Coinbase Review 2025: Fees, Pros, Cons, & Safety

Full Coinbase Review

What Is Coinbase?

Coinbase is a publicly-traded crypto exchange headquartered in San Francisco, CA. The Coinbase exchange dates back to 2012, three years before Ethereum hit the crypto scene, making Coinbase one of the most-established crypto exchanges out there. Today, Coinbase boasts over 110 million users worldwide, making it the largest US-based crypto exchange and second only to Binance worldwide when measured by trading volume.

Being a publicly traded company (NASDAQ: COIN) brings more transparency than you might find with privately held companies or exchanges headquartered in other parts of the world. Quarterly reports and SEC filings are available for review, making some crypto investors more apt to trust Coinbase over other options.

How Does Coinbase Work?

The Coinbase exchange offers a simple way to buy crypto, several staking options to earn a yield, a crypto rewards card, and advanced trading. A new Coinbase One subscription option provides no-fee trading, while Coinbase Advanced brings lower fees without a subscription.

Centralized exchanges like Coinbase provide a fiat onramp where buyers can buy crypto with USD or other currencies while also offering an online marketplace where sellers and buyers can trade crypto in a safer way. Coinbase security features like cold storage for crypto and two-factor authentication (2FA) help enhance buyer safety.

Key Features

Coinbase fills a niche for safety-conscious beginning investors but also offers several reasons to stay once you gain some crypto trading experience.

• Buy/Sell/Convert: Easy access to buy and sell crypto or swap crypto A for crypto B with a Buy & Sell widget found throughout the site and Coinbase app. Watch out for those fees, though.
• Coinbase Advanced Trading: Save on Coinbase trading fees and access charts and indicators through Coinbase Advanced, just two clicks away from the home screen.
• Learning Rewards: Earn free crypto for learning about newly launched tokens. Complete an easy quiz (or three) and get free crypto sent to your Coinbase account.
• Coinbase Staking: Stake popular cryptos like ETH or SOL to earn staking rewards.
• Liquid ETH Staking: Coinbase’s new cbETH token provides you with staking yield and the ability to sell or trade your staked ETH at any time.
• Bitcoin-Backed Loans: Borrow against your BTC with up to 40% LTV loans (and low-interest rates, typically under 9%).
• Coinbase One: Save on trading fees with a $30 monthly subscription, well-matched to frequent or high-value traders. Coinbase One offers free trades for up to $10,000 in monthly trading volume.
• Coinbase Card: Choose a new monthly reward to earn crypto on purchases with the Coinbase crypto-funded debit card.
• Coinbase Wallet & Web3 Wallet: Coinbase Wallet is a standalone product, but it lets you access your Coinbase account to buy crypto on the go. Coinbase’s web3 wallet is built into the Coinbase app for mobile devices.
• Recurring Buys: Coinbase lets you put your crypto buys on autopilot at daily, weekly, twice-monthly, and monthly intervals.

Coinbase Fees

The most affordable way to trade on Coinbase is to use Coinbase Advanced. The simple trade box on the home page can be costly; we’ll break down the fees later in the Coinbase review.

Cryptocurrencies Available On Coinbase

Coinbase offers over 250 cryptos, including BTC, ETH, SOL, ADA, and many other top cryptocurrencies. However, it’s hit or miss with some smaller projects and newer tokens. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You can buy these tokens elsewhere, and the move forces newer users to think twice before buying the latest hot token making the rounds on Twitter.

Expert Review Of Coinbase Exchange

Every time I visit Coinbase, I find something new. Throughout this Coinbase review, I’ll explore all those new things (and a few old things), so you can decide if Coinbase fits the way you do crypto. And if you’re new to Coinbase, you might pick up a few tips on how to use Coinbase in the most efficient way to build your crypto stack.

Let’s dive in.

Account Setup

Coinbase is a KYC exchange. KYC stands for Know Your Customer, which refers to regulations that require Coinbase and similar financial institutions to collect identification information from its customers. Expect to send a picture of your driver’s license or passport. Signing up and completing KYC is free.

Deposits

Like other exchanges, Coinbase supports ACH bank transfers, debit cards, and wire transfers. Where Coinbase is a bit different is in its support for PayPal deposits and purchasing crypto funded by your PayPal balance.

ACH transfers are free (but slow due to settlement time). Debit card transactions cost 3.99%, and PayPal deposits cost 2.5%.

ACH is the way to go here if you need to keep costs down, but many folks, especially freelancers, have funds available in their PayPal accounts. Kudos to Coinbase for offering the option. Few exchanges do. In my own tests, it appears that both PayPal and debit card deposit fees are waived when you use the Buy & Sell box (but trading fees are higher than with advanced trades).

Simple Trades

On most dashboard pages, there’s a big blue button inviting you to buy or sell crypto. You can also convert from one crypto to another. Be careful with this one. The Buy & Sell box is convenient — but costly. How does Coinbase make money? It probably has a lot to do with this devilish Buy & Sell box.

Coinbase fees for simple trades are much higher than you’ll pay for Coinbase Advanced, covered in just a bit.

Here’s what you’ll pay for simple trades:

Above $75, Coinbase fees become less predictable as a fixed dollar amount but seem to be just under 4%.

Here’s what I saw on my trade previews:

Yowsa. At nearly 4% at the low end, that’s a strong headwind.

I noticed some trades held the lower fee, even though the trade amount crossed over into the next tier. The mechanics seem a bit slushy, but this beginner-friendly box provides big fees for Coinbase.

There’s also a spread, a padded price used by many exchanges to lock in a price. You’re not interacting directly with the order book, so Coinbase quotes a price that includes a spread.

If you want to save on Coinbase trading fees, you can use Coinbase Advanced, which doesn’t use a spread and offers much lower fees.

Pro tip: Leave that box alone.

However, the Buy & Sell box does offer repeat buys, something you can’t do with Advanced. You can set up an automatic purchase of BTC, ETH, or other cryptos to dollar-cost average your position. It’ll cost ya, but you can do it.

Coinbase Advanced

Back in the day (2022), Coinbase had a separate exchange called Coinbase Pro, which has now been replaced with Coinbase Advanced. Coinbase vs. Coinbase Pro vs. Coinbase Advanced can be confusing, so the distinctions deserve some attention.

The new Advanced trading brings the same lower fee structure traders enjoyed with Coinbase Pro but brings one big advantage: You don’t have to transfer funds to use the Coinbase Advanced. (Coinbase Pro made you shuffle your crypto between Simple and Pro.)

Coinbase Advanced gives you charts and indicators as well as a peek at the order book so you can see the buy and sell orders stacked up like rush-hour commuters trying to get through the Holland Tunnel.

Advanced trading brings the features you’d expect, like limit orders and stop-limit orders. And if you live in a supported market (not the US), you’ll have access to futures trading. Coinbase also recently introduced Coinbase International for institutional traders in select jurisdictions.

I added MACD and Bollinger Bands as indicators, but you can choose dozens of others.

Fees are much lower for Coinbase Advanced compared to Simple trades. Advanced uses a tiered structure based on 30-day trading volume.

Coinbase Advanced Fees

Etcetera, up to $400 million monthly trading volume.

The lowest cost tier ($400+ million 30-day trading volume) has 0% maker fees and 0.05% taker fees. Maker fees apply to limit orders because you’re “making” a market with your orders. Taker fees apply to market orders because you’re “taking” limit orders off the order book.

Even if you don’t qualify for the top tiers, Coinbase Advanced brings those trading fees back down to earth.

How To Use Coinbase Advanced