Relai exchange profile

Relai provides Bitcoin purchases and sales alongside a self-custodial wallet. Its Swiss and EU services have separate terms and limit systems. Relai sets the exchange price as principal; a purchase is a bilateral transaction with Relai, rather than an instruction to an external exchange order book. The customer cannot select an execution venue or customise a limit price.[3]

External-wallet purchases require a desktop session to add and verify the wallet, including approval on a supported hardware device. Once saved, the address can be reused from the mobile app, and several wallets can be maintained. Removing or deactivating a saved wallet is possible through the wallet web interface. The ordinary retail help flow currently says it does not support selling from an external wallet; this should not be confused with separately approved Business wallet arrangements.[21]

For EU bank-funded orders, quotes refresh in 30-minute windows until payment is received. The current order screen shows the price and countdown. The help guide gives a seven-day expiry for one-time and weekly orders and 28 days for monthly orders. The displayed price when an unpaid order was first created is therefore not necessarily the price of the eventual purchase.[14]

The ordinary app fee is 1%, reduced to 0.9% with an eligible referral code. Card, Apple Pay and Google Pay purchases add 3%. Relai does not charge its own bank-transfer payment fee, although the customer’s bank may. These explicit percentages do not measure the entire difference between a market reference and the final Bitcoin quote.[8]

The EU pricing policy constructs its reference from five venues, removing the highest and lowest observations and averaging the remaining three. Relai adds its own margin to the quotation. The quote calculation and the separately stated service rate are therefore different parts of the price.[6]

Business pricing is distinct: the published service rate begins at 2% below 50,000, falls to 1.9% at 50,000, 1.8% at 100,000, and then declines by 0.1 percentage point per additional 100,000 to 1% at 900,000. The product page directs transactions of one million or more to the team. A qualifying code reduces the service component by 10%, rather than subtracting ten percentage points.[10]

The monthly zero-service-fee offer applies to the first-created qualifying monthly savings order of 50–100 CHF/EUR in a calendar month. It does not apply to arbitrary one-time purchases, and other plans retain their normal fee. The allowance resets on the first day of the month and can also apply to an eligible external-wallet plan. Payment-provider charges can still apply, so zero service fee does not establish a zero-cost card purchase.[11]

EU customers can submit proof of address proactively through Trading limits. Relai sends notices around €5,000 and €7,500 of lifetime volume, ahead of the €10,000 threshold. Review normally takes one to three business days. Reaching a published pricing band does not bypass this documentary step, and purchases plus sales both consume the relevant allowance.[13]

Use the customer’s own bank account and the IBAN specified in the active order. Shared or joint accounts are not accepted by the payment guide. Visa and Mastercard, Apple Pay and Google Pay are supported; PayPal and American Express are not. A newly selected source IBAN does not update an already-created order, so a changed bank account requires a new matching order. Apple Pay and Google Pay remain checkout options even where they cannot be stored as a recurring payment method.[16]

The EU contract specifies instant SEPA and says ordinary SEPA should not be used. The delivery FAQ nevertheless describes ordinary transfers. Because those public instructions differ, the supported method and destination generated for the live order should be confirmed before sending funds; ordinary SEPA cannot be treated as unconditionally accepted from these pages.[2][18]

An EU sale requires the exact Bitcoin amount from the specified wallet and at least three confirmations within four hours. An unmatched transfer can be returned net of network fees; a missed deadline can make the order lapse. This completion rule matters even though the EU sale quotation was fixed at confirmation.[2]

The Swiss pricing policy says Relai covers the on-chain delivery fee for a purchase; a customer sending Bitcoin for a sale bears the relevant network expense. Network congestion can delay processing. Sending Bitcoin and obtaining fiat proceeds are separate stages, so blockchain confirmation alone does not establish that a bank payout has arrived.[7]

Relai’s ordinary wallet is self-custodial: only the customer controls access to the Bitcoin. An exchange login, a fiat payment and a wallet recovery phrase therefore perform different functions. Losing access to the app does not give Relai the private keys needed to replace the customer’s wallet backup.[35]

Back up the twelve words offline before deleting, replacing or resetting a phone. Relai cannot recover a lost phrase. Anyone obtaining it can control the wallet independently of the account’s email or face-verification process, so an account password reset is not a remedy for seed disclosure.[22]

The Sygnum loan referral is restricted to eligible Relai AG Private/Business clients. Collateral moves into Sygnum custody; the guide describes a typical CHF100,000 initial deposit and borrowing up to 50% of BTC value. Separate lender onboarding, rates and collateral controls apply. Pledged Bitcoin is not freely spendable in the ordinary wallet.[36][9]

Relai’s country list concerns where the app is offered. It includes Switzerland and Liechtenstein, many EU countries, Norway, Andorra and San Marino; it does not list every EEA jurisdiction. The named EU countries include Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. App-store access by itself does not complete nationality or customer acceptance checks.[27]

The sign-up guide requires an accepted nationality as well as residence in a supported country. A qualifying passport or national identity card with a machine-readable zone is used; a driving licence or residence permit does not substitute for those identity documents. Identity, facial and other verification checks must be completed before the applicable trading limit becomes available.[26]

The Swiss Business annex requires an eligible registered business, transparent ownership and a professional bank account maintained for at least three months. The EU Business annex instead requires EEA registration and a professional account maintained for at least twelve months. Representative and ownership checks apply independently of the consumer app’s limits.[3][2]

Support is available through in-app chat and email; Relai explicitly says it has no telephone support. The AI support agent is available around the clock and can use help material and images. Its description says it cannot access the customer’s account or database. A customer can ask for a human, so an automated answer should not be treated as confirmation that an order, refund or account restriction has been changed.[28]

Formal complaints can be submitted with details and supporting documents through the complaint channel, chat or email. The help procedure targets acknowledgment within ten business days and a substantive response within two months, with updates if more time is needed. These are complaint-handling targets, not a promise to execute an order during an outage.[29]

Account deletion is available through the app or a request from the registered email. Cancel outstanding orders and plans and preserve the wallet seed first. Uninstalling the app alone does not delete the verified account. Relai states that trading records remain for ten years under the Swiss entity or five under the EU entity; using the same email again can require manual support reactivation.[30]

The EU authorisation belongs to Relai EU SASU and the named exchange activity. It does not turn a self-managed recovery phrase into insured custody or make a customer’s Bitcoin position a protected bank deposit. The verified AMF entry supplies the permission evidence; product acceptance and limits remain separate operational questions.[4]

Relai AG is based at Hardturmstrasse 161, 8005 Zurich. Relai EU SASU is the French entity, registered under RCS 934 814 062 at 61 rue de Lyon, 75012 Paris. They operate under the same Relai brand, rather than representing two unrelated exchanges.[1]

The migration guide moves affected EU customers from the Swiss contracting entity to Relai EU, including new EU payment details. The existing wallet and recovery phrase remain the customer’s; the entity change does not itself create a new Bitcoin wallet. Old deposit instructions should therefore not be reused simply because the app and wallet still look familiar. Swiss customers remain under the Swiss service.[34]

In its 21 September 2026 funding announcement, Relai reported more than 100,000 users and said app downloads had passed 620,000 a few weeks earlier. Those are different populations and time references, not two measures of active traders. The announcement described a seven-figure financing round at a $90 million valuation; a funding valuation is not customer trading volume or a measure of wallet protection.[5]

Operator

Relai AG / Relai EU SASU

Exchange model

Centralised

Service scope

Bitcoin purchases, sales and recurring plans; Private and Business channels serve larger or company orders.

Client types

Retail clients; Institutional clients

Pricing publication

Public pricing

Pricing scope

Service fees and payment surcharges coexist with a margin in the exchange quote.

Funding scope

Own-name bank or supported card payments; EUR for EU accounts, CHF/EUR under the Swiss service.

Custody and asset handling

Self-custodial Bitcoin wallet: the customer controls the recovery phrase and private keys.

Client eligibility

Supported nationalities and countries, identity verification and regional limits; company onboarding has additional requirements.

Support

In-app chat and email, with an AI help agent and human escalation; no telephone support.

Authorisation and registration scope

Relai EU SASU is AMF-authorised for crypto/funds exchange. Relai AG describes Swiss VQF AML affiliation.

Exchange metadata checked 20 Oct 2026Source 1Source 2Source 3Source 35

The app can export a chosen order-history period as CSV, XLSX or PDF. Manual Bitcoin transfers made directly through the wallet are excluded, so this export alone is not a full history of every on-chain movement. For a historical wallet balance, Relai directs users to an address explorer. Reconcile external-wallet activity and acquisition history separately before using the files for tax reporting.[31]

Referral rewards are a share of service fees: the referrer receives 10%, while an eligible referred customer receives a 10% reduction of the service component. Rewards are paid in Bitcoin to the wallet on the first of the month once the balance reaches the equivalent of 10 CHF/EUR; smaller balances roll forward. Orders with no service fee generate no referral share. This is the basis of the Earn proposition, rather than interest on deposited Bitcoin.[32][37]

The published Lightning sunset notice directs customers with legacy channel balances to close their channels and recover funds, with support available for remaining cases. It says ordinary on-chain Bitcoin activity continues. Lightning should therefore not be listed as a currently supported new-account payment feature merely because historical help pages or app references remain available.[33]