About

What this site is

SwapSift is an independently operated website that compares cryptocurrency exchanges market by market on availability, licence status, fees, deposit and withdrawal methods and KYC requirements, using official exchange pages and regulator registers. For each country edition we document which platforms accept residents, whether the operating entity is licensed or registered with the local regulator, what the platforms charge for trading, deposits and withdrawals, which identity documents they require, and how local payment methods work. The first edition covers South Africa.

We publish data profiles, side-by-side comparisons, practical guides and two tools: an exchange finder and a fee calculator.

What this site is not

• It is not a price site. We do not publish token prices, charts, forecasts or “next big coin” lists.
• It is not a news site. Pages change when verified facts change, and a dated notice is added when an exchange announces something that affects its users, such as paused withdrawals.
• It does not give personal financial, investment, tax or legal advice. Every page describes general information that you should check against the provider’s own terms before acting.
• It does not run accounts, wallets or trading of any kind, and it never holds customer funds.
• It is not a trading platform, a trading bot or an investment scheme, and it publishes no “success rates” or promised returns. A page elsewhere that describes a “SwapSift” trading platform is not about this site.

Who builds it

SwapSift is built and edited by Ned Chang, an independent developer who runs a one-person studio in Taichung, Taiwan, building data tools, websites and automation pipelines. His other projects are listed on his personal site, nedc.tw.

He holds no financial, legal or regulatory credentials and does not claim any. He has not opened accounts to test South African bank deposits or withdrawals himself, so timings, limits and fees on this site are the figures the exchanges publish. Reviewer fields on a page are only filled when a second person has actually checked the sources.

How the pages are made

Pages are researched and drafted with the help of AI tools (large language models) and then checked claim by claim against the official source they cite: the exchange’s own documentation and fee pages, public trading APIs, regulator registers such as the FSCA’s list of licensed crypto asset service providers, and government publications. Each source is listed on the page with the date it was read.

The division of work is simple. The AI assistant reads the official pages, records each figure with its source and read date, and drafts the text. Ned Chang decides what the site covers and what is published, and he is responsible for every page. A model’s own memory is never used as a source: when no official page states a figure, the page says it is unknown.

Why use AI at all? Fees, limits and licence details change often, and one person could not re-read dozens of official pages on a fixed schedule without help. The re-reads are what keep the figures current, and every change an exchange makes that a re-read catches is logged on the exchange changes page.

The illustrations at the top of pages and in link previews are generated with an image model. They contain no text or data and do not show real products, apps or people.

Every structured fact carries its own verification date and re-check window: fees and affiliate terms 30 days; payment rails and minimums 45 days; product lists 60 days; availability, licence status and KYC 90 days; editorial judgements such as “beginner friendly” 180 days. When a window passes, the site stops treating the fact as current and says so, both when the page is built and in your browser if you are reading a cached copy. When a fact cannot be verified, the page says “unknown” or “partially verified” instead of guessing.

Automated tests run before every release. They stop a page from going live when it contradicts the underlying data, uses promotional or guaranteed-outcome wording, links to a page that does not exist, or lets an affiliate relationship change a ranking, a score or a badge.

How the site earns money

SwapSift earns referral or affiliate compensation from four exchanges: VALR (a share of trading fees), Luno (a referral reward), Binance (a referral programme) and Bitget (a referral programme). Referral links go through addresses that start with /go/, are marked as sponsored, and carry a short disclosure next to the button. Compensation never decides which exchange a guide recommends for a situation, how the Exchange Finder orders results, or which facts a page shows. The affiliate disclosure lists each programme, and the methodology explains the ranking rules.

Corrections and contact

If a fee, limit, licence status or availability detail is wrong or out of date, please tell us through the contact page. Corrections are handled as described in the editorial policy: the fact is re-checked against its official source, the page is updated with a new verification date, and material corrections are noted on the page.

Who operates the site

SwapSift is an independently operated crypto exchange comparison and information website. SwapSift is not a cryptocurrency exchange, broker, financial institution or custodian and does not hold customer funds.