This episode offers insight into two of the larger crypto wallets available, Coinbase and Crypto.com. A simplified comparison of the two wallets reviewing their pros and cons and allowing the listener a chance to see which wallet may the best choice for them.
This episode offers insight into two of the larger crypto wallets available, Coinbase and Crypto.com. A simplified comparison of the two wallets reviewing their pros and cons and allowing the listener a chance to see which wallet may the best choice for them.
Hello, and welcome to crypto craze, where we dive into the world of cryptocurrency. Please take note. This content is in no way. Financial advice. It is only intended for me to share my experiences and opinions. Contact a licensed professional financial advisor. For financial advice. Crypto craze is a podcast where people new to the crypto space can ease into it. And those with more experience can compare their own research and notes with mine. My name is mark. And today we are discussing crypto wallets to the big boys on the block, at least in the United States.
That's Coinbase versus crypto.com. Both of these wallets are centralized, meaning that they're run by a company they're overseeing they're overlooked. That allows you certain pros and certain cons. Okay. For a centralized exchange, you will have some type of customer support. You're going to have fees for buying and selling crypto. But you do get a lot more support than you will from a decentralized exchange. Examples of a decentralized exchange would be met a mask or trust wallet.
In a future episode, we will certainly be discussing both of those. But for now, we're going to stay strictly with the centralized exchange. One of the reasons is I think when you're first getting into cryptocurrency, you really need that support. You need that simplified user interface, and you certainly get that with the centralized exchange. They offer an enormous amount of information. Uh, you could see what's hot.
What's not, what's gaining, what's losing Coinbase for sure. Has many different tutorials, different programs. And they'll reward you with the relatively small amount of cryptocurrency. Usually somewhere between three and $5 per coin. But it does allow you that avenue to learn more about a coin than just its name and its price. Uh, and that's a critical thing.
The more you research your coins and your investing, the more success you're going to have. Now with Coinbase. You are talking about the biggest player in the United States of America. Coinbase has been active going up against the sec. They've been active talking to Congress, trying to pass various laws. And they've really cleaned up a lot of the crypto experience.
Um, their stock has been gaining in popularity on wall street. As people seem more and more money pouring into Coinbase. A big pro to Coinbase, in my opinion. Is that right now, Coinbase has an enormous reserve of Bitcoin. And in future episodes, we're going to learn why that's important, but to be brief, The amount of Bitcoin available to be bought is getting less and less each day.
And you have huge exchanges like BlackRock fidelity buying up all the Bitcoin that they possibly can. And a Bitcoin supply shock is imminent and it's going to be something you're seeing more and more in the news. You're going to hear more and more people talking about. So it's a big concern. And right now, Coinbase has a huge stockpile of Bitcoin. Their CEO, Brian Armstrong has really been a great voice for the crypto community. And has managed to take some of the fear. Out of the cryptocurrency world. So with Coinbase, what you do get is that really simplified user interface. It is not very difficult.
You're clicking just a couple of buttons before you're able to buy some of the pain in the neck. You might experience is trying to set up your bank account to it. But it's not that difficult. And there are plenty of tutorial videos that will walk you through this process. And you have a strong customer support, whether it be by chat or you can call them up on the phone and talk to them chat, you'll get a faster response.
You may wait a while on the phone, but you will get your questions answered. they have a great list, a great amount of crypto that's available for you to buy, which I think is important. Over time. You're going to see that there are different coins popping up that you're interested in. And when your exchange or your wallet doesn't have them available.
It's a little bit of a disappointment. And really depending on how much you want that coin, you may start to download various wallets. As you get deeper into the cryptocurrency industry, you will probably have multiple wallets. Coinbase doesn't cover every coin, but it does cover a lot of popular ones. You could say that Coinbase is a relatively conservative company.
They don't allow any old coin. You're going to hear the term shitcoin or poo coin. And I certainly don't mean to be vulgar, but you're going to hear that term all over the place. There are a lot of coins that could be manipulated. There are a lot of coins that are rug poles, meaning you put your money in there and it was a scam or a trap all along. And there's a point where all of it's swept out from under you. As we get into this series, you're going to learn more and more how to avoid scams, how to recognize scams. And had a really safely decide whether an investment is right for you or not. Coinbase also has an NFT marketplace introduced in about the last year or so.
So if you're intrigued, interested in NFTs, it's something that might bring you to Coinbase. Uh, I will tell you from my own experiences. I have found transfers of money on Coinbase to be fast and simple, very much faster than crypto.com doesn't mean you don't get your money with crypto.com. It just means Coinbase is significantly faster, where I usually will have the money sitting in my bank account when I transfer it from Coinbase, really within an hour to three hours. crypto.com has taken upwards of three days at times.
So you have to think ahead if you need that money. Uh, one thing I could say about Coinbase and I can also say in about crypto.com, they are ever evolving, and that's really important in the crypto space. If Coinbase was limited to what it started out with with Bitcoin Ethereum light coin. And car Danno and XRP, you'd be starting to lose interest as And XRP grow as slowly as any crypto's I've ever seen. But they're smart.
And as a crypto proves itself shows that it has some legs and has a large audience interest. They will relatively quickly list that coin bank is one that comes to mind. I will tell you, Coinbase is heavily. Leaning towards Solana. They love the salon of blockchain. The Solano chain has been the hottest for new developers and new coins, particularly meme coins.
And again, I'll be recording a podcast on meme coins in the next day or two, because right now they have been the leader in 2024. Now there are criticisms of Coinbase, right? There are some higher fees associated with Coinbase. In fact, their fees are higher than the crypto industry average something to be concerned about, but. There could be change on the way. Coinbase has recently announced that they're going to be employing the Bitcoin lightning network.
This will allow for much faster and cheaper exchanges of cryptocurrency and funds. And if this happens, I think you'll see the fees greatly reduced on Coinbase and that negative may turn to a positive. Some customers have criticized the customer experience and support. Uh, I've read a few things here and there where you hear people complaining for me, I've had to use their customer support over the last six years.
About five times. I have zero complaints and I found the support to be fast, efficient. And productive solving my needs each time. For me, that was super duper important. Important. Now you'll see that. Coinbase controls your wallet, keys. This is a big deal in some ways. You are going to learn more about private keys in the future of crypto craze episodes, but for now, Think about it as your super secret unique password. And in the case of Coinbase, you do not control them. You may have heard of the FTX collapse that happened not long ago. And a large amount of that was due to the fact that FTX controlled the keys of its users. And really was able to basically steal funds, take them, invest them and lose them.
And it caused chaos. What I will tell you is Coinbase and FTX are like oil and water. To me. They are complete opposites. Brian Armstrong compared to Sam Bankman freed it's night and day. It's like Obi wan Kenobi and Darth Vader. Brian Armstrong has been a Knight in shining armor to the crypto industry where Sam Bankman freed was a pariah. And a leech and a thief and just basically an evil man who deserved well more than the 20 year sentence that he received. But that's something you want to be aware of. As you get deeper into crypto and you make. Get more wallets, you will really have to gain control of your keys. Uh, I do keep a Coinbase wallet.
It's very active for me. It's one of my top wallets. As you gain crypto on there down the road, you can think of transferring it to a cold storage wallet. And again, we'll be talking about that in the upcoming weeks. But for now, I would say Coinbase is an excellent starting point for anyone. And if you are super confident and you're deeper into cryptocurrency, maybe it's passed you. But I still think as a conservative way to store your cryptocurrency.
It's a smart bet. Now. crypto.com. Is interesting. It's a little looser than Coinbase. I would say a little less rigid. In fact they'll list different coins. They're willing to kind of go out on a limb and list some coins that may be considered riskier by Coinbase. Uh, but I do love the fact and I find crypto.com is necessary for anyone that wants to invest in more than five or six coins. Because they do list some hot coins earlier. Then Coinbase. , there's a coin again, I didn't name it, but it's called cock in you.
It's C O Q. And then I N U C O Q standing for a French word for chicken. But, it is pronounced cock in you, but it has seen significant growth. People have made great money on it. And as a meme coin goes, it's one of those that I do think has a huge potential in the next 12 to 15, maybe 18 months. To do some significant growth.
If it does half of what those coin did, where it's at now, money will grow quickly. Now with crypto.com. I can tell you right off the bat, the fees are a little bit cheaper than Coinbase. Yep. It could be a little bit slower, but the fees are significantly cheaper. Sometimes you're paying 0%, which is pretty nice. Uh, crypto.com does have a very large selection of crypto assets and trading pairs.
And I think that's super important. Like I said, the fees are low, especially if you fund your account with cash. Okay. That's super important. And depending on where you live in the world, crypto.com offers a decent amount of staking. And you're going to learn that staking is a way to basically earn interest on your crypto.
And there are some significant cases where staking pays very high percents. I've seen anywhere from 5%. I've seen as high as 25%. Unfortunately for me, living in New Jersey. Uh, it's not always available. And the staking laws have recently changed. Hopefully we'll see, in the next year through some sec changes and maybe some changes in Congress that staking will begin to be offered in various areas where they are not offering it. Um, One thing I will say the fees to transfer with crypto.com are pretty good. The fees to withdrawal that changes.
It gets a little bit higher. And that can be a little bit frustrating. So you want to keep that in mind that when withdrawing with crypto.com you may find. You're a little shocked by the fees. I will tell you. I really enjoy both user interfaces, but the crypto.com one it's pretty sleek. Also very easy to use and it does offer some strong information top gainers for the day, top losers for the day. Uh, it has an NFT marketplace, which allows you to trade and buy in FTS.
If you're interested in that. Um, but I will tell you, I think you'll find that the user interface brings you in there too. It's sleek. It's, uh, it's, it's really futuristic in a lot of ways. So I love that. Uh, they have more than 250 different cryptocurrencies available. Uh, so I, again, I love that.
I love choice. I love selection. Uh, most Americans, I know we really want to see a large selection available to us. crypto.com offers you that. And like I also said, I think it's offering some coins that Coinbase doesn't and maybe Coinbase eventually will, but as we're going to learn, market cap is everything. And if crypto.com lists a coin with the market cap of 20 to $50 million. But Coinbase doesn't list that until a four or 500,000. A hundred million. Um, base, then you really begin to talk about losing out.
If you can get that coin when it's at a $50 million market cap compared to a $500 million market cap, you're already talking about a difference of 10 X on your money. Something to really keep in mind. Uh, there was a breach of crypto.com in 2022. So that's something to keep in mind. It's been more than two years now.
So hopefully all that's worked out and the kinks are worked out. And I'll tell you that crypto.com customer service is considered the best lot of criticisms. And I think in most areas it gets a 40 out of a hundred score, something to consider, but overall, it does receive a high mark out of five stars.
Seems like most people are enjoying their experience with crypto.com. So just tying this up. I'll be honest. I do think both of these wallets are super important to anybody interested in investing in cryptocurrency. Especially if you're starting out in the beginning, they'll kind of take you by the hand. The walk you through the process and you can move forward and begin that journey of crypto investing. The more research you do, it is certainly going to lead you to different coins, more coins that you're interested in, which may lead you to different crypto wallets here, crypto craze, we're going to be reviewing most of the major wallets.
We'll probably have about 15 done in the next month or so. And hopefully bring you some important information that allows you to make the decisions that you need to make. So I hope you've enjoyed this episode. Get ready. Cause we got a whole lot more coming, but please again, take note. This content is in no way financial advice.
It is only intended for me to share my experiences and opinions. Contact a licensed professional financial advisor for financial advice. Have a great day and remember. Do your own research.