Most crypto touchdown pages characteristic a easy signup web page or a banner for his or her new crypto bank card. Crypto.com options full-screen Matt Damon explaining how “Fortune Favors the Courageous.”
How you want them apples?
For sure, Crypto.com has been each unconventional and unrelenting in its mission to topple Coinbase, America’s hottest crypto platform. They’ve lowered charges, added options, and even purchased a stadium to indicate that they’re critical.
However are these efforts sufficient? How does the brand new challenger stack up in opposition to the reigning heavyweight champ?
About Crypto.com
- Commerce charges: 0.4% maker, 0.4% taker (<$25k 30-day buying and selling quantity).
- Coin choice: 250+.
- Commerce choices: Purchase, promote, ship, obtain, withdraw, and swap.
- Safety: 2FA, FDIC-insured balances for as much as $250k, chilly storage, a bug bounty program, and extra.
- Entry: 100+ international locations, all states however New York.
- Studying sources: Restricted.
- Native coin: Cronos (CRO).
- Standout options: Stake for as much as 14.5% curiosity.
- App availability: iOS and Android solely.
Initially based as “Monaco” in 2016, Singapore-based Crypto.com was capable of safe the very best area identify ever in 2018 for an estimated $5 to $10 million. And whereas different crypto websites are content material to serve a distinct segment underneath Coinbase’s towering market dominance, Crypto.com is gunning for the throne: CEO Kris Marszalek says he needs a billion customers.
They’re off to a superb begin, having attracted 10 million world customers up to now with their low charges, broad characteristic set, and Matt Damon.
Execs
- Decrease charges. Crypto.com’s charges are decrease — and extra clear — than Coinbase’s.
- Extra methods to earn crypto. Crypto.com allows you to stake crypto for as much as 14.5% curiosity, generate 8% money again from its Visa, and even earn 10% money again from easy P2P funds.
- Slick native coin. Cronos (CRO) is as much as $0.50 from its ICO value of $0.10, and HODLing it unlocks extra perks and rewards tiers on Crypto.com
- Versatile cost choices. You need to use your Crypto.com pockets to pay dozens of retailers in crypto with no price, money in for present playing cards, or ship crypto to a pal freed from cost.
- Expansive coin choice. Crypto.com presents 250+ cash in comparison with Coinbase’s 170, and in addition provides extra to the menu at a quicker price.
Cons
- No desktop/browser choice. Crypto.com is a mobile-only expertise, and its apps obtain decrease scores than Coinbase’s on each the Play Retailer and App Retailer.
- High rewards locked behind CRO staking. Most of Crypto.com’s high rewards — like 8% money again on Crypto.com Visa purchases — require you to stake as much as $400,000 USD price of CRO.
- Questionable longevity. Crypto.com spent eye-watering quantities on advertising simply earlier than the 2022 crypto crash, main some to query its potential to stay afloat.
About Coinbase
- Commerce charges: Between 0.5% and 4.5% plus a flat price of $0.99 to $2.99.
- Coin choice: 170.
- Commerce choices: Purchase, promote, ship, obtain, withdraw, and swap.
- Safety: 2FA, FDIC-insured balances for as much as $250k, chilly storage, a bug bounty program, and extra.
- Entry: 100+ international locations, all states however New York.
- Studying sources: Expansive.
- Native coin: USD Coin (USDC).
- Standout options: Earn free crypto only for studying about crypto.
- App availability: iOS, Android, and browser.
Coinbase is America’s largest crypto change by buying and selling quantity, and in 2021 grew to become the primary crypto market ever to be “knighted” with an IPO. The platform rose to prominence partly as a consequence of its founders’ ardour; as early as 2014 they had been on the telephone with execs at Dell, Time, and PayPal, changing them to crypto.
Right now, Coinbase maintains its status as essentially the most beginner-friendly crypto change. It’s tremendously straightforward to make use of, boasts an expansive studying library that may pay you to study crypto, and options top-of-the-line safety to guard consumer property.
Execs
- Newbie-friendly. Coinbase eases you in with a perfectly intuitive UI, clear graphs, and an unimaginable array of studying supplies.
- Expansive studying library. Coinbase Be taught presents an enormous, free studying library overlaying matters like altcoins, tax implications, and so on.
- Receives a commission to study crypto. Watch a couple of slick elearning movies and take some temporary quizzes and Coinbase will reward you with free crypto.
- Effectively-received desktop and cell apps. Coinbase presents each a desktop and cell expertise that customers usually approve of.
- Bigger and extra established. Now over 10 years previous, Coinbase has handed the SEC’s most rigorous scrutiny to grow to be a publicly traded firm.
Cons
- Charges, charges, charges. Coinbase’s charges are excessive, quite a few, and complicated — a nuisance for informal merchants, an entire turnoff for superior/frequent merchants.
- Meh staking rewards. Coinbase additionally permits you to stake a couple of cryptos, however the rewards cap out at 5% (beneath the speed of inflation).
- “Restricted” coin choice. Relying in your investing targets, Coinbase’s gradual, curated method to including cash to the menu might really feel comforting or proscribing.
Charges
Proper out the gate, Crypto.com positively beats Coinbase on charges.
And it’s no shock, both. Coinbase has been lambasted for years for having charges which can be each vexingly excessive and obscure. Their perspective has mainly been “it’s too exhausting to elucidate, you’ll simply see the ultimate price whenever you’re about to finish the commerce.”
People are inclined to tolerate Coinbase’s excessive/complicated charges in the event that they commerce small quantities or at a low frequency, and don’t thoughts hemorrhaging a couple of percentages for comfort.
Everybody else will favor Crypto.com’s price construction, which is each decrease and simpler to know. There’s a basic maker/taker construction, free conversions, free transfers, and even a decrease bank card buy price (not that you just’d wish to purchase crypto with a bank card, however nonetheless).
Charge | Crypto.com | Coinbase |
---|---|---|
Commerce charges | 0.4% maker, 0.4% taker ( | Between 0.5% and 4.5% plus a flat price of $0.99 to $2.99 |
Pockets conversion price | Free | 0.50% |
ACH switch | Free | Free |
Wire transfers (USD) | Free each methods ($1k min. required on withdrawal) | $10 deposit, $25 withdrawal |
Debit/bank card transactions | 2.99% | 3.99% |
Conversion pairs | Free | As much as 2% unfold |
Options and Performance
Each Crypto.com and Coinbase supply iOS and Android apps, a digital pockets, and a local coin (CRO and USDC, respectively). Each exchanges additionally allow you to purchase, promote, ship, obtain, withdraw, and swap crypto pairs.
Solely Coinbase presents a web-based expertise. Crypto.com is cell solely (extra on that in a bit).
Past the necessities, the platforms begin to diverge of their focus. Coinbase presents schooling for newbies, whereas Crypto.com presents a breadth of options and methods to earn.
Beginning with Coinbase, the platform presents a really staggering array of studying sources:
- Coinbase Be taught permits you to soak in every little thing you would presumably wish to find out about crypto, from tax implications to how DeFi works to what makes Cardano particular.
- Coinbase Earn will truly pay you in free crypto only for watching brief movies and taking quizzes about crypto. When you wished to construct slightly ~$25 portfolio of altcoins simply to look at it develop, Coinbase Earn might be the one greatest technique to do it.
Against this, Crypto.com presents little in the way in which of academic sources, providing you with the sense that it’s catering to a extra skilled crowd. That, or they simply understand the web is already filled with literature on find out how to put money into cryptocurrency, so they could as properly focus their efforts elsewhere.
So as an alternative of an enormous studying library, Crypto.com presents extra diversified methods to earn and spend crypto:
- The Crypto.com Visa lineup presents between 1% and eight% money again in CRO based mostly on how a lot you stake, plus free subs to Netflix, Spotify, and different perks
- Crypto.com Pay permits you to ship crypto to pals without spending a dime ala Venmo, pay any service provider in crypto for a small price, and even high up your cell minutes — all whereas incomes as much as 10% money again in CRO as you go
- Crypto Earn allows you to stake your crypto for one month, three months, or the versatile interval of your selecting in change for rates of interest starting from round 6% to 14.5% p.a. (per yr).
It’s price mentioning that Coinbase additionally presents staking rewards and a bank card — however staking rewards are decrease than Crypto.com and the Coinbase Card just isn’t but out there to U.S. prospects.
Neither platform presents crypto lending, since lending is a regulatory mess in the mean time.
Total, neither platform is objectively higher when it comes to total options. They’re merely suited to completely different functions; Coinbase eases newbies into the fold, whereas Crypto.com presents long-term HODLers extra methods to spend and generate curiosity.
Coin Choice
On the time of this writing, Coinbase presents 170 tradable property whereas Crypto.com presents over 250. That will seem to be an enormous discrepancy, however it’s like saying one automotive has a high velocity of 170mph whereas one other goes 250mph. Most folk will solely ever go 80, so high velocity doesn’t actually matter.
What does matter, nevertheless, is the speed of acceleration.
In its decade of existence, Coinbase has added “solely” 170 cryptos. That’s as a result of Coinbase slowly and punctiliously vets its cryptos, providing solely a curated record freed from scams and trash (SQUID, for instance, by no means made the reduce).
Against this, Crypto.com has added 250 cash in half the time. Which may suggest that their vetting course of is quicker — or simply looser. Both approach, the takeaway is that this:
And the way about these native cash?
- Coinbase’s USD Coin (USDC) is a stablecoin tethered to the worth of $1 USD. It’s primarily a greenback that lives on the Ethereum blockchain, permitting you to ship USD forwards and backwards extra simply and not using a checking account.
- Crypto.com’s Cronos (CRO) is not a stablecoin, and has skilled some spectacular development all through its lifetime. Plus, holding sure tiers of CRO (4,000, 40,000, and so on.) unlocks perks like greater rates of interest, decrease charges, and so on.
Funnily sufficient, you possibly can truly purchase USDC on Crypto.com and CRO on Coinbase — though it does make extra sense to purchase CRO with a Crypto.com account so you possibly can unlock its myriad advantages.
Usability and Consumer Interface
Though Crypto.com took an early lead in charges, Coinbase makes up critical floor when it comes to usability.
Merely put, Coinbase presents a desktop expertise and Crypto.com doesn’t. The latter is mobile-only, and right here’s their justification: “We favor to construct cell first — there isn’t a purpose so that you can use a desktop if we ship a design that works brilliantly in your telephone.”
There’s nothing unsuitable with attempting to make a fantastic cell expertise, however that latter assertion?
Against this, Coinbase does have a desktop expertise and it’s wonderful: crisp, clear, even calming. It’s in all probability essentially the most intuitive and stress-free place on the web to purchase crypto.
To make issues much more sophisticated for Crypto.com, their app maintains a good 4.3 stars on the App Retailer however a less-than-stellar 3.9 stars on the Play Retailer. A number of customers have reported that the app merely gained’t launch on the most recent Samsung Galaxy gadgets, whereas others report basic crashing and erratic habits.
The Coinbase app, in the meantime, maintains the next 4.7 stars and 4.1 stars on the App Retailer and Play Retailer, respectively.
Help
Coinbase presents e-mail, reside chat, and even reside telephone help, which is solely extraordinary within the crypto world. Crypto.com in the meantime presents simply e-mail and reside chat, which is extra customary amongst exchanges.
In my expertise, Coinbase responded to reside chat nearly instantaneously whereas Crypto.com took 30ish minutes. Each are spectacular.
Safety and Stability
By way of safety, each platforms boast 2FA, FDIC-insured balances for as much as $250k, chilly storage, a bug bounty program, and extra.
Regardless of that, each Crypto.com and Coinbase skilled focused hacks within the final 12 months. 6,000 Coinbase accounts had been uncovered with an undisclosed quantity stolen, whereas 483 Crypto.com customers misplaced $30 million.
The excellent news is that each firms instantly patched the leak and reimbursed the victims, so I’m assured your funds will probably be protected with both.
As for long-term stability, i.e., “will this change exist in 5 years,” Coinbase positively takes the cake. Not solely has Coinbase been round nearly twice as lengthy, it’s additionally publicly traded, that means it’s accountable to each the SEC and its shareholders.
On the flip facet, Crypto.com’s lavish advertising expenditures make me slightly nervous. They clearly tried to capitalize on the 2021 crypto growth, however now that the market is in a bust, they might not be raking in sufficient income to pay the piper.
Stability issues as a result of the extra secure crypto platform is extra more likely to survive, in the beginning, in addition to present a extra constant day-to-day expertise. I don’t assume Crypto.com will collapse tomorrow, however I do assume it’s price mentioning how and why Coinbase edges it out.
Entry and Restrictions
Each Crypto.com and Coinbase supply providers in over 100 international locations.
Contained in the USA:
- People in New York can use Coinbase however not Crypto.com.
- People in Hawaii can use Crypto.com however not Coinbase.
So there ya have it — when you reside in Brooklyn or Honolulu, the selection is simple!
You Ought to Select Crypto.com If:
You’re Seeking to Reduce Charges
When you’re seeking to decrease your maker, taker, and numerous different charges in your crypto journey, Crypto.com could be the change for you. The platform costs low commerce charges, restricted withdrawal charges, and total appears devoted to letting customers maintain extra of their cash.
You’d Like Extra Methods to Earn and Spend Crypto
I’ve heard of us name Crypto.com “The Crypto Financial institution,” and I believe that’s an apt nickname. You’ll be able to safely retailer crypto there, spend it to earn money again, and even stake it to generate double digits of curiosity.
You Ought to Select Coinbase If:
You’re New to Crypto
Coinbase is definitely the very best touchdown pad for newbies. Not solely will Coinbase ease you into the method with an intuitive UI and sturdy safety, however it’ll pay you to study extra about crypto.
You’d Just like the Choice to Commerce Crypto on Desktop
Put merely, Coinbase presents the flexibility to commerce crypto on a laptop computer and Crypto.com doesn’t. The latter doesn’t appear desirous about including the characteristic, both, so when you assume you’ll ever wish to swap XLM in your XPS, keep on with Coinbase.
Abstract
For direct rivals, Crypto.com and Coinbase are surprisingly divergent of their approaches. Ten years later, Coinbase nonetheless caters to freshmen and passive traders, whereas rising star Crypto.com will attraction most to intermediate traders who need extra methods to spend and earn their holdings (plus extra altcoins to select from).
And for extra on whether or not it is best to put money into crypt within the first place, take a look at my Crypto Crash Course!