How safe is Coinbase / Coinbase Pro?

[o_e_l_e_o]

The best option for a newbie like yourself who is planning to hold for the medium to long term is undoubtedly a hardware wallet. It is safer, more secure, more private, far less prone to hacks, you aren't at risk of Coinbase freezing your account, seizing your coins, going bankrupt, fractional banking, etc.

Rather than having a dozen different people give you a dozen different opinions, you should identify what it is about holding your coins yourself that makes you nervous. If an attacker steals the device, they cannot access the coins.* As long as have your seed phrase backed up, the device can be lost/stolen/destroyed and you can always recover your wallets. Why do you not want to hold your own coins?

*This is not true with Trezor devices, which are vulnerable to attack if the attacker has physical access.

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[Bergkampsballs]

Thanks again for all the responses. I've now got myself in a bit of a pickle as I've got a reasonable amount of money in my Coinbase Pro account and transferring it into something more secure has been a bit daunting as I'm using lots of new software that I'm not sure about to transfer the coins.

I've set up a wallet.coinbase account as well as an Electrum account and I couldn't easily work out how to transfer money directly from my Coinbase Pro account into either of these so I transferred about $12 as a test amount back into my main Coinbase account and successfully managed to transfer a portion of that into my wallet.coinbase account and a small amount into my Electrum account.

The transfer into my Coinbase Wallet account didn't seem to charge any fees, however when I tried transferring $2 back into my main Coinbase account it wanted to charge over $4 in fees.

The small transfer of about $4 into my Electrum account is now showing in the account as an amount of 0.28616, of what I'm not actually sure.

Judging by the advice of the majority here and wanting to secure my Bitcoin without paying too much in fees, I'm assuming that my sensible next steps should be to transfer my funds from my Coinbase pro as well as my Electrum account and my Coinbase Wallet account into my main Coinbase account and order a Ledger Nano S Hardware wallet which I can then safely transfer the funds from my Coinbase account into once that arrives. Would this be the most sensible thing to do here? Or maybe just leave the funds where they are and try to transfer the funds from each account directly onto the hard drive when it arrives?

[bakasabo]

Why do you want to make things more complicated and not pay for ledger nano s directly by card ?
As you are buying simplest version of hardware wallet, I presume that money matters. So why you an intermediary like Coinbase to make a purchase? Coinbase will charge you 4$ for a transaction, and this is half of ledger shipment fee

[Bergkampsballs]

Why do you want to make things more complicated and not pay for ledger nano s directly by card ?
As you are buying simplest version of hardware wallet, I presume that money matters. So why you an intermediary like Coinbase to make a purchase? Coinbase will charge you 4$ for a transaction, and this is half of ledger shipment fee

Apologies, I wasn't very clear there. I want to order the Ledger Nano S from my Amazon prime account using cash moneys straight from my debit card

I had a bit of a long day at work then came home to try to figure this all out. In hindsight I started with one question then kind of moved on and started asking other questions without really being sure what I wanted to ask.

I guess what I really want to ask is, will I be able to transfer money directly from all 4 seperate accounts directly onto my hard wallet (Coinbase Pro, Coinbase, Coinbase Wallet and Electrum) or will I need to transfer any of the Bitcoin from any of the other accounts into my main Coinbase account in order to then transfer onto the hard drive when it arrives?

[o_e_l_e_o]

The transfer into my Coinbase Wallet account didn't seem to charge any fees, however when I tried transferring $2 back into my main Coinbase account it wanted to charge over $4 in fees.

All bitcoin transactions require a transaction fee to be paid. This fee is picked up by the miners who mine your transaction and add it the blockchain. When withdrawing from the Coinbase exchange, Coinbase cover the fee so you don't see it being paid, but from any other wallet you will be charged a transaction fee.

The small transfer of about $4 into my Electrum account is now showing in the account as an amount of 0.28616, of what I'm not actually sure.

The default display unit in Electrum is mBTC, or milli-bitcoin. 0.28616 mBTC is equal to 0.00028616 BTC, which is indeed equal to $4. You can change the display unit by going to Tools -> Preferences -> Base unit.

Would this be the most sensible thing to do here? Or maybe just leave the funds where they are and try to transfer the funds from each account directly onto the hard drive when it arrives?

Fees are quite expensive at the moment, so making unnecessary transactions probably isn't a great idea. Might as well just wait for your Ledger to arrive and then transfer from all the separate wallets to the Ledger.

I guess what I really want to ask is, will I be able to transfer money directly from all 4 seperate accounts directly onto my hard wallet (Coinbase Pro, Coinbase, Coinbase Wallet and Electrum)

Yes, absolutely.

[Bergkampsballs]

The transfer into my Coinbase Wallet account didn't seem to charge any fees, however when I tried transferring $2 back into my main Coinbase account it wanted to charge over $4 in fees.

All bitcoin transactions require a transaction fee to be paid. This fee is picked up by the miners who mine your transaction and add it the blockchain. When withdrawing from the Coinbase exchange, Coinbase cover the fee so you don't see it being paid, but from any other wallet you will be charged a transaction fee.

The small transfer of about $4 into my Electrum account is now showing in the account as an amount of 0.28616, of what I'm not actually sure.

The default display unit in Electrum is mBTC, or milli-bitcoin. 0.28616 mBTC is equal to 0.00028616 BTC, which is indeed equal to $4. You can change the display unit by going to Tools -> Preferences -> Base unit.

Would this be the most sensible thing to do here? Or maybe just leave the funds where they are and try to transfer the funds from each account directly onto the hard drive when it arrives?

Fees are quite expensive at the moment, so making unnecessary transactions probably isn't a great idea. Might as well just wait for your Ledger to arrive and then transfer from all the separate wallets to the Ledger.

I guess what I really want to ask is, will I be able to transfer money directly from all 4 seperate accounts directly onto my hard wallet (Coinbase Pro, Coinbase, Coinbase Wallet and Electrum)

Yes, absolutely.

It's been a long day and I'm quibbling over pennies here but I want to try to understand the transactions that I'm making and the fees that I'm paying and you've managed to clear a lot up for me in one concise post. Thank you!

I've just ordered the wallet with next day delivery so no doubt I'll be back asking more stupid questions about the same time tomorrow but tonight I shall sleep a bit easier

[o_e_l_e_o]

No problem, happy to help.

Ledger have pretty comprehensive set up instructions and user guides on their website, which is a great place to start when your device arrives. Link: https://support.ledger.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000380313. Start there and simply work down the pages in the menu bar to the left. It will talk you through initializing the wallet, updating the firmware, creating a back up, and setting up your accounts and addresses. (That link is for the Nano S, but you can select the Nano X instructions from the sidebar if that is the device you bought).

This forum also has a dedicated Hardware Wallet board here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=261.0. You might find answers to any questions there, and it's probably the best place to ask any questions you can't find answers for.

Most important thing is just to take your time tomorrow, and if you are ever unsure, make a small test transaction first before moving the bulk of your coins.

[Bergkampsballs]

No problem, happy to help.

Ledger have pretty comprehensive set up instructions and user guides on their website, which is a great place to start when your device arrives. Link: https://support.ledger.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000380313. Start there and simply work down the pages in the menu bar to the left. It will talk you through initializing the wallet, updating the firmware, creating a back up, and setting up your accounts and addresses. (That link is for the Nano S, but you can select the Nano X instructions from the sidebar if that is the device you bought).

This forum also has a dedicated Hardware Wallet board here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=261.0. You might find answers to any questions there, and it's probably the best place to ask any questions you can't find answers for.

Most important thing is just to take your time tomorrow, and if you are ever unsure, make a small test transaction first before moving the bulk of your coins.

Perfect! I'll try to follow the instructions tomorrow and will be starting with a smaller transaction or 2 for sure. Thanks again for all your help.

[mk4]

It's been a long day and I'm quibbling over pennies here but I want to try to understand the transactions that I'm making and the fees that I'm paying and you've managed to clear a lot up for me in one concise post. Thank you!

I've just ordered the wallet with next day delivery so no doubt I'll be back asking more stupid questions about the same time tomorrow but tonight I shall sleep a bit easier

Yo, just a heads up that please don't rush things and just take your time into learning into these stuff. We wouldn't want expensive mistakes in this case, as one huge fuck-up could possibly cause you to lose your funds.

Definitely don't hesitate to consult Google, or probably ask here, if there are some stuff you're unsure of. Best of luck!

[DrG]

Why do you want to make things more complicated and not pay for ledger nano s directly by card ?
As you are buying simplest version of hardware wallet, I presume that money matters. So why you an intermediary like Coinbase to make a purchase? Coinbase will charge you 4$ for a transaction, and this is half of ledger shipment fee

Apologies, I wasn't very clear there. I want to order the Ledger Nano S from my Amazon prime account using cash moneys straight from my debit card

I had a bit of a long day at work then came home to try to figure this all out. In hindsight I started with one question then kind of moved on and started asking other questions without really being sure what I wanted to ask.

I guess what I really want to ask is, will I be able to transfer money directly from all 4 seperate accounts directly onto my hard wallet (Coinbase Pro, Coinbase, Coinbase Wallet and Electrum) or will I need to transfer any of the Bitcoin from any of the other accounts into my main Coinbase account in order to then transfer onto the hard drive when it arrives?

Before you do any transferring of funds to your Ledger I would read up on how to make sure your ledger is secure. Amazon used to be pretty good about selling authentic stuff when you buy directly from them but they have been co-mingling their inventory with other people at a higher and hgher rate. What this means is Amazon might very well ship you a brand new Ledger that somebody else was selling if it happens to be in a closer warehouse. The danger in that is some people have been tampering with all the hardware wallets to learn the mnemonic seed before shipping it out. I have a Ledger device that I purchased direct from Ledger.

Please read up on how to make sure the seed is newly generated before transferring funds to the wallet. Going through all the step only to send money to a crook's account would definitely sour anybody's day.

[o_e_l_e_o]

The set up guide I linked to above includes the steps required to verify the device is genuine, verify it hasn't been tampered with, and how to initialize it and set up your seed phrase. This page in particular (https://support.ledger.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000613793-Set-up-as-new-device) tells users that the device is not safe to use if it immediately asks for a PIN, and never to use a device which is provided with an already set up seed phrase.

As long as OP follows the set up guide closely and doesn't skip any steps, they will be fine.

[Bergkampsballs]

Thank you all for the heads up. I now have my Bitcoin safely secured on my hard wallet.

I tried transferring the funds from my Coinbase wallet into my hard wallet but I have only $6.52 in bitcoin in there and the miners fee is $5.52 to transfer $1, if I try to transfer $2 the miners fee is $4.52, $2.10 the miners fee is $4.42 and if I try to transfer $2.20 the miners fee is too large to transfer. If I try to transfer anything from my Electrum wallet which has $4 in it the miners fee is too high.

Considering that it cost me less than $2 to transfer ~0.2 Bitcoin into my hard wallet from my main Coinbase account it seems a bit of a strange way to calculate the fees but I'm guessing this is something to do with Coinbase covering the miners fees from my main Coinbase account but not from my Coinbase Wallet or Electrum accounts.

Again, quibbling over pennies here but I guess I'll just leave these small amounts in my Coinbase and Electrum wallets and take these fees as a lesson that I should avoid transferring small amounts of Bitcoin into different wallets in future.

[Beparanf]

Thank you all for the heads up. I now have my Bitcoin safely secured on my hard wallet.

I tried transferring the funds from my Coinbase wallet into my hard wallet but I have only $6.52 in bitcoin in there and the miners fee is $5.52 to transfer $1, if I try to transfer $2 the miners fee is $4.52, $2.10 the miners fee is $4.42 and if I try to transfer $2.20 the miners fee is too large to transfer. If I try to transfer anything from my Electrum wallet which has $4 in it the miners fee is too high.

Considering that it cost me less than $2 to transfer ~0.2 Bitcoin into my hard wallet from my main Coinbase account it seems a bit of a strange way to calculate the fees but I'm guessing this is something to do with Coinbase covering the miners fees from my main Coinbase account but not from my Coinbase Wallet or Electrum accounts.

Again, quibbling over pennies here but I guess I'll just leave these small amounts in my Coinbase and Electrum wallets and take these fees as a lesson that I should avoid transferring small amounts of Bitcoin into different wallets in future.

Actually, The amount that you want to transfer is not that big factor on calculating the transaction fee. The reason why transaction fee varies is because there's a lot of pending transaction on bitcoin mem pool. The current transaction fee is not the usual rate so always take note to consider the status of pending transaction in the mem pool before you send any transaction if you want to save fees.

You can check mem pool status here: https://mempool.space/

PS: The current fee is super expensive.

[Bergkampsballs]

Actually, The amount that you want to transfer is not that big factor on calculating the transaction fee. The reason why transaction fee varies is because there's a lot of pending transaction on bitcoin mem pool. The current transaction fee is not the usual rate so always take note to consider the status of pending transaction in the mem pool before you send any transaction if you want to save fees.

You can check mem pool status here: https://mempool.space/

PS: The current fee is super expensive.

OK, I guess the only question I have left is why the larger transfers I made from Coinbase to my hard wallet were below $2 at the same time as the fees to transfer small amounts from my Coinbase Wallet to my hard wallet were over $4. Is this just due to Coinbase covering the miners fees from my main Coinbase account?

Either way, I'll try to keep the transfers to a minimum and just transfer larger amounts where possible going forward.

[o_e_l_e_o]

So the amount of bitcoin which you spend in a transaction is largely irrelevant to the fee. What determines the fee is how much space the transaction takes up in terms of bytes. The space a transaction takes up is largely dependent on the number of different inputs and outputs in that transaction.

For example, let's say you have the following bills in your wallet: $20, $10, $5. If you want to give me $20, then you only need one input ($20) and one output ($20 to me). If you then want to give someone else $13, then you need two inputs ($10 and $5) and you need two outputs ($13 to them, and $2 back to yourself as change). The second transaction, although for less money, will be larger than the first in terms of bytes, and therefore require a larger fee.

Here's a good resource for more information: https://learnmeabitcoin.com/beginners/outputs

[Bergkampsballs]

So the amount of bitcoin which you spend in a transaction is largely irrelevant to the fee. What determines the fee is how much space the transaction takes up in terms of bytes. The space a transaction takes up is largely dependent on the number of different inputs and outputs in that transaction.

For example, let's say you have the following bills in your wallet: $20, $10, $5. If you want to give me $20, then you only need one input ($20) and one output ($20 to me). If you then want to give someone else $13, then you need two inputs ($10 and $5) and you need two outputs ($13 to them, and $2 back to yourself as change). The second transaction, although for less money, will be larger than the first in terms of bytes, and therefore require a larger fee.

Here's a good resource for more information: https://learnmeabitcoin.com/beginners/outputs

OK great, I think I'm getting my head around the gist of it now that I've read that link 3 times and searched about a bit. I've managed to put together a spreadsheet formula that calculates the balance in my hard wallet as well as my overall profit and loss just by looking at my Coinbase pro balance which is quite handy but fully understanding the intricacies of bitcoin fees may take some time.