Beside every Cambio quote you see dated figures for other well-known instant exchanges — checks of their own websites, or estimates marked Est. Here is what those figures are, what they are not, and why we publish every raw row behind them.
Most instant exchanges show you one number: their own rate. To know whether it is a good one, you have to open other sites and compare them yourself.
A Cambio quote comes with dated figures for other well-known instant exchanges beside it. This post explains what those figures are, where they come from, what they are not, and why we publish the raw rows behind them.
What you see beside a Cambio quote
Cambio's own row is the quote for your exact amount: what you would receive, with the network fee stated on its own line. Every Cambio swap is executed through the selected route — you send to the deposit address shown for your order, and the payout is sent to your destination wallet. No account or stored balance is created.
Beside it are reference rows for other exchanges. They are never offered on Cambio and never executed: there is no button to swap through them, and Cambio does not send orders to them. They are there so you can see how the quote compares.
Each reference row is one of two kinds, and it says which:
- A website check: what that exchange's own public website said it would deliver, read by a separate server of ours at nearby sizes and applied to your amount, shown with the time of the check.
- An Est. row: an estimate fitted from the prices that exchange quoted Cambio earlier, labelled Est. and shown with the dates of those quotes. It is not a live figure.
Both kinds carry the date they were observed, and both are reference only: Cambio never sends your swap to another exchange.
Why dated figures, not live ones
Cambio does not ask other exchanges for live quotes. A figure that looks live but is not is worse than a figure that tells you its age, so every reference figure carries its time or its dates.
Checking an exchange's own public website measures what a visitor to that site would actually be offered — its margin and its withdrawal fee included, because both are already taken out of the amount the site says will arrive.
What "cost" means in these figures
The cost of a swap is what arrives in your wallet, measured against the market price at the same moment. A headline rate can look tight while a flat withdrawal fee takes a large share of a small swap, so the figures compare delivered amounts, not advertised rates.
What these figures are not
- They are quotes, not completed swaps. A floating rate can move between a quote and the payout, in either direction.
- They cover a selection of well-known exchanges, not the whole market.
- A website check is a moment in time. The figure that applies to your swap is the one on your own quote.
Why we publish the raw rows
A comparison you cannot check is only a claim. So the website checks behind our figures are public, one row per check, each with its time in UTC, at github.com/cambio-one/exchange-fee-data under a CC BY 4.0 licence. Anyone can recompute our numbers, disagree with them, or use them.
We also publish dated reports built from those rows, such as "What $200 and $1,000 of BTC → USDT really cost" on this blog.
If you find a mistake, write to [email protected]. Corrections are published, including when they are ours.
How to read the comparison
- Compare what you receive, not the rate. Cambio's row already has its network fee taken out and stated.
- Check the time or the dates on each reference row before you rely on it.
- Cambio's row is the one that applies to your swap; the reference figures are there to show what it is worth.
What we will keep doing
Every reference figure will carry its date. Est. rows will stay labelled. And the raw rows will stay public — the dataset is unfiltered, including the hours another exchange delivered more.
