Coinbase Review
In a nutshell, Coinbase is one of the biggest crypto currency companies worldwide. It supports over 100 countries, and more than 30 million customers globally. Coinbase provides a variety of services. Their main feature though, is that it allows users to buy and sell Bitcoins via a bank account, credit card or debit card. All in all, Coinbase’s rates are quite fair but it lacks good customer support service.
What is Coinbase?
As part of Ycombinator, Coinbase was founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. It is one of the oldest exchanges and has started out by only selling Bitcoins directly to clients. However, more and more features and services were being added along the way. Coinbase complies with all relevant regulations and licenses. Investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, Rabbit Capital and The NYSE helped the company raise over $540 million.
Coinbase Pricing
Coinbase has a somewhat complicated fee structure. Once Bitcoins are bought from Coinbase the price you pay includes:
The market price – on Coinbase Pro +0.5%
Transaction fee – this is a flat fee applying to transactions lower than $200 or part of the transaction
Most of the fees reach 1.49% for standard purchases and 3.99% for credit card purchases. Depositing money via ACH transfer has no fees, but any other way has a fee of $10. In cases of extreme price changes, Coinbase can also decline your purchase. Nevertheless, Coinbase is still one of the cryptocurrencies with the lowest fee structures. Keep in mind that any transactions from and to Coinbase accounts are free of charge. Three confirmations will be needed in case of external transactions to your Coinbase account before they show up in your account.
Coinbase Wallet
Coinbase wallet refers to a software product that provides you with access to a wide array of decentralised innovation such as buying and storing ERC-20 tokens, taking part in airdrops and ICOs, collecting rare digital assets and others, browsing decentralised apps, like DApps, shopping at stores which are cryptocurrency tolerant, and finally sending crypto currencies to anyone around the globe.
Coinbase is the most convenient wallet to buy, sell, and manage your digital currencies.
Coinbase Exchange
As previously mentioned, the most popular service Coinbase provides is the one to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. Its good reputation, marketing and easy-to-use interface helps new crypto currencies users buy Bitcoin through Coinbase. What makes them hesitant though, is that they have no control over their own funds and they cannot access their coins directly as Coinbase stores the currency for them.
However, Coinbase offers other useful services such as Coinbase Pro which allows users to trade several cryptos including BTC, ETH, LTC BCH or ZRX. Other online solution for merchants are also offered which allow users to accept crypto currencies on their website through a dedicated plugin.
Pros
Great variety of altcoin choices
Extremely easy user interface, good for beginners
Generally low fees and high liquidity
Cons
High fees when not using Coinbase Pro
No control of wallet keys by the user
Accounts are not monitored and poor customer support
Security of the Coinbase Exchange
Coinbase is a relatively safe place to buy and sell cryptocurrencies and a solid service to choose. Bitcoin harvest ltd offers all useful information on Coinbase to help users make informed decisions.