Crypto app marketing looks like any other app marketing from a distance: a store listing, some screenshots, a paid campaign and a referral programme. Up close it is very different, because Apple and Google decide which crypto apps can be listed, in which countries, and what those apps are allowed to reward. A campaign that breaks those rules does not just underperform. It can get the app pulled from the store in the middle of a launch.

At AnkhLabs we start every mobile growth plan with the store policies, because they shape everything that follows, from the countries you target to the wording on your screenshots. This guide covers the current App Store and Google Play rules for crypto wallets and exchanges as of November 2026, how to optimise a crypto app's store listing, and the user acquisition channels that stay within policy.

Why does mobile matter so much for crypto?

For most new users a crypto product is an app on a phone. a16z's crypto team reported in its State of Crypto 2025 report that crypto mobile wallet users had reached an all-time high, up 20% year over year, and estimated 40 to 70 million active crypto users worldwide. Those users discover apps through the store, judge them by their listing and decide in a few seconds whether the product looks safe.

That makes the store page the most important piece of marketing a wallet or exchange owns. It is also the piece most controlled by someone else.

What are Apple's App Store rules for crypto apps?

Apple sets out its crypto rules in section 3.1.5 of the App Store Review Guidelines. As of 6 November 2026 there are five parts:

• Wallets. Apps may store virtual currency "provided they are offered by developers enrolled as an organization", so an individual developer account cannot publish a wallet.

• Mining. Apps may not mine cryptocurrency on the device. Cloud-based mining is allowed.

• Exchanges. Apps may facilitate crypto transactions on an approved exchange only in countries or regions where the app has "appropriate licensing and permissions".

• Token sales and derivatives. Apps that facilitate initial coin offerings, crypto futures or other crypto-securities trading must come from established banks, securities firms, futures commission merchants or other approved financial institutions.

• Rewards for tasks. Crypto apps "may not offer currency for completing tasks, such as downloading other apps, encouraging other users to download, posting to social networks, etc."

The last rule matters most to marketers. A referral programme that pays tokens for each friend who installs the app, or a quest that pays for a post on X, falls inside that wording. Rewards tied to genuine product use, such as fee discounts for trading, are a safer design, but check the exact mechanic against the guideline before launch.

NFTs sit under the in-app purchase rules in section 3.1.1. Apps may sell NFT services such as minting and transfers through in-app purchase and may let users view their own NFTs, provided owning an NFT does not switch on features or functionality inside the app. Outside the United States storefront, apps that let users browse NFT collections may not include buttons or links that send customers to a purchase method other than in-app purchase.

What are Google Play's rules for crypto apps?

Google Play takes a licence-first approach. Its policy on cryptocurrency exchanges and software wallets requires developers to complete the Financial Features Declaration in Play Console and then fill in a form for each listed country or region. If you do not hold the required licence or registration for a market, and none of the policy's additional options applies, you must remove that market from your app's distribution.

The requirements are specific. In the United States an exchange must be registered with FinCEN as a money services business or be a chartered bank. In the United Kingdom it must be registered with the Financial Conduct Authority. In the European Union exchanges and wallets must be authorised as a crypto-asset service provider under MiCA, and from July 2026 providers authorised in Liechtenstein, Iceland and Norway can also distribute to EU member states. Other listed markets include Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and Thailand, each with its own regulator. The page's change log was updated in October 2026 with new licence options for Hong Kong and the UAE and a new "Additional Options" section, which includes a declaration for non-custodial software wallets. Our guide to the MiCA licence explains what the EU authorisation involves.

Apple and Google crypto rules compared

Sources: Apple Developer, Google Play Console Help. As of 6 November 2026. This is not legal advice.

How does app store optimisation work for crypto apps?

App store optimisation, or ASO, is the work of making your listing rank in store search and convert the people who see it. The basics are the same for every app, and Apple publishes them on its product page guide. The app name and subtitle are each limited to 30 characters, the keyword field to 100 characters, and you can show up to 10 screenshots and three app previews of up to 30 seconds. Apple tells developers not to use competitor names or unauthorised trademarks in keywords and calls improper keywords a common cause of rejection.

Google's metadata policy limits the title to 30 characters and bans text or images in the title, icon or developer name that suggest store ranking, such as "#1", or price and promotional details, such as "$50 cash back". For a crypto app that rules out the sign-up bonus banner many exchanges would like to put on their icon.

Beyond the limits, three things matter more for crypto than for other categories.

• Trust in the first screenshot. Users worry about losing funds, so show security features, licences and clear fees before you show charts. According to Apple, the first one to three screenshots appear in search results when there is no app preview, so they carry most of the weight.

• Plain words. Search terms like "bitcoin wallet" or "buy crypto" are what people type. Jargon like "self-custodial multi-chain" belongs in the description, not the name.

• Different pages for different audiences. Apple's custom product pages let you create versions of the listing with their own screenshots and a unique URL, so traders and first-time buyers can each land on a page made for them. Product page optimisation lets you test icons and screenshots on a share of real visitors.

Reviews and ratings sit on top of all of this. Crypto apps can collect angry reviews during market crashes and outages, so reply to them quickly and ask for ratings after a successful action, such as a first deposit, rather than at launch.

How do crypto wallets and exchanges acquire users?

Paid search is possible but tightly controlled. Google's cryptocurrencies and related products policy allows exchanges and software wallets to advertise only after certification and only in approved markets, with a matching licence such as MiCA authorisation in the EU or FCA registration in the UK. It bans ads for initial coin offerings, DeFi trading protocols and the purchase, sale or trade of cryptocurrencies, along with sites that compare crypto issuers. In February 2026 Google added Indonesia to the list of markets where licensed exchanges can apply. Some teams avoid the stores at first and launch as a Telegram mini app, an approach we looked at in our piece on tap-to-earn games.

Measurement on iOS has its own limits. Apple's privacy rules require an app to ask permission through App Tracking Transparency before it links its data with other companies' apps or websites for advertising, and without permission the advertising identifier is all zeros. Apple points advertisers to AdAttributionKit for privacy-preserving campaign measurement, so plan your reporting around aggregated results rather than user-level paths.

The channels that tend to carry crypto apps are the ones where trust transfers. Creators who already use the product can show the app working on screen. For FIFA Rivals we organised 100+ KOLs into one amplification strategy with distinct angles, reaching 300K+ people, and our guide to crypto KOL marketing covers how to brief creators. Community and fandom work too. For SIXR Cricket distribution was built around cricket fandom in core markets, with onboarding simplified for users who had never held a wallet, and 200K+ users onboarded in beta.

Finally, the first session decides whether an install becomes a user. Email or social login through an embedded wallet removes the seed phrase from the first screen, as we described in our piece on embedded wallets. Every step you remove before the first useful action raises the return on every channel above.

What we'd tell a founder planning crypto app marketing

Map your licences to the stores before you plan a single campaign. The countries where you can be listed and advertised are the countries where you can grow, and building demand in a market you cannot serve wastes money and annoys users. Read section 3.1.5 of Apple's guidelines and Google's crypto policy with your legal team, and design referral and reward mechanics around them rather than retrofitting them after a rejection.

Then treat the store page as a product. Test screenshots, write plain-language names and subtitles, and build separate pages for separate audiences. Our product marketing work covers the listing, the onboarding and the launch together, and our case studies show how those pieces connect.

If you are preparing a wallet or exchange launch on mobile and want a second opinion on the plan, talk to AnkhLabs.

The bottom line

A crypto app grows inside two rulebooks it does not write. Apple and Google have both become clearer about what they allow, which helps licensed teams and shuts out shortcuts. Founders who build their market list, their rewards and their store pages around those rules can spend on growth with confidence, and the ones who do not usually find out in an app review email.

This article is for information only and is not legal or investment advice. Store policies are as of 6 November 2026 and change often, so check the official pages before launch.