Coinbase Review 2024

Coinbase offers good options for both beginner and advanced traders. The Coinbase platform is a good place for traders with experience to land.

What Makes Coinbase a Good Choice

With an account minimum of only $2, it’s easy to get started as a Coinbase user, making it a good place to start for beginners. They’ve also made a significant investment in Canada by allowing users to fund their account in Canadian dollars directly using Interac e-Transfers.

Coinbase encourages beginning crypto traders to learn more about their investments with the platform’s “earn while you learn” program. A series of video classes and exams allows beginners to learn more about various cryptocurrencies while earning rewards.

The exchange offers crypto staking. Staking is when a cryptocurrency is locked up on an exchange—usually for proof-of-stake validation—that allows the crypto owner to earn a yield.

One of Coinbase’s best features is its customer support. In addition to an online help centre and chat system, Coinbase also offers live phone support, a feature conspicuously absent from many cryptocurrency exchanges.

As far as storage goes, there are numerous options for users to stash the keys to their crypto. In fact, Coinbase offers users three different crypto wallets.

The Coinbase Wallet is the exchange’s hot wallet product, and it claims to support “hundreds of thousands” of crypto assets. The other two wallets are the Coinbase dApp Wallet as well as storage available via Coinbase Exchange itself, which is the exchange’s “default wallet.”

Coinbase’s Disadvantages

The biggest drawback is that the fee structure for Coinbase’s basic version is relatively complex.

Fees aren’t published in advance, as they are are “spread fees.” That means they are calculated at the time you place your order, and may be determined by a combination of factors, such as location, payment method, order size and market conditions. Plus, if you fund your account using a debit card (credit cards aren’t an option for Canadians) you will pay an additional 3.99% fee.

A downside for more advanced users is that although Coinbase offers staking on its platform, it charges a 25% commission on yields. That’s a sizable cut compared with other leading crypto exchanges.

Coinbase is one of the mainstays in the crypto landscape. The company went public in April 2021, and since then has maintained its spot in the public eye. Coinbase has an easy-to-use platform, but a complicated fee structure.

Fees

The basic Coinbase platform has an extremely convoluted fee structure. You don’t pay maker/taker fees or a flat fee, but a spread fee that temporarily locks in the price for the transaction. You don’t get to see the fee you’ll pay until you’re about to submit the trade.

Coinbases spread fees typically run around 0.5%.

For Coinbase’s Advanced Trade users, the company charges a much simpler maker/taker fee on all transactions. Generally, maker fees are 0.4% and taker fees are 0.6%.

Maker/taker fees are common on most crypto exchanges. A maker creates liquidity on a platform, while a taker decreases it. The only drawback for users is that they don’t know whether they are a maker or a taker until after a transaction.

As with most crypto exchanges, Advanced Trade’s maker/taker fees decrease as the user trades higher volumes of currency. View the full range of fees for Coinbase Advanced Trade in the table below:

In addition to trading fees for cryptocurrencies, Advanced Trade also charges a 0.001% taker fee on select stablecoin pairs, such as USD Coin (USDC)/EUR and Tether (USDT) and USD.

Security

Coinbase’s security protocols include checking the dark web for customer passwords, recommending the use of a third-party security key and offering onsite security prompts. Two-factor authentication (2FA) can be enabled and is strongly encouraged by Coinbase.

Meanwhile, Regulators require Coinbase to notify Canadian users when their crypto assets dip below a certain level. They also place limits on total cryptocurrency purchases in a calendar year on all coins except bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH), bitcoin cash (BCH) and litecoin (LTC) in all provinces except  B.C. Manitoba and Quebec. In all other provinces, annual cryptocurrency purchases on Coinbase cannot exceed $30,000.

Fiat currency used to buy crypto coins is not covered by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC) or the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF).

However, Coinbase carries criminal insurance, which covers security breaches to the site but not compromised login credentials. For this reason, it’s important that customers adhere to Coinbase’s strongest security recommendations.

Coinbase was subject to a series of hacks between March 2021 and May 2021. During this period, more than 6,000 customers had their accounts drained.

Opening a Coinbase Account

To open a Coinbase account, you need to be at least 18 or older, have a government-issued ID, an internet connection and a phone number. Coinbase, like most crypto exchanges, doesn’t charge any fees for opening an account.

Once a user taps the “get started” button on the Coinbase homepage, they’ll enter their legal name, email and password. They also need to prove their location. A verification email will then be sent to the user. After verifying their email, the user also has to verify their phone number for two-factor authentication.

The final steps in setting up a Coinbase account include answering a few questions concerning employment and source of funds and verifying the user’s identity using photographs of an ID. Canadians are also required to answer a questionnaire required by regulators to assess their investment risk-tolerance. Once all this is completed, the user can link to a payment method and begin funding their account.

Crypto Wallets

Crypto wallets come in many shapes and varieties. For that reason, Coinbase offers more than a one-size fits-all wallet for your crypto storage needs. The exchange actually offers three different types of hot/online wallets:

• Coinbase Wallet. This self-custody wallet supports “hundreds of thousands” of crypto assets. It’s a separate wallet app that does not require you to open an account on Coinbase. You can also park your non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in this wallet.
• Coinbase Exchange. This default wallet option makes trades on Coinbase, but keep in mind your private keys are stored on the exchange, making them more vulnerable to hacks.
• Coinbase dApp Wallet. This wallet stores all ERC-20 tokens that run on the Ethereum network.

Cryptocurrencies Available on Coinbase

Coinbase offers more than 200 cryptocurrencies and stablecoins for trading. Here is a list of some of the most popular cryptos available for trading on Coinbase:

More coins available from Coinbase

A full list of Coinbase coin offerings can be found here.

Simpler Fee Structure

Coinbase’s basic platform has an extremely complex fee structure for beginners. With fees based on a mix of trader location, payment method, order size and market conditions, it’s difficult for users on the barebones platform to calculate what they might pay before they trade.

Beginning users could benefit from something as clear-cut as the Advanced Trade platform for their trades.

Lower Staking Fees

Coinbase offers cryptocurrency staking. However, customers who stake their coins on Coinbase will lose 25% of their yield profits in fees back to the exchange, a hefty price to pay.

To determine crypto exchange rankings, we assessed the features and options offered by nearly 25 exchanges, trading apps and brokerage platforms that offer crypto trading options.

To rank the best crypto exchanges overall and the best exchanges for beginners, we assessed all of the features and options offered by these 25 platforms. The editorial team then developed a standardized methodology, analyzing 10 key benchmark features and variables to assess quality across the platforms.

Basic trading features count as one factor in the overall and beginner rankings. Other ranking factors include platform availability, customer service, educational resources, security and storage, staking and rewards, to name a few.

The sum of weighted values across all or some of these key factors was calculated for each ranking to award each brokerage or exchange its overall rank. Margin trading, platform lending, and advanced trading were not considered for choosing the best crypto exchanges for beginners.