Wallets on Coinbase

[RodneyUK]

Beginner here, Getting started with Bitcoin, just wondering if anyone else uses Coinbase Wallet (i'm on Android).

Just a few questions.

1. Given the website has the option to sell on it, the app does not, it looks like I need to transfer my Wallet contents back over to the Coinbase website (which looks like it has a different address) if I want to sell. Given I paid a fee to buy through Coinbase into the wallet, is it normal to pay yet another fee to send it back to Coinbase account in order to sell?

2. Is the process of selling just as simple as buying through most exchanges, eg exchanges don't try to stop you. The fact that the Coinbase app doesn't have the option to sell, only to send to another address, seems concerning. You're paying a fee to buy Crypto, and you're paying a fee just to send it back to the Coinbase exchange, only then to sell it (and presumably then to be faced with yet another fee?)

I am yet to try other exchanges, my eyes are on SwissBorg and Ledger based on recommendations. Any beginner tips would be useful as well. I am simply testing out Crypto at the moment as I believe Bitcoin should drop a bit some time next year after the current climb?, thereafter would be a better time to purchase.

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[Beparanf]

Coinbase is an exchange wallet and not a non custodial wallet. You should not use it to store your coins in long term since you don’t own your private key / seed phrase which will give you a serious problem once Coinbase encounter a problem that will result to freeze of your account.

Use non-custodial wallet like Electrum or Bluewallet to store your Bitcoin and just send your coins on exchange when you are ready to sell. I don’t have any experience on using Coinbase wallet but they are centralized exchange which means their wallet is centralized too.

[Nwada001]

Coinbase has a wallet, and they also have an exchange. The exchange is different from the wallet, and any transaction that happens on the blockchain requires you to pay a fee in order for the transaction to be completed. Unless you are using a Coinbase exchange account, where you can transfer from that account to another one, which could just be an internal transfer, that's the only place you don't need to pay a fee to send out.
 
If you don't want to be paying a fee for sending out crypto, if you are a day trader, then you should have the coins that you are trading on a place order in an exchange if you are so concerned about the fee, but still, leaving coins in an exchange is not really a good option, nor is holding coins in a close source wallet a good choice either. I don't know how Coinbase works fully, but I think it's not entirely a self-custodial wallet, so if you plan to hold coins for a long time, you should choose yet another open source wallet that you can use for holding.
 
The transaction fee for sending coins from one wallet to another is inevitable; you will also have to pay one. The fees are just different depending on the blockchain and the wallet that you are using.

[BIT-BENDER]

Beginner here, Getting started with Bitcoin, just wondering if anyone else uses Coinbase Wallet (i'm on Android).

No I I don't use Coinbase wallet, and I don't intend to have a Coinbase wallet, leaving your coins on an exchange is a rule breaker in the crypto-currency world. In as much as I am not sure if this Coinbase wallet you are talking about is independent from the Coinbase exchange I still feel there would be some connections that won't give you complete authority over your wallet.
Rather than finding out the hard way I suggest you get a personal wallet preferably one that has no affiliation to any exchange and when you want to buy it sell you can transfer from your wallet to the exchange and vice versa.

[Hyphen(-)]

1. Given the website has the option to sell on it, the app does not, it looks like I need to transfer my Wallet contents back over to the Coinbase website (which looks like it has a different address) if I want to sell. Given I paid a fee to buy through Coinbase into the wallet, is it normal to pay yet another fee to send it back to Coinbase account in order to sell?

Yes, the fee depends on the type of wallet you send the Bitcoin to; some wallet will allow customize your fee for transactions in case the default fee is high, while some have fix fees, but all depending on Bitcoin network congestion in the mempool.

2. Is the process of selling just as simple as buying through most exchanges, eg exchanges don't try to stop you. The fact that the Coinbase app doesn't have the option to sell, only to send to another address, seems concerning. You're paying a fee to buy Crypto, and you're paying a fee just to send it back to the Coinbase exchange, only then to sell it (and presumably then to be faced with yet another fee?)

I am yet to try other exchanges, my eyes are on SwissBorg and Ledger based on recommendations. Any beginner tips would be useful as well. I am simply testing out Crypto at the moment as I believe Bitcoin should drop a bit some time next year after the current climb?, thereafter would be a better time to purchase.

There are other exchanges that support buy and sell of Bitcoin, and in case you want to even sell your Bitcoin back to fiat currency, some exchanges support peer-to-peer transactions that allow you to exchange your coins to your local currency.

For a better experience with crypto exchanges, you can try Binance or Kucoin exchanges because they are a bit easier to operate. If you care about your privacy, which is very important, you can try any exchanges from here, they do not require KYC verification.

[RodneyUK]

Thanks for the reply.  I think for now then My intention is to continue to use Coinbase and once my crypto has made a bit of profit, if any, I'll use it to purchase a non custodial wallet , thinking of a Ledger Nano,  and then transfer my crypto to that. Still a lot to learn for me but it seems the community here is very helpful.

[Z_MBFM]

Beginner here, Getting started with Bitcoin, just wondering if anyone else uses Coinbase Wallet (i'm on Android).

Coin Best is a centralized exchange where you can trade crypto and you can buy crypto using credit card or debit card and on the other hand it has a wallet where you can hold coins like Bitcoin, Ethylium, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash And you can transact Coinbase to Coinbase via email without any transition fee but since it is a centralized wallet it is very risky to use. I have been using coinbase wallet for a long time and my account was restricted for a month despite having KYC.  Since then I no longer use any kind of centralized wallet. It is always better to use non-custodial decentralized wallet. Remember not your key not your crypto

[BitMaxz]

Thanks for the reply.  I think for now then My intention is to continue to use Coinbase and once my crypto has made a bit of profit, if any, I'll use it to purchase a non custodial wallet, thinking of a Ledger Nano,  and then transfer my crypto to that. Still a lot to learn for me but it seems the community here is very helpful.

Take note Ledger Nano does not have open source code so we can't guarantee that your wallet is safe.
If you are planning to buy a hardware wallet in the future I suggest look for a hardware wallet that has open source code.
Check this list "List Open Source Hardware Wallets"

[hugeblack]

1. Given the website has the option to sell on it, the app does not, it looks like I need to transfer my Wallet contents back over to the Coinbase website (which looks like it has a different address) if I want to sell. Given I paid a fee to buy through Coinbase into the wallet, is it normal to pay yet another fee to send it back to Coinbase account in order to sell?

Coinbase has a wallet and you can use it to store Bitcoin, but since you are on Android, you have various options that provide you with higher privacy, security, and the ability to customize fees to pay the lowest transaction fees according to the time you want to spend before your transaction is included in the next block.

Use Samourai Wallet ^[1]-electrum^[2] and blue wallet^[3]

I am yet to try other exchanges, my eyes are on SwissBorg and Ledger based on recommendations. Any beginner tips would be useful as well. I am simply testing out Crypto at the moment as I believe Bitcoin should drop a bit some time next year after the current climb?, thereafter would be a better time to purchase.

I have not heard of the first service, and there are better hardware wallets than Ledger.


[1] https://samouraiwallet.com/
[2] https://electrum.org/
[3] https://bluewallet.io/

[jrrsparkles]

Coinbase is an exchange wallet and not a non custodial wallet.

In the past coinbase wallet used to be like that but lately, they launched their non-custodial wallet - Coinbase Wallet: NFTs & Crypto, which provides even seed phrase for recovery.

Whereas the Exchange - Coinbase: Buy Bitcoin & Ether account is entirely different from the wallet and user needs to make on-chain transactions to move funds from coinbase wallet to coinbase exchange.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>

Coinbase seems to have two different apps on Google’s Play Store: The Exchange's custodial account which should work with the same credentials you use to access coinbase.com from your desktop/laptop device, and their non-custodial wallet closed source solution (*).

As someone has already pointed-out is some way, the crypto you store on the Exchange based solution is really in Coinbase’s custody, and you’ve only really got a virtual balance there of a given crypto. TXs within the exchange are off-chain/virtual.

The non-custodial solution does seem to provide you your keys to control your assets (again read *). Moving to/from this solution will incur in performing on-chain TXs, with the associated fees. In addition, if you want to buy/sell some through your Coinbase account, you’ll have to perform an onchain TX to move from one wallet (the non-custodial one) to another (the Exchange’s custodial one).

(*) It is highly interesting to read this thread on the non-custodial wallet solution to get an inkling on why it’s not something that really recommendable, having a wide range of better solutions that are open source.

[hosseinimr93]

I think for now then My intention is to continue to use Coinbase and once my crypto has made a bit of profit, if any, I'll use it to purchase a non custodial wallet , thinking of a Ledger Nano,

It seems that you are confusing the terms.
A non-custodial wallet isn't necessarily a hardware wallet. Any wallet that gives you full control over your fund is called a non-custodial wallet.

You don't have to purchase a non-custodial wallet. There are many good wallets that can be downloaded freely.

If you can't afford to buy a hardware wallet, go for an open-source trustworthy non-custodial software wallet. If you can run your software wallet on an airgapped device, it would give you the same security as a hardware wallet.

[decodx]

Thanks for the reply.  I think for now then My intention is to continue to use Coinbase and once my crypto has made a bit of profit, if any, I'll use it to purchase a non custodial wallet , thinking of a Ledger Nano,  and then transfer my crypto to that. Still a lot to learn for me but it seems the community here is very helpful.

It doesn't necessarily need to be a hardware wallet for it to be non-custodial, like hosseinimr93 pointed out.  If a wallet lets you fully control your funds instead of the company behind it then it's a non-custodial wallet.

As for the Ledger Nano, they are not so popular no more.  Folks are ticked off about some of their recent controversial decisions and  if you're in the market for a hardware wallet, I'd say go with an open source one from a trusted company instead of Ledger.

[Outhue]

That's not a non-custodial wallet, you are at risk of the CS acting very funny wit you when you are doing some things in that wallet, I have used it in the past when I could not tell the difference and I advice beginners to learn about the differences in crypto wallets before making a choice, this have cost me a lot of money in the past as I couldn't get access to my assets anymore, be careful will wallets straight from centralized exchanges, the only one I trust is Trust wallet and thats because Binance is responsible for the wallet.

Any wallet that is closed source is not safe to use, also if you are asked to log into your wallet do not use such wallet, coinbase wallet is just another bank account that's been monitored by the banks themselves, they have access to your fund at your back and they have the power to lock you out of your wallet.

We need to be careful now, crypto value is getting bigger and better, if your asset is big enough then it's worth stealing and ruining their reputation for, there is no one that can be trusted with money and valuable assets, keep yours safe using non-custodial and open source wallets, what you have is one of the most valuable thing in the world today, it's sure that they will come trying to take them away from you.

[Peanutswar]

People recently are using the exchange as their wallets because they are supported too this kind of thing only ideal for the short term holding like have a designated amount you want to hold and wait for the market opportunities to buy so by that the exchange now act as giving convenience to the people to make trade but if you are in a long term holding and you don't want to use your asset for a daily trade basis investing into a Hot wallet or Cold wallet is recommended. Also fees matter too you sometimes exchanges have fix rates than the non-custodials.

[tranthidung]

It seems that you are confusing the terms.
A non-custodial wallet isn't necessarily a hardware wallet. Any wallet that gives you full control over your fund is called a non-custodial wallet.

Custodial vs Non-custodial wallets. It is a topic from a newbie, years ago but it can help OP to differentiate between two wallet types.

You don't have to purchase a non-custodial wallet. There are many good wallets that can be downloaded freely.

There are many open source non-custodial wallets and because they are open source, they are free to download and use. Those wallets are reproducible with open source codes too.

https://walletscrutiny.com/
https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

If you can't afford to buy a hardware wallet, go for an open-source trustworthy non-custodial software wallet. If you can run your software wallet on an airgapped device, it would give you the same security as a hardware wallet.

Some open source non custodial wallets have features to create Multisig or cold storage wallets too.

If OP plans to use hardware wallets, open source ones are listed there
[LIST] Open Source Hardware Wallets

[Findingnemo]

There are many open source non-custodial wallets and because they are open source, they are free to download and use. Those wallets are reproducible with open source codes too.

https://walletscrutiny.com/
https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

I would go further and say Electrum because its suitable even for a newbie and if someone can install Coinbase then they can install Electrum for their storing purpose.

https://electrum.org/#home

[GUIDE] How to Safely Download and Verify Electrum