Coinbase is by far one of the biggest Bitcoin Exchanges on the market. With user base exceeding 20 million in more than 30 countries, Coinbase sells Bitcoin tokens to its customers at near market rate, which probably makes it one of the fairest services in the world. Coinbase also provides users with a digital wallet for storing currencies which negates the need for downloading separate software.

Trading Platform

Essentially,the technology behind  Coinbase exchange is not a trading platform in the common sense of the word. Instead, Coinbase provides convenient environment where users can buy or sell your digital currency tokens  at a market or near-market prices. It supports exchanges of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and other assets. Coinbase gives no sense of anonymity to users, in addition to being recorded within the Blockchain Coinbase keeps track of all transactions. Given its intention to maintain close cooperation with banking establishment there is little surprise that Coinbase sticks to such policy.  Also, Coinbase supports instantaneous sell of your Bitcoin to your PayPal account. In case of such transaction Bitcoins will be immediately converted to your PayPal account currency which you can later transfer to your bank account. Direct BankWire transfer are supported but take up to 4 business days for the proceeds of your trade to land in your bank account.  Contrary to Binance which has no plans of adding fiat currency support, Coinbase is best choice when you need your Bitcoins to be converted into dollars or EURO on demand.

How to buy Bitcoin with Coinbase

Coinbase lets customers fund their account using two payment methods, which are credit card and bank transfer. For wire transfers, Coinbase will usually set up one or two small transactions to and from your account, to verify your account. For credit cards, however, a picture of the credit card is required. Bank transfers in the United States can take from 4-5 days to complete, or 1-3 days by SEPA transfers in the EU, while transactions performed via credit and debit card are instant and attract an additional fee. Coinbase also lets users link their Paypal account to their Coinbase account, but this can be used for profits made from selling digital currency only.

After funding your Coinbase account, you can go ahead to buy bitcoin. It’s essential to ensure that you are on the appropriate tab of your account to buy the correct currency. Before validating the transaction, Coinbase gives you the details of the transaction fees and the amount of cryptocurrency being bought in the transaction. After confirmation, the amount of bitcoin that you have bought will be credited to your Coinbase wallet.

Coinbase Fees

Coinbase charges relatively low fee of .025% for trading Bitcoin and Ethereum on its platform. Withdrawal and deposit fees are quite high and may reach 4% depending on the country and payment system used for transaction. While fees may not be as low as those charged by for example Binance, Coinbase supports a much higher  range of payment and deposit options and allows for fast conversion of cryptocurrency units into $ or EUR which thus makes it much more liquid- a great choice for those willing to avoid being handicapped by cumbersome conversion procedures.

Deposits and Withdrawals

Unlike many other exchanges, it allows credit card, Paypal payments and  fully supports SWIFT transactions. Moreover, Coinbase operates in full compliance with banking rules and regulations and invested a great deal of effort to guarantee ultimate security and transparency to account holders. It is probably because of these efforts that it’s client base increased rapidly since  exchange was founded in 2012.

Payment methods, supported by Coinbase

Customer Support

Coinbase features a comprehensive customer support page with several articles and FAQ pages for new users and traders to refer to if they encounter any problem or have any questions. Also, users can open a support ticket which the support team will answer as fast as they can.

The response time may vary and can quite be delayed at times, as the company has seen many new users in recent months. However, average response times fall within 24-72 hours.

Coinbase provides customer support through email, as well as having a Knowledge Base and FAQs page available for clients.The support page is highly educational and organized, total with topics and a search bar.  However, Some Coinbase users have taken to online forums to express their frustration with getting “canned responses” that don’t thoroughly address the issue raised.

Is Coinbase safe?

If you read this review you are definitely interested in Coinbase safety. In a few words we will consider three factors: legality, safe cutody and account security.

a) Coinbase legality

It’s a world’s largest bitcoin exchange, based in the USA and must observe US laws and regulations. These regulations force Coinbase to collect user’s reporting, thus rejecting a lot of users who don’t want to disclose their records. Also it is worth noting that this service has many authoritative investors. Among them: Alexis Ohanian (co-founder of Reddit), Bank of Tokyo, Blockchain Capital and Digital Currency Group.

b) Safe custody of funds

Coinbase allocates funds for its clients from company’s operational reserves. Users’ funds are kept on secured banking accounts. This means that the company won’t use your money for its own business purposes.

98% of cryptocurrency deposits are kept in secured autonomuos cold vault. These coins are stored on several wallets and paper carriers. These wallets and paper carriers are allocated on safety deposit boxes worldwide. Such security measures protect clients’ funds from hacker thefts.

c) Account security

Coinbase offers its users a variety of functions for the protection of personal accounts. All you need is a strong password.

Two-factor authentication (2FA) methods are available for the account protection. The simpliest one is SMS, but the company strongly recommends 2FA third-party application, for example,Google Authenticator and Authy.

Conclusions

Probably the biggest Bitcoin exchange in the world, Coinbase is a solid consideration if you want to make your first steps in cryptocurrencies. It has over 20 million users and keeps  growing in popularity. The site interface is very easy to understand and operate which makes it a great choice for beginners. But on the other hand its trading platform was intended to serve exchange purposes only and thus has a significant shortage of trading instruments and tools. As such, we would not recommend Coinbase for active traders who expect to make profit by speculating on short-term movements of cryptographers. If that’s what you seek – choose PrimeCrypto.