Just a few years ago, they were by far the easiest was to buy crypto (IMO). At that time they also felt like the most legitimate site and for people who didn't 100% know what they were doing, but wanted to buy some Bitcoin, that perception of legitimacy is important. For those reasons, I feel like they kind of dominated the casual coin holder space, and I think they could justify the fees they were charging.
In the last year or so it feels like that's all changed. Because of things like Apex Crypto, it feels like pretty much every stock broker app will now let you buy Bitcoin and they'll do it with lower fees than Coinbase. It seems like their market (non-crypto people looking to buy crypto) is being eaten alive. I don't understand their value prop or why their higher fees make sense anymore.
I've been burned too many times, so I don't short stocks or buy puts, but I just can't see this being a good buy. Unless they drastically lower their fees, I just don't see them continuing to grow users.
I am not being obtuse or sarcastic here. Is it this? http://apexcrypto.com Because that website tells me nothing at all. And past that, Google only shows a few press releases.
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But on the consumer crypto coin collector criteria, it still seems like Coinbase has the mind-share. And I imagine they have the reach and scale to be in compliance with regulators, which is what makes them a more attractive investment.
Me? Square’s Cash app is awfully slick, and makes buying drugs…I mean…buying non-fiat currency to stick it to the man all very easy. But I have no idea if people use that feature frequently.
Apex Crypto is a crypto clearing house, similar to the clearing houses we have for the stock market. Companies like Robinhood, WeBull, SoFi, etc aren't building their crypto trading infrastructure from the ground up. They're plugging into services like this, which handle the exchange between fiat and crypto and a lot of the regulatory compliance. This drastically cuts down the complexities and lowers the barrier to entry for offering buying and selling of crypto.
I don't know all the details of the services they offer, but services like this are the reason it seems like every app under the sun will now let you buy and sell crypto.
Looks like they made 4.57B$ in revenue with 97M$ in profit [1]. And "We’ve continued to see strong adoption, with 3 million customers [buying bitcoin] through the past year, and in January we saw 1 million new to bitcoin in just one month."
1: https://www.coindesk.com/square-cash-app-bitcoin-revenues-sw...
Fair, but I feel like most people I know aren't using crypto as a currency right now. They're more interested in holding or speculating on the price, so transferring to another wallet is a non-issue.
> Also, they claim no fees, but they add the fee to the spread (the spread is artificially increased to 1% both ways (2% total))
I'm not up to date on Coinbase's latest fee structure, but I think 2% still may be less than, or at least comparable, to what they are charging. Even if it isn't, the illusion of no fees will attract a certain amount of people.
> especially if you trade a substantial amount each month
Do people trade a lot using Coinbase (serious question)? I was under the impression that there were better platforms out there more suited to day/swing trading crypto.
Coinbase even undercuts themselves. Use the Coinbase App - 2.5% fee. Use the Coinbase Exchange App (Coinbase Pro) - 0.5% Fee.
So... buy your Bitcoin (and others) through the Coinbase Pro website/app, then transfer them into your Coinbase wallet/vault for free.
Coinbase Vault is providing access and liquidity to the whole DeFi market without ever saying it.
Its like not investing in Amazon because you didn't notice AWS. The similarity being limited to there being a non-consumer facing product that might be bigger than the visible one. Coinbase has a lot of growing revenue streams, which has almost nothing to do with the retail platform of non-crypto people looking to buy crypto.
Which stock broker app lets you deposit in Bitcoin? Or withdraw your Bitcoin to your own address?
I'm aware there can be many reasons for this but I couldn't help but wonder if Robinhood was baking in some hidden fees.
Of course it's really hard to predict what those future markets might be or how much value Coinbase will be able to extract from them, so I have no idea if $68 billion is a reasonable valuation.
Then there’s the gas fees on Uniswap. Not even worth bothering with unless you plan on making $1000+ trades.
The other thing to consider is that for newbies they offer a safe platform with a list of established coins. That counts for something.
the choice of listing has nothing to do with the monetary unit of trade ($, euro, btc, doge etc). the exchange simply enables them to trade the equity of their company. NASDAQ/US is just the most liquid one (and likely where their immediate investors past and future are going to have access to already)
but perhaps I'm not aware of alternatives where one can trade equity in the crypto/defi market?
happy to learn if you point me to the right places.
I'm not following this line of logic, where are you getting this from? Why would the success of crypto-currency imply the demise of fiat, if that's what you're saying? Or why would you have no interest in fiat just because crypto-currency turns successful?
I don’t think you read the article, let alone the headline.
Crypto Bros -> CryptBros -> XD
To me as a computer scientist, it is astonishing that even something as simple as a web service that matches willing buyers and sellers of securities requires a license that costs millions of dollars to obtain.
Makes sense, given the ICO craze back in 2017.
I only wish the SEC (or the European authority) had more bite, as stokr absolutely deserves to be shut down.
1) they don't see it as a threat (ex: Powell comparing it to gold rather than USD)
2) it's actually generating capital gains tax, jobs and revenue for the country (by creating business around it, etc)
3) US has auctioned off seized Bitcoin in the past, so it would be weird if they make something illegal after selling it themselves
Last, but not least, they can't ban it, they can ban the on/off ramps and cause short term disruption, but that wouldn't be sustainable in the long term, how do you stop millions of people from running some code on their computer (case in point, torrent is still very much alive)?
Also, if the US bans it then it's still valuable in much of the rest of the world. Bitcoin is antifragile in that regard.
India, though, has floated such a ban.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-india-cryptocurrency-ban/...
And I don’t think it would be crazy to imagine China doing such a thing.
Even the word "title" would detonate the average person.
Coinbase has an alumni Slack filled with complaints on Shareworks.
Is there a way to put in orders for a ticker before it has opened/been listed so that you can purchase at 9:30 on the 14th?
The reason people don't do this is, that kind of order requires having an opinion about what a stock should be priced at. And retail traders basically never have that opinion.
Same way every stock does every morning: the opening cross [1].
2. No, because that wouldn’t even be a funny joke.
3. No, because we are done with April Fools, the internet drove that into the ground looooong ago.
No. Why would it be? Coinbase has been preparing to go public for some time now.
