What is Coinbase?
So, what is Coinbase? Well, it is a cryptocurrency exchange. What’s that? It’s a place where you can buy and sell crypto like Bitcoin and Ethereum. You can also use Coinbase as a wallet for payment, as Jonathan Martin explains during his trip to El Salvador. Or you can just use it for everyday crypto trading. There are other platforms you can use, but there are some compelling reasons for using Coinbase, as we will dive into throughout the rest of the article here.
Why Use It?
First and foremost, Coinbase is one of the few platforms, if any, that is user-friendly for beginners. It has a simple UI and offers tools for trading crypto and NFTs. It also has one of the most extensive trading lists, where you can trade over 10,000 assets, including Ether, Bitcoin, and Dogecoin. Another great and useful feature of Coinbase is that you can immediately buy crypto after buying it. This means you don’t have to wait for payments to clear, as typically seen with banks.
Using Coinbase and It’s Fees
Trading platforms and exchanges aren’t free. But for what you get with Coinbase, it offers excellent value for money. How does Coinbase make money? Like most financial platforms, it makes money by charging fees for transactions, subscriptions, and crypto trading commissions. Fees are a fact of trading life, and unfortunately, Coinbase isn’t the most transparent. However, there are fees between 0% and 0.40% based on the value of trades and transactions made.
Is Coinbase Safe?
When it comes to safety and crypto trading, the issue can be somewhat subjective. The hosted wallets provided by reading platforms are safe in general and employ methods like multi-factor authentication. However, you can potentially lose your money if you lose your credentials. This is why it is best to use a combination of hot and cold wallets for your assets; only leave what you need in a hot wallet while storing the rest offline. Crypto also isn’t insured by the FDIC.
The Risks of Coinbase Investments
Coinbase is just a trading platform. And crypto investments, in general, are like any other, so Coinbase isn’t responsible for losses and gains. That being said, Coinbase provides all the relevant and necessary data you will ever need to make a decision. The question of risk falls solely on the state of the markets at any given time. For example, now would be a good time to invest in Bitcoin via Coinbase, while it’s relatively low and will likely climb in the future.
Summary
You need to know about how the platform works when using Coinbase to avoid risk and losses. However, Coinbase does charge fees itself on any trades and transactions to make its money. That being said, you always risk your funds when making trades, yet Coinbase provides data.