Coinbase Pro Experience 2021: The Crypto Exchange in Test
10 Stars
But what is Coinbase Pro?
Coinbase Pro is a further development of GDAX, an exchange with which Coinbase primarily addresses advanced private investors.
Our recommendation: Buy cryptos with eToro
Incl. wallet
Buy and sell cryptocurrencies directly in the wallet
Paypal, credit card and instant bank transfer
Regulated provider
Real cryptos or CFD trades
Coinbase Pro advantages and disadvantages
On the Coinbase Pro Exchange you can buy cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin with euros.
Registration is required for this. You can either use your own wallet or access the Coinbase Pro wallet to manage, hold or transfer the cryptocurrencies you have purchased.
The site is partly only available in English, but certain sections.
Useful tools on Coinbase Pro
In our Coinbase Pro experience, traders will find a variety of useful trading tools such as analysis charts and additional trading options. In our review, we take a closer look at the trading platform.
It only receives a good rating if it can convince us in all categories.
Among other things, we test the customer service and the offer, pay attention to transparency and check the security standards of Coinbase Pro.
What does Coinbase Pro do to protect you from fraud? Which languages are supported by the website?
And how reliable is the customer support here? Answers to these and other questions can be found in our Coinbase Pro review.
What is Coinbase Pro?
The company Coinbase was founded in 2012. Coinbase Pro is a further development of the platform. On both platforms, traders and customers can conduct transactions with new digital currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin.
Coinbase is also a wallet for digital currencies. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Coinbase is used by over 20 million customers. Over 150 billion US dollars have been traded on Coinbase's exchanges to date.
Coinbase's goal is to provide an open financial system for the entire world and to increase economic freedom, innovation, efficiency and equality of opportunity.
"An open financial system can effectively address inequality and lift billions of people out of poverty while driving global innovation."
Coinbase Principles
In addition to the exchange, the company also offers its own cryptowallet, which you can use to manage your purchased currencies.
CFD trading is not supported by Coinbase Pro.
Coinbase Pro experience: No trading with CFDs
Coinbase Pro is not a broker and does not offer any financial instruments. If you want to trade CFDs at Coinbase Pro, you have come to the wrong address.
For trading cryptocurrencies with CFDs, you can instead fall back on the broker eToro, which also has its own wallet app. Buying Bitcoin & Co. is also possible with this broker. In addition, eToro's offer is clearly aimed at private investors.
Your capital is at risk! 75% of private investors' accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider
Coinbase Pro Review - the offer
On Coinbase Pro, you can buy eight different cryptocurrencies with euros. You can then exchange your cryptocurrencies for other cryptocurrencies. Coinbase Pro offers the purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies as well as its own wallet app.
Since Coinbase Pro is not a cryptocurrency broker, financial instruments such as CFDs, forex or stock options are not available here.
Coinbase Pro is aimed at private investors.
For institutions, there is the Coinbase Prime platform.
Which trading pairs you can use depends solely on the regulations of your country of residence.
Trading pairs with USD are only available in the USA; trading pairs with GBP are only available in the UK.
We list all current trading pairs:
Cryptocurrencies
A total of 25 cryptocurrencies can be traded at Coinbase:
|
| Europe |
|---|---|---|
BTC/USD | BTC/GBP | BTC/EUR |
Cryptocurrency pairs
|
| MANA/USD |
|---|
Our recommendation: Buy cryptos with eToro
Incl. wallet
Buy and sell cryptocurrencies directly in the wallet
Paypal, credit card and instant bank transfer
Regulated provider
Real cryptos or CFD trades
Step by step guide Coinbase Pro
Let's now take a look at how to create an account with Coinbase Pro and trade cryptocurrencies or Forex.
There is not much difference in this process compared to opening a trading account with a similar provider. Therefore, this should not be a hurdle.
Step 1: The registration
Those who already have a Coinbase registration can easily upgrade their account to Coinbase Pro. All others have to create a Coinbase Pro login.
Not only do you have to enter your personal data, but you also have to be verified.
For the verification you need certain documents, for example a driving licence as well as a current electricity bill or a similar document on which your name and address are clearly recognisable.
Coinbase Pro guides you through the process step by step.
Step 2: The deposit
Once the account has been successfully created, you still have funds to add for trading.
To transfer cryptocurrencies to your profile, proceed as follows:
Select the menu item "Assets"
then the menu item "Deposit
Here you can select which currency you want to deposit. You will then be shown a wallet address to which you can transfer your currency.
In the same menu, you can also select euros instead of cryptocurrencies that you want to transfer to your profile.
The page guides you through the process in simple steps.
Step 3: Trading
Once the money has arrived in the trading account, trading can begin.
At the top left, you will find a dropdown menu from which you can select the cryptocurrency trading pair you want to take a closer look at or trade.
Once you have made your selection, you will be shown current information in the middle of the page: This includes the last trade price, and the percentage change and trading volume over the past 24 hours. You will find the Buy and Sell buttons in the left column.
Select your trading pair, decide whether you want to buy or sell and enter the amount to be traded. Then click on "Place Buy Order" or "Place Sell Order" to activate your order.
Our recommendation: Buy cryptos with eToro
Incl. wallet
Buy and sell cryptocurrencies directly in the wallet
Paypal, credit card and instant bank transfer
Regulated provider
Real cryptos or CFD trades
Coinbase Pro Fees: Experience with Coinbase Pro Fees
Cost type | Costs |
|---|---|
Taker fees | 0.05 percent to 0.25 percent |
Maker Fees | 0.00 percent to 0.15 percent |
Cryptocurrency deposit and withdrawal | for free |
Bank transfers with SEPA (EUR) deposit and withdrawal | 0.15 euros each |
International Wires Deposit and Withdrawal | $ 25 each |
Contrary to some other crypto exchanges
The platform distinguishes between "maker-fees" and "taker-fees":
However, only very few people can enjoy this because the amount of the Coinbase Pro fees or charges depends on how successfully and how much you trade.
Only from a trading volume of at least 50 million US dollars is the maker fee waived completely for limit orders.
Here is a detailed fee table to help you understand:
Volume | Taker Fees | Maker Fees |
|---|---|---|
Up to $10,000 | 0,50% | 0,50% |
$10.001 – $50.000 | 0,35% | 0,35% |
$50.001 – $100.000 | 0,25% | 0,15% |
$100.001 – $1.000.000 | 0,20% | 0,10% |
$1.000.000 – $10.000.000 | 0,18% | 0,08% |
$10m – $50m | 0,15% | 0,05% |
$50m – $100m | 0,10% | 0,00% |
$100m – $300m | 0,07% | 0,00% |
$300m – $500m | 0,06% | 0,00% |
$500m – $1b | 0,05% | 0,00% |
$1b + | 0,04% | 0,00% |
Nevertheless, the Coinbase Pro fees are very reasonable.
Even if you pay the maximum rate, you will only incur fees of 0.25 or 0.15 percent (per trade).
However, the transaction fees also vary depending on your payment method.
For example, if you pay with another cryptocurrency, Coinbase Pro does not charge a fee.
Payments with SEPA bank transfers cost you only €0.15 per transfer.
Keep in mind that your bank may also charge a conversion fee.
Further costs, for example for opening an account, are usually not incurred with Coinbase Pro.
Coinbase Pro experiences: Payment methods
There are only a few payment methods available on Coinbase Pro.
You can make a bank transfer or pay with cryptocurrencies.
Transfers via international wires are also possible, but they cost a lot (see previous section).
You cannot pay with every cryptocurrency on Coinbase, but only with certain cryptocurrencies.
These are currently Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ether and Ether Classic.
Paying with cryptocurrencies on Coinbase Pro
Payments with credit cards or providers such as Skrill, Neteller or Paypal are not possible on Coinbase Pro.
If you are looking for a broker that accepts Paypal, you will find an excellent Coinbase Pro alternative for buying, but also for trading cryptocurrencies in our Exchanges comparison test winner eToro.
Payment methods
Pros
Cons
Coinbase Pro Experience: Licence and security
In order to increase the security of its customers, Coinbase Pro insures all digital assets that are stored on the platform.
In addition, 98 percent of the cryptocurrencies of all Coinbase Pro customers are secured in a cold wallet (offline).
The insurer FDIC additionally secures each customer up to a maximum of 250,000 US dollars.
This applies to fiat funds held on the platform.
Because cryptocurrencies are not recognised by governments, they are not covered by the insurance.
A lot of effort is also put into protecting customers' data. Instead of storing them on servers, they are stored in an offline database, which makes hacks much more difficult.
In addition, all of this data is encrypted with AES-256 before being stored on FIPS-140 USB hard drives.
Backup copies are printed on paper. These backup copies and hard drives are distributed all over the world.
Two-factor authentication (2FA), which is advisable anyway, is mandatory with Coinbase Pro.
For each login, a code is generated that the user must read on his smartphone and enter into the login screen. The process effectively prevents unauthorised third parties from accessing your accounts.
Our recommendation: Buy cryptos with eToro
Incl. wallet
Buy and sell cryptocurrencies directly in the wallet
Paypal, credit card and instant bank transfer
Regulated provider
Real cryptos or CFD trades
The Coinbase Pro App
Contrary to most reports, an independent Coinbase Pro App has existed for some time.
This app is different from the regular Coinbase app in its design and the interface is much more complex, which underlines the orientation towards professional traders and high-volume trading!
The Coinbase Pro app is available for iOs and Android as standard.
The options within the Coinbase Pro app are limited to the essentials and do not include any other tabs besides Markets, Protfolio, Order and Profile.
All in all, according to our Coinbase Pro experience, trading with the Coinbase Pro app is problem-free and in no way inferior to the web application.
In addition, the markets are clearly divided into fiat, crypto, stablecoin and watchable only markets.
Coinbase Pro Experience: Customer service, contact & support
Surprisingly, the Coinbase Pro support is not as broadly positioned as would actually be expected from a company of this size.
This already starts with the FAQ: Although many questions are answered here in an exemplary manner.
Especially the overview of the costs associated with the use of Coinbase Pro and the list of official social media presences could hardly be better designed.
Here we find out, for example, that there is no presence of Coinbase or Coinbase Pro on Telegram or can check whether the addressed Twitter account really belongs to the company.
However, the offer is entirely in English. We would clearly have liked to see a version here.
You can contact Coinbase Pro Support by email or via the contact form on the site. A telephone number is also available for problems if you can communicate in English.
However, callers have to expect high charges because a European number only exists in the form of an Irish contact number.
There is also no live chat. In our opinion, the support does not serve European customers satisfactorily. This affects the rating in our Coinbase Pro test.
Contact methods:
Phone(US/Intl) +1 888 908-7930
Phone (UK) 0808 1684635
Telefin (Ireland) 1800 200 355
Email [email protected]
Contact form
FAQs
Coinbase Pro experience: The conclusion
Coinbase Pro clearly stands out from the multitude of offers on the net due to one feature in particular: the company stands out due to its extremely high security standards, which range from the training of all employees to the backups of personal data and cooperation with hackers to insurance funds that protect investors' capital even from such unlikely cases as the company's insolvency.
Coinbase Pro's offering is also convincing. The detailed graphs and charts can be valuable tools in trading, giving you an edge over other traders.
However, there is one big problem with Coinbase Pro: It is still unclear exactly what the offer for customers.
As long as there is no clarity about this, we cannot give our readers a clear recommendation.
This is a pity, because if this hurdle did not exist, we would gladly recommend using Coinbase Pro despite the shortcomings in customer support.
Our recommendation: Buy cryptos with eToro
Incl. wallet
Buy and sell cryptocurrencies directly in the wallet
Paypal, credit card and instant bank transfer
Regulated provider
Real cryptos or CFD trades
FAQ
The provider is a crypto exchange where cryptocurrencies can be bought and sold.
Coinbase was convincing in our test. The diverse trading options and excellent customer support attract many customers, most of whom are very satisfied with the provider.
The amount of one's own investment should depend on one's own liquidity, as well as on the chosen cryptocurrency and one's own risk appetite. In general, you should never invest money that you actually need elsewhere, as profits can never be guaranteed.
Here, too, the platform is convincing. Withdrawals are processed very quickly and, depending on the selected withdrawal method, are in your account within a few minutes to 2 working days.
You should always know what you are investing in. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile, so you should first get to know the chosen coin in detail. If you have the necessary know-how, as well as the occasional bit of luck, then nothing stands in the way of early profits.
