Coinbase Pro Review – Pros and Cons of Trading at former “GDAX”

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GDAX, which used to be Coinbase’s professional trading platform, was rebranded in 2018 and is now Coinbase Pro.

The difference between Coinbase and Coinbase Pro is that Coinbase is mainly an exchange where you can buy cryptocurrencies for fiat money in case you don’t own crypto coins yet, while Coinbase Pro is a broker platform to actively trade cryptos against fiat money or against Bitcoin for profit. So one is for buying and one is for professional trading (long and short trades).

Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam founded Coinbase in 2012, which owns Global Digital Asset Exchange (GDAX) that deals with trading of Bitcoin and other digital currencies. However, GDAX.com was launched in mid-2016, whereby it included ether as part of the exchange medium.

Coinbase has headquarters at San Francisco in California and therefore Federal laws by the USA government have an impact on its operations.

Although the objective of the company is to create an international platform, it currently operates in over 30 countries, in Europe, UK, USA, Canada and Australia. The qualification criterion allows citizens who are above 18 years of age to participate in the trading.

On matters daily trading volumes, it records an average of 7,000 BTC, with a limitation of $50,000 weekly withdrawals.

Past Issues

In the first year of operation, Coinbase realized those big investors were not playing a significant role in the company. With the launch of margin trading in early 2017, the company expected to increase the scope of institutions and established investors. On the same note, Coinbase gained compliance with New York Stock Exchange regulations, a factor that licensed its operations using digital currencies.

This means that they could increase the number of currencies soon, which added to the convenience of users across all social classes. According to Adam White, the Vice President of Coinbase at that time, the reaction proved that people were adopting digital trading, with the company indicating 150% new leads, in the onset of 2017.

In an effort to expand territories, Coinbase Pro was focusing on popularizing Bitcoin as a valid asset, reacting to the IRS investigations that check into the volatility of these assets. For Ethereum, the hiking in the market share over a few months had boosted the efforts of popularizing digital currency. Of course, the limitation of expansions coming from countries such as China was among the issues that were giving the company a hard time. When considering the friendliness of the software to new users, the issue of signups was co-current, although the technical team has always acted towards solving any upcoming problems.

Using Coinbase Pro

Unless you have an account with Coinbase, you have to sign up to Coinbase Pro in order to start your trading. Although there is no demo account, the user interface gives directions and pieces of advice on how to engage and successfully register your details. The simple registration that does not require much of the personal identification details. To register for a basic account you just need to fill in a name, e-mail and password.

Verification Steps

After signing up, the system verifies your details, depending on the location. Coinbase Pro has an option for individuals and institutions, whereby you have to fill in the details during registration. The rest of the steps mainly involve verify your identity and residence, in an effort to increase determine the compatibility with the available rules. Notably, the verification criteria do not influence the trading limits, unless other regional laws come into play.

The following are requirements per region:

– USA Residents: SSN, Residential Address and a current Photo
– UK Citizens: Copy of Passport, I.D or Driver’s License and proof of identity.
– Rest of the World: Two photos of different identities, whereby one excludes the I.D card, Passport and Driver’s License

User Dashboard

On login into the Coinbase Pro account, you access the “buy”, “sell” and “track your orders” functions. These are key in engaging in your business for the day. Given that you need a currency to trade with, you choose the deposit and/or withdraw options are also available on the display. Fortunately, there are minimum trading amounts or even deposits, although the $50,000 maximum withdraw per week still applies.

The accepted currencies are USD, GBP, and EUR, while the digital transactions will involve Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC) or Ether (ETH).

In order for users to make informed decisions, analysis charts are also available. This includes the candlestick chart that indicates the history of relevant pricing. For you to access the open orders, the order book function stocks them in a hierarchy order. Coinbase Pro has different orders that favor different situations, making this menu very useful. They include the following:

1. Market Orders
Found on the “Market” icon available above the ‘Buy’ and ‘Sell’ Icons and serve to launch a transactions.

2. Limit Orders
Important in increasing pricing and the icon is adjacent to the “Market”

3. Stop Orders
On pressing the “Stop” button, you trigger the market order based on the amounts you place

4. Advanced orders
They are found in the ‘Advanced Section’ and include Immediate, Kill, Good Till cancels and the Post only option.

In the end, there is the Depth chart which presents data in a statistical way. In this case, you get to view the sizes of the orders and price bids in a diagram form. The interpretation, of course, depends on the users’ understating of the other functions in the dashboard and the experience in dealing with digital currency and engaging transactions. The findings from this chart mainly revolve around the pricing, bids and order book preferences, which is more of a standard than professionals. However, the presentation is effective and accurate, a factor that makes it suitable for Coinbase Pro, due to the scope of markets that it has.

Coinbase Pro Margin Trading

The intention of introducing margin trading by Coinbase Pro was to make users eligible to money to increase the trading values. Using the margin, one can sell the assets that they do not actually possess, and earn some funding for transactions. In order to use this service, users are required to switch it on using the button available on the top. The regulating factors are:

a) The funding limit which is specific to margins
b) The order book value in terms of balances meant for margins
c) Your leverage levels, as stated by the order books

At any one time, your margin position is important in monitoring how your business is fairing. On the other hand, Coinbase Pro provides the following leverage for digital and actual currencies:

Market Leverage

• LTC/USD 2x
• BTC/USD 3x
• ETH/USD 3x
• BTC/EUR 2x

The Cryptocurrency Pairs Supported

Due to the varying currency demands, the cryptocurrency depends with the country. Coinbase Pro supports the following combinations per country:

1. The United Kingdom – BTC/GBP, LTC/BTC, and ETH/BTC
2. Europe – ETH/BTC BTC/EUR and LTC/BTC
3. The USA – LTC/USD, ETH/BTC, LTC/BTC ETH/USD and BTC/USD
4. Canada – ETH/BTC and LTC/BTC
5. Australia – ETH/BTC and LTC/BTC
6. Singapore – ETH/BTC and LTC/BTC

User ConvenienceAs an effort to increase user contact, Coinbase Pro supports email and SMS alerts. This brings in information on the existing conditions in the digital market as well as recommends the best times to trade with what digital currencies. On the same note, the website has a comprehensive FAQ sheet that answers and clarifies most of the common issues. As for the support team, they should respond within 48 hours after you place a query. Currently, Coinbase has not devised mobile application for this trading platform, but have opted to improve on the functionality of their website.

Security Assurance

Given that you present identification documents and money during registration and transactions, Coinbase Pro assures users of total security of anything in their possession. For encryption purposes, it uses the PGP tools and features. On the other hand, 98% of the funds presented to Coinbase are locked in cold storage using multi-sig keys and encryptions. In this way, accountability is easy and they have recorded no hacking yet, even though the company is just a year old. Read more.

Coinbase Pro Fees

BTC Trading Fees

ETH Trading Fees

LTC Trading Fees

Pros

• Easy to use interface and dashboard, making it suitable for beginners
• Considerable leverage and margin positioning, promoting the transactions
• Suitable for most international markets
• Multiple currencies and cryptocurrency support, which increases convenience of users
• Data and money security assurance, creating confidence to the users

Cons

• The depth analysis charts used are not yet professional
• The support team has a tendency of providing shallow answers, even when clarifications are absent in the FAQ list
• The lack of mobile applications presents an analog approach as well as promotes the tendency of website freezing due to many users
• The increasing of the number of compatible currencies could lead to a complex blockchain, in the near future

Conclusion

Coinbase Pro is a successful digital transactions platform when compared to most of its competitors. Considering the presentation of this website, it is relevant to both the beginners and professionals. While the beginners will utilize the basic functions such as Buy and Sell, professionals can go further to define their margin positioning and risk the Stop Orders. The self-explanatory user dashboard and realistic analysis charts are also recommendable efforts that the team has invested in. however, the need to improve on customer support and adoption of the app technology is relevant for Coinbase Pro.