Bitcoin Forum

i just saw this pop up in my trading interface today on coinbase pro:


it's the end of an era. they're instituting a tiered fee system like bitfinex and others have. if you trade less than $100k over a rolling 30-day period, you'll now pay 0.15% trading commissions on maker orders instead of 0%.

i'm not sure if coinbase has hit a point where they are shifting focus to profit over growth, or if they're just feeling the squeeze from shareholders. either way, this sucks.

any cheaper alternatives for people in the USA?

Coinbase have always been about pure profit. Everything from insider trading, violating their own policies to list shitcoins that their shareholders told them to list, selling client data without telling anyone, etc.

I'm not in the USA so I'm afraid I can't offer you suggestions of alternatives, but I would see this as a good opportunity to move away from Coinbase altogether.

no doubt, i've always hated coinbase's politics. to be fair though, there isn't a single exchange out there that doesn't fail in one category or another. shitty UI or trading engines, shady coin listings, volume manipulation, overkill KYC, pandering to regulators/law enforcement, etc etc etc.

for years now it was hard to justify trading anywhere else (that goes for EU and UK traders too) when you could literally pay zero commissions at coinbase. i used to happily pay 0.2% at btc-e for the privilege of no KYC. now i'm depending on bitmex, and i hate keeping coins there because USA customers are prohibited.

just wondering what's out there. it's been a couple years since i looked for new exchanges.....

Think you're right, they're moving focus to profits in the US, especially now they've got their tentacles out to the UK and eyeing the EU.

I admit I'm not super familiar with your options in the US but I know some of my ex clients were regular Kraken users when buying BTC with US dollar, as recently as late 2018 anyway. They're about as old as it gets when it comes to reputation.

And what about the new-fangled Gemini? They look like they got US covered well: https://gemini.com/areas-of-operation/. I'd have signed up if my location were covered...

Unfortunately my US experience are limited due i'm based in EU and i basicaly trade EU pairs at Kraken.
As far Coinbase (along other exchangers) the option to trade other fiat currencies with crypto is unavailable, except the one that your country have/use (€ only markets in my case).

I personaly know people in US that use Kraken and it's an option for them. There was though some issues regarding KYC and their tier system.
So imho you should first check their Tier/limitation system before you start trading... ;)

i've always known people who traded there. i never signed up myself because i had other good options i was already using. it looks like their fee structure is very comparable to coinbase pro now---$0-$50k monthly volume = 0.16% maker fees, $50k-$100k monthly volume = 0.14% maker fees.

now that i think about it, kraken may be worth it now because they have verification tiers that don't require ID documents. with a basic account (name, DOB, phone number, address) you can withdraw $5k daily equivalent via digital currencies. thanks for reminding me!

That's too bad. On some of the few occasions I have bought US dollars for BTC I used the free market maker option. A good deal when conditions are right.