Coinbase Review

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Coinbase was founded in 2012, San Francisco by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. While having more than 13 million users, it supports 3 top cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum and a forked Bcash (other calls it Bitcoin Cash). Coinbase did a great job within the last few years and added many more cryptocurrencies such as Tezos, DAI, EOS, Zcash and a few more.

Coinbase also has a PRO version that is dedicated to professional crypto buyers, holders and traders. We are preparing a different review for that.

With an amazing team and huge support from investors, Coinbase is expanding in the speed of light. It’s probably the fastest growing cryptocurrency exchange/broker in the market at the moment. Since its start, Coinbase managed to reach an impressive number – more than 50 billion dollars in digital currency exchanged.

At the moment, relying on Wikipedia data, Coinbase has more than 1,100 employees, servers more than 32 countries, and is one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges.

Users can do both – buy or sell cryptocurrencies. Use it as a wallet as well, but it’s not recommended of course. While being one of the biggest exchanges, Coinbase could increase the number of supported cryptocurrencies, though. Still, it’s easy to use and is well designed. But we would like to cover the Top 5 things which you should know before start using the exchange in this Coinbase review below.

Speed

Coinbase is unlikely the fastest cryptocurrency exchange. Unless the account is fully verified and purchasing with a credit card, then it’s instant. For bank transfers, it takes from 5 to 7 days (which is pretty long) and 2-3 days for SEPA (Europe) transfers. On overloaded days everything becomes even slower if we add the period of verification it may take an additional few days.

Limits

It depends on your verification level and region – U.S. customers can buy up to $50,000 worth of coins daily, while European customers can have up to €30,000 in their account, at any time. Furthermore, some additional limits can be applied at any time.

Since the crypto market has exponential growth, Coinbase disables certain cryptocurrency to buy, sell or trade from time to time. Especially when they get overloaded with new customers and huge trading volumes.

Coinbase Earn

Coinbase has a super nice feature for newcomers. You can learn about different cryptocurrencies and earn a fraction of them just by doing that. Yes, simple like that. For instance, just by watching a 3 minutes video “what is EOS”, the user gets $2 worth of EOS coins. In total, the user can earn up to $158 just by learning about a few different currencies.

It’s a great way to deeper your knowledge and earn initial cryptos for a fresh start in this exciting world.

Verification Process and Privacy

As you probably understood in the previous paragraph, verification is needed in most cases. Coinbase may require additional verification when needed. Either, they can limit an account any time if the account is suspected for unfair trading, or well they say so at least.

Regarding privacy, Coinbase isn’t great here as well. There were some reports that Coinbase tracks the way of the transaction through blockchain.

Security

Well, here is a sphere where Coinbase did a really good job. While having a 2 Factor Authentication, Coinbase stores most of the assets in offline (cold) storage. Also, all the funds are insured. In addition, user can enable mobile verification, check all confirmed devices, and watch the activity of the account.

Coinbase Support

Due to the enormous expansion, Coinbase has an issue with slower support. Therefore, they’re increasing the number of support team members. Sadly, it doesn’t always help and some of the tickets stay unanswered for a very long time. Coinbase doesn’t have phone support, unfortunately.

On the other hand, Coinbase has an extensive FAQ with probably most of the answers to the questions you can imagine. So check that out in the first place. It can save you a lot of time and money.

Conclusion

First of all, Coinbase is graciously easy to use. So that’s awesome for newcomers. We could even say that it has the clearest interface ever and even your grandpa can get some cryptos. Good level of security, fast exchange process (usually), trusted name and insured assets – points we really like as well.

However, the sell rate is not the best no matter which cryptocurrency did you choose. Furthermore, privacy is zero here because of tracking story and a mandatory verification for all orders almost. On the other hand, the US regulates the cryptocurrency market when FIAT gets involved. And all other exchanges operating under the umbrella of the US financial system are not going to be different.

To sum up, if you are a newborn cryptocurrency buyer, Coinbase can offer many great features, simplicity and a calm sleep during the night. They aren’t suitable for an experienced crypto trader or an advanced user though.

Author’s Word

Also, we would like to add that Coinbase does a great job by inviting people to join the cryptos side but at the same time teaching newcomers about blockchain and other things. For many cryptocurrencies are still unknown zone and this company goes through the knowledge-based way. That’s why we thing Coinbase deserved some more respect than it has now at some communities.

Note: If you use this link or a button above to make a purchase, you’ll get a $10 bonus for your first order if the amount you spend is higher than $100.

Reviewed by Coinsmaniac