Coinbase Review [2025] - Simplest Bitcoin exchange?

Is Coinbase as easy to use as they claim? Can a total newbie start using Coinbase without any issues? We will answer these questions and cover Coinbase’s supported cryptocurrencies, payment methods, countries and customer support experience all in this Coinbase review.

Spoiler alert: Coinbase is the best exchange when it comes to ease-of-use and trustworthiness.

Overview

Coinbase, founded by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam in 2012, is a cryptocurrency exchange that started out as a Bitcoin brokerage - selling Bitcoins directly to customers. Over time significant improvements have been to the platform and its functionality.

Coinbase is one of the few exchanges that is fully regulated and licensed. In its funding rounds, Coinbase has raised over $400 million from known investors such as The NYSE, Rabbit Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz.

The most attractive feature of Coinbase is its cryptocurrency brokerage service. Most people make their first cryptocurrency purchase on Coinbase due to its reputation, trustworthiness and easy-to-use user interface.

Coinbase Logo

In addition to the simple cryptocurrency brokerage service, Coinbase also has a trading platform for more advanced users called Coinbase Pro. On Coinbase Pro you can manage your orders yourself. While Coinbase Pro’s transaction fees are lower than on the brokerage service, we do not recommend anyone try Coinbase Pro for their first time. Make sure you understand and are comfortable with the brokerage service beforehand.

Another awesome feature of Coinbase is that they offer you free cryptocurrency if you complete some of their guides and tutorial about cryptocurrencies. What could be better? Learn about cryptocurrencies and get them for free as a reward.

User Interface and usability

Coinbase’s user interface is certainly the most user-friendly interface of all cryptocurrency exchanges. Even if you have never made a single trade in your life, you will manage to buy and sell cryptocurrencies on Coinbase.

In addition to its mobile responsive website, Coinbase also has a mobile application available for both Android and iOS devices. In their mobile application, you can both buy and sell cryptocurrencies, view cryptocurrency charts and live prices and be up to date with the latest cryptocurrency news - all while storing your valuable coins on their secure wallet.

Coinbase UI

Furthermore, Coinbase has a very detailed and helpful Support page available, in case you ever run into trouble.

Click here to view the Coinbase’s support page.

For more advanced users there’s Coinbase Pro. Coinbase Pro allows you to manage your orders yourself and choose between multiple order types: limit, market and stop order. While the transaction fees on Coinbase Pro are lower, it is not recommended for anyone, that has not traded before, to start using Coinbase Pro from day one.

Supported cryptocurrencies and payment methods

Coinbase offers support and trading pairs for only the biggest and most well-known cryptocurrencies (9):

  • Bitcoin (BTC)
  • Ethereum (ETH)
  • Litecoin (LTC)
  • Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
  • Ripple (XRP)
  • Stellar Lumens (XLM)
  • EOS (EOS)
  • Ethereum Classic (ETC)
  • Basic Attention Token (BAT)

You can deposit and withdraw fiat currencies from Coinbase using the following payment methods:

  • Credit and Debit cards
  • ACH transfers
  • SEPA transfers
  • International Wire transfers
  • Paypal (withdrawals only)

Coinbase is one of the few exchanges around that has gone through the trouble of adding PayPal to the platform. PayPal withdrawals literally happen instantly.

Fee structure

Coinbase has the following fee structure for their main website:

FeeTransaction size
$0.99< $10.99
$1.49$11.00 - $26.49
$1.99$26.50 - $51.99
$2.99$52.00 - $200.00
1.49%> $200

Coinbase Pro, on the other hand, has the same fee for transactions of every size - 0.50%. When you create a Coinbase account, the Coinbase Pro account will be automatically created for you.

If you feel comfortable managing your own orders and know what’s the difference between limit and market order then I recommend you to use Coinbase Pro instead. You can transfer the funds between your main Coinbase and Coinbase pro account for free and instantly.

Supported countries

Coinbase has a large number of countries that they support. In total there are 100 countries that are allowed to trade and own an account on Coinbase.

To see the full list of all the countries supported by Coinbase - click here.

Trustworthiness

Coinbase is backed by known investors all over the world. In the latest investment round, they raised $75 million. In addition to that, Coinbase claims to have over 15 million users registered on their platform.

Furthermore, Coinbase has insured its customer funds up to $250,000 per individual. That makes it an excellent choice for even keeping your cryptocurrencies stored there for long periods of time.

Although Coinbase has received many hacking attempts from very sophisticated hackers it has never been actually hacked and no customer funds have ever been stolen.

Overall, it is safe to say that Coinbase is one of the trustworthiest, if not the trust worthiest, cryptocurrency exchange around.

Customer support

As with any exchange, that has become very popular in a short period of time, sometimes the support tickets might take a while to be responded by Coinbase. You can contact Coinbase via e-mail and also by phone. Fortunately, if you have an urgent issue that needs to be resolved fast customer support by phone is an excellent option.

Overall, Coinbase’s customer support is excellent. They take all of our complaints very seriously and go out of their way to make sure you are satisfied and happy with using their trading platform.

Coinbase Review Conclusion

Coinbase is definitely the choice if you are a person that looking to invest into cryptocurrencies for the first time. If you have been in the cryptocurrency space for a while you might want to try out Coinbase Pro or another exchange such as Binance.

Click here to read our Binance review.

Overall Coinbase is one of the most trustworthy and reliable exchanges around. Their fees are good and competitive and their customer service and the user interface are top-notch.