You want to make sure that you use a legal exchange when buying and selling Bitcoin. There have been so many users burned by exit fraud and hacks. Coinbase and Cex IO, has gained more reputation when JP Morgan has recently announced that they will offer financial services to the two biggest US cryptocurrency exchanges.
Their recognition by such a big bank is a major move toward the widespread acceptance and implementation of cryptography, now two of the best-known trading firms in the world. The key concern of the two exchanges is compliance, but we can see how their policies vary greatly from one another.
Keep reading to learn about Coinbase and Cex IO for an in-depth, Coinbase vs Cex IO comprehensive comparison.
Coinbase
Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam founded and started Coinbase as one of the oldest and continuously running exchanges in 2012. Coinbase is now located in San Francisco, United States. Since then, Ehrsam has passed onto other ventures and left Armstrong with the public face.
In 2014, Coinbase crossed 1 million users and is said to have hit over 13 million since then. In 2017, Coinbase was issued BitLicense for legal trading between BitCoin and Ethereum in the state of New York by the New York State Department for Financial Services (NYS). Today, Coinbase is one of the leading digital asset exchanges based in San Francisco, California.
Coinbase provides many options for fast and convenient purchasing and sale of different cryptocurrencies. It supports no nonsense in getting people used to crypto trading, purchasing and selling. There’s not a lot of Coinbase pages.
Most of the systems are more mature. Coinbase, therefore, has a special business position. Coinbase is synonymous with an advanced network. The GDAX Exchange is more similar to Gemini and other exchanges. GDAX provides more specialised options for ordering and sale.
This includes “limit orders,” “market orders” and the option to fix the order price and leave it and see if it is met for a period of time. This makes GDAX more fitting for traders or experienced traders. The lack of these sophisticated Coinbase options makes it ideal for beginners.
After you know about purchasing a Coinbase cryptocurrency, setting up a GDAX account is quick if you want to start trading more frequently. You basically have to search for your business identity.
CEX.IO LTD
Founded and started by Oleksandr Lutskevych in 2009 and established in 2013, Mr Lutskevych is considered as one of the pioneers of Bitcoin. With over 3 million registered users on the platform, 99% countries supported, 47 states in the United States, and 0% customers’ funds lost, that is a great rating for a crypto trading.
Cex.io offers a large variety of trading tools such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ripple, Stellar, Litecoin, Tron, as well as other crypto assets. They also offer to trade the cryptocurrencies across multiple country currencies such as USD, EUR, GBP, and RUB.
Originally, it was a cloud mining provider owned by GHash.io. But in 2015, Cex IO stopped providing cloud mining services, and moved on into the crypto industry, when Bitcoin’s price was still low at that point.
Cloud mining is considered the backbone in the cryptocurrency model. Cex IO did Leased Hash Power in cloud mining, which is the most popular form of mining coins for bitcoin exchange. The process requires a person to open an account with a cloud mining company via its website and select certain things like the contract period and hashing power.
With over 250 professionals around the world, their geographical expansion to new markets aims for further accomplishments and development of new services for specific audiences.
Cex IO may also flaunt their well-known reputation. In 2020, they managed to accomplish several top-notch services to meet the needs of customers. One of their services include Instant Sell, a unique service that offers immediate card top-up. The other is Instant Exchange, where they allow you to convert between a variety of both crypto and fiat currencies in a few clicks.
Not to mention, it is also available in their mobile app. Cex.io offers mobility, which is why they’ve enabled trading through their website. They also have mobile apps on both operating systems, iOS and Android, as well as WebSocket and REST API.
Coinbase vs Cex IO – Which is better?
Coinbase
Coinbase is a simple and easy-to-understand regulated trading platform for buying, selling, storing, and transferring cryptocurrency. However, simple and handy also means that it doesn’t provide as many features as Coinbase Pro.
If you are getting into cryptocurrency for the first time, Coinbase is a good trading platform for you as it is more user friendly. Compared to Coinbase Pro, Coinbase has lesser payment options.
Coinbase takes between 1-3 days to reply to customer emails, and some users have felt that the long waited responses are unhelpful or too general. The exchange does have a detailed FAQ section on its “support” site which would be useful for potential customers to know about the company.
Cex IO
The once cloud mining provider has now become one of the most popular crypto exchanges. Cex IO keeps it simple and straightforward. They understand that security and convenience is what people look for when it comes to the crypto related industry, and that is what Cex IO offers.
It has a very user-friendly interface, secured platform, trading on-the-go, spot trading, and margin trading. Cex IO also offers 2 other services, which is spot trading and margin trading, and this service is exclusive to Cex IO only.
Spot Trading
Spot trading is a simple trading service, where there are no delays. With a trusted and secure bitcoin exchange, they offer trading on the spot. You can also place limits, market orders, and view history of exchanges as low as 1 minute. There are a plethora of choices to buy and sell across multiple currencies.
Margin Trading
This allows you to buy stocks you can’t afford. You only need to put in a small margin of the actual value, and then you will have a leveraging position in the market. It acts as a deposit to cover some or all of the credit risk in certain trades.
Coinbase vs Cex IO – Customer Support
With the growing rate of crypto exchanges in today’s world, excellent customer support is always appreciated. Coinbase provides considerably the best customer support. Customer support is managed by email. We have always obtained answers within 24-48 hours in our personal experience.
This is mirrored in the bulk of posts from online sites, though the time periods could be 24-72 hours. It can be said the same for Cex IO as well. Though Coinbase has a live chat, it is according to American working hours. As for Cex IO, they one-up their customer support by having a 24/7 live chat service.
Coinbase vs Cex IO – Service Advantages and Disadvantages
Coinbase
The advantages of Coinbase are that it has high liquidity, integrated debit card and credit cards. People who are new to the crypto world will also find it easier to exchange in Coinbase, since it is very user-friendly. But there are also its disadvantages.
Among them are that there have been reports of major violations of users privacy, high trading fees for less than $50,000 a month, and Segwit is still not supported, meaning that there will be high fees.
Cex IO
Cex IO pros are that it has a high trading volume, offers payment methods via wire transfer and credit cards, and instant buy option of coins. The disadvantages are that it is a little more premium on prices, customer support’s canned responses, and the verification process is very demanding.
Of course they may put safety first and they are able to flaunt their security, but is it really worth it? Higher trading volume would also mean that more transactions are going in and out, and each transaction has the probability to be hacked. It is important to know that Cex IO was also hacked in 2013, while Coinbase was never hacked before.
Tradeable coins
Both crypto services offer a wide variety of cryptocurrency exchange, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dash, and many more among the famous ones. Cex IO offers a wider range, with over 60 cryptocurrency trades.
Does Coinbase have Cheaper Trading Fees Than Cex IO?
Coinbase charges about 1.49% for sales of bank cards and 3.99% for purchases using a credit card or debit card. If you are using SEPA bank transfer, Coinbase has no deposit fees. They also list even cryptocurrencies priced in Stablecoins and also other cryptocurrencies, but for those who wish to step outside fiat currency like USD, there is a tonne of versatility.
Coinbase offers crypto exchanges with over 17 other cryptocurrencies, it is very likely that your currency is included as well, if you are using one of the reputable ones. Customer feedback is mostly also mostly positive, and also has more reviews than Cex IO. Customer feedback on Cex IO is also positive, but does not have the volume as compared to Coinbase.
In Cex IO, the transactional fees are calculated on a 30-day trade volume for all pairs. You may refer to the picture below to see between taker and maker percentages.
As for deposit and withdrawal fees, they offer multiple payment methods. Cex.IO accepts debit card, credit card, epay, skrill, bank transfer, ACH, SEPA, Faster Payments, and QIWI. You may refer to the picture below for more details. Do keep in mind that payment method via card purchases have a constant rate of 2.99% for all fiat currencies.
Final verdict
When deciding on which is better between Coinbase and Cex IO, it actually depends on what you’re looking for. For those interested in trading cryptocurrencies both Coinbase and Cex IO are solid choices and these exchange platforms typically serve two different market sectors.
Coinbase is one of the easiest platforms for a beginner who wants to gain quick access to a few leading cryptocurrencies. It also suits someone who wishes to purchase cryptocurrency via traditional financial methods such as a debit card or credit card and bank transfer.
It is an overall safe choice for traders at all levels because of the ease of use and commitment to staying regulatory compliant.
Cex IO has the advantage in having a wide range of coins and a low trading fee. While it is slightly more difficult to use when put in comparison, it offers a high quality service and caters to those with a more intermediate understanding in dealing with cryptos.
Its more sophisticated interface facilitates swing trading and the relaxed standards for verification suit someone who is unwilling to share their personal information. With that said, both exchanges meet different criteria and can be seen as complementary service providers for the crypto trading community.
However, it is worth noting that the crypto community deserves better customer support on both cryptocurrency trading platforms.
The first thing that comes to us is that when Cex IO is mentioned, they offer a variety of ways of paying. Be it bank transfer, debit card, mastercard, or even bitcoin exchange.
There are also hindered fees, and according to Cex IO, they are the most ‘secured’ and ‘trusted’ website to trade so you can use different payment gateways, particularly bank transfer at ease but how true is it considering that they have been hacked before? We will let you decide that one.
With over 10 years of experience working as a financial analyst, Eric is highly aware of the potential of cryptocurrency, particularly Bitcoin, and the impact it will bring towards the global economy. He is committed to share everything he knows about crypto here at Crypto Digest News.