Strike vs River: Which Bitcoin-Only App Should You Use?

Strike and River are the two best-known bitcoin-only apps in the United States. Both let you buy a little bitcoin on a schedule for no fee, both let you move it to your own wallet, and neither will try to sell you anything else. They are close enough that the choice comes down to three questions: where you live, how much proof you want that your coins are really there, and whether you will use Lightning. The short answer: River if transparency matters most to you, Strike if you live in New York or Nevada, want free withdrawals any time, or want to spend over Lightning.

Figures are from our Strike review and River review, checked against each company’s own pages in September 2026. Fees change; confirm in the app before a large purchase.

Side by side

	Strike	River
What it sells	Bitcoin only	Bitcoin only
One-time buy	About 0.9% for a small purchase, falling with monthly volume; a quote may include a spread	1.00% plus a spread of roughly 0.25% on buys
Recurring buys	No trading fee after the first week	0% after the first seven days (the small spread remains)
Bank deposits	ACH and wire free	ACH and wire free
Withdraw to your own wallet	Free on the slower “Flexible” speed, as often as you like; free automatic withdrawals	One free on-chain withdrawal a month
Lightning	Yes, including payments	Yes
Proof of reserves	None published	Monthly, on-chain, plus audited public financial statements
Security audits	SOC 2 Type II	SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type II
Not available in	Licensed in 49 US jurisdictions, including New York	New York and Nevada
Extras	Paycheck direct deposit into bitcoin, fee-free up to $20,000 a month	A cash account that pays interest in bitcoin

What it costs in practice

Buying $100 a week, automatically. This is what both apps are built for, and both make it nearly free. After the first week neither charges a trading fee on recurring buys. River is open that its quotes still include a spread of about a quarter of a percent, roughly 25 cents on $100; Strike’s terms say its quotes “may include” a spread without stating a figure. Over a year of $100 weekly buys, the difference between them is a few dollars either way. Do not choose on this.

Buying $1,000 once. On River that is about $12.50 all-in (1% plus the spread). On Strike it is about $9 at the small-purchase tier. Strike is slightly cheaper for a lump sum, and the gap widens if you trade large amounts in a month.

Moving it to your own wallet. This is where they really differ. Strike sends on-chain for free whenever you ask, if you accept the slower speed, and can do it automatically after every purchase. River gives you one free on-chain send a month. If your plan is to buy weekly and sweep to your own wallet monthly, both are free. If you want every purchase to leave immediately, Strike is the one built for that.

Trust: the real difference

Both companies hold your bitcoin for you until you withdraw it, so the question every beginner should ask is: how do I know it is really there? River answers it. Every month it publishes proof of reserves that you can check against the blockchain, and it publishes audited financial statements, which almost no private company in this industry does. Strike holds customer bitcoin in its own cold storage and says it is backed one for one, and it has a SOC 2 Type II security audit, but it publishes no proof of reserves. You are taking Strike’s word for it.

There is a simple way to make this difference matter less: do not leave much there. With either app, the safest balance is the one you have already moved to a wallet you control. See Wallets and Self-Custody.

Pick Strike if

• You live in New York or Nevada, where River is not available.
• You want purchases sent to your own wallet automatically, or you withdraw more than once a month.
• You want to pay people or businesses over the Lightning Network, or have part of your paycheck converted to bitcoin.
• You are making a single larger purchase and want the lower one-time fee.

Open a Strike account

Pick River if

• You want to be able to verify, every month, that the company holds the bitcoin it owes its customers.
• You will leave some bitcoin on the platform for a while and want the most transparent custodian to do it with.
• You like the idea of idle dollars earning interest paid in bitcoin.
• You prefer a desktop website as well as an app; Strike is app-first.

Open a River account

Or neither

If you want your bitcoin never to sit with a company at all, Bitcoin Well sends each purchase straight to your own wallet, at a higher price and a slower pace. If you want a plan that pushes you toward holding your own keys, with a multisig vault and an IRA, look at Swan. And if you also want to buy other cryptocurrencies, neither of these will do it: see Coinbase vs Kraken.

Next

• Strike review and River review: the detail behind every line above.
• See Strike and River side by side in our chart, or browse all the exchanges.
• How to buy bitcoin: the process, whichever you pick. This is education, not financial advice.