Coinbase is one of the oldest and largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. It also has a strong position in Europe. It is popular in several countries, especially Germany, France and the Netherlands.

Please note: investing in cryptocurrencies like bitcoins carries risks. You may lose (some of) your deposit.

What characterizes Coinbase?

Coinbase is an American crypto exchange. It was founded in 2012. It is listed on the NASDAQ and has become one of the largest crypto platforms in the world. Major investors also use the platform to store crypto currencies in a secured way.

But of course, people mostly use the platform to invest in crypto. The daily trading volume is often well over a billion dollars. Bitcoin is by far the most popular product, but the platform currently offers 236 different cryptocurrencies.

Other crypto exchanges that are similar to Coinbase are Binance, Kraken and Bitstamp.

Usability

Coinbase’s platform is user-friendly. If you are getting started, it is easy to buy cryptocurrencies and sell through the Coinbase Commerce dashboard. It offers several payment methods for European users to transfer money with, such as PayPal, Sofort, iDeal, credit cards and SEPA transfers. It also has its own mobile app and proprietary wallets, for its various cryptocurrencies.

Transferring money, staking, periodic purchases and crypto transfers to external wallets are all possible through Coinbase’s mobile app or standard desktop dashboard. It is also (partly) available in several languages.

Languages and study material

The Coinbase platform supports several languages, such as English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Dutch. This makes it easier to navigate the platform. Transactions can be completed in a language that the user is most comfortable with. Additionally, Coinbase offers a lot of study material for beginners, in your own language. The translations seem to be made by software, so they might feel unnatural sometimes, or include a lot of English terms. However, the translations have improved in 2024.

The study material can help new traders understand what crypto is and learn about the latest developments. New coin providers also use Coinbase to promote their coins. Sometimes you can earn coins by completing lessons.  This is great if you want to test the platform, or if you could use some dummy coins to trade with. For example, we even earned some bitcoin. You can use the free coins right away to try out the platform.

Great offer

Coinbase offers more than 200 different cryptocurrencies. Additionally, it has services like staking, transferring to external wallets, periodic purchases and virtually any trading option you could want as an investor.

The platform has several dashboards, a standard solution and its Advanced Trade option. With the latter, you get a complete exchange with more comprehensive features (and lower costs). For large institutional investors, it offers Coinbase Prime. It also has API capabilities, like accepting payments in bitcoin or other currencies.

Staking cryptocurrencies

It is possible to start staking cryptocurrencies on Coinbase. Rewards for this service depend on your subscription and the type of currency. Some coins are blocked from trading when you sign them up for staking, at Coinbase. There can also be a waiting period for the staking or unstaking to start. With Ethereum, for example, the waiting period is 12 days.

Coinbase Commerce: accepting payments in cryptocurrencies

Are you an entrepreneur and are you interested in accepting payments in cryptocurrencies, in addition to investing (in crypto)? Through Coinbase Commerce, it is fairly easy to do so. In it, you can enter your Ethereum address (or create it there within a few seconds). After that, you can create your own payment link and test it.

Through the platform, digital currencies are immediately exchanged into USDC, a stablecoin based on the U.S. dollar value. Because of this, you will not have any price fluctuations. You can also require users to enter certain details, like their name, occupation or an email address.

The payment link can be added to your website as a checkout, or shared as a link via email or social media, for example. Furthermore, you can also work with fixed rates, or give visitors several options or even let visitors choose an amount themselves (for donations, for example).

Fees: Coinbase is not the cheapest

Overall, Coinbase is not the cheapest platform to buy and sell cryptos on. The standard rate when you make purchases on the home screen is 1 percent. It also has a full exchange, Coinbase Advanced, which is cheaper.

Proprietary exchange with Advanced Trade

Transactions like the one above seem convenient, but they are more expensive than trading on an exchange and more expensive than other platforms, like Binance and Kraken (0.1 to 0.26 percent). It also charges spread fees, to improve the probability of a trade. In Advanced Trade, the platform works with tiered fees. Starting fees are 0.6 percent for sell orders, and 0.8 percent for buy orders.

Fees drop once your transaction value in dollars exceeds certain tiers. Above 1,000 dollars, fees drop to 0.35 percent for sell orders. Buy orders then come with a fee of 0.55 percent. Above 10,000 dollars, fees drop to 0.25 and 0.40 percent. And above 50,000 dollars, fees drop even more: to 0.15 and 0.25 percent. That seems like a steep discount, but these are standard rates that other platforms like Binance or Kraken, for example, already work with.

No transaction fees with the Coinbase One subscription

You can also subscribe to Coinbase One. This costs 29.99 per month, but you will no longer have to pay transaction fees on purchases or sales up to 10,000 euros per month. Spread fees are excluded. Coinbase One members also get higher staking rewards.

Reliability

The platform is known for its extensive security around storing crypto or protecting user accounts. The website uses encryption that is also used by banks. Many security measures in other areas also resemble those of banks.

Coinbase operates with security measures similar to those of banks.

For example, the majority of customers’ cryptocurrencies (98 percent) are stored in cold storage. The cold wallets are stored in different places around the world. Similar to banks’ gold reserves. There is no one person or system managing them.

This means that in the event of a hack on Coinbase, these cryptos will not be available. The platform thus meets maximum security standards. Coinbase’s security is good enough for big investment companies, such as U.S. ETF providers like BlackRock, who works with Coinbase.