMart records
Every sale you made on BitMart in 2026 is a taxable event, and the IRS's 1099-DA era makes exchange records matter more, not less. BitMart won't be around to re-send your history — export everything now, first thing, before you move a single coin.