How to Buy and Sell Cryptocurrency with Coinbase

Coinbase exchange

Currently the biggest and most popular cryptocurrency exchange platform, available in 32 countries. It allows trading Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin. To over 20 million users it offers a friendly interface, few levels of protection and both desktop and mobile (Google Play and App Store) versions.

Payments and fees

Coinbase supports three payment methods: banking account, debit/credit card and wire transfer (PayPal). Depending on a country, available options can vary, the same as the conversion fees and exchange rate. Take into account, that in countries like Australia, Canada, Singapore, both variable and fixed fee are used. But in general, for the fastest transactions you will have to pay more:

	Best for	Buy	Sell	Deposit	Withdraw	Speed	Fee (USA)
Bank account	Large and small investments	+	+	+	+	4-5 business days	1.49%
Debit/Credit card	Small investment	+	–	–	–	Instant	3.99%
Wire Transfer	Large investment	–	–	+	+	1-3 business days	3.99% (PayPal)

Buy/sell cryptocurrency

Coinbase has an easy-to-use interface, so, learning how to buy and sell cryptocurrency won’t take a lot of time. Currently, the service supports following digital currencies: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum and Litecoin. Coinbase provides rates statistics by each coin (hourly, daily, weekly, yearly, all time), so the consumers can easily plan their actions based on given information. Mobile app version gives the opportunity to set alerts – to stay notified about price fluctuations.

Coinbase rates dashboard, June 2018.

On Coinbase you can easily switch between Buy and Sell options. In both cases, the system works the same: you choose a type of coin, a wallet and a payment method. However, due to high rates, rather than buying the whole bitcoins, the most common option is buying/selling by fractions. You need to input the amount of money you are ready to spend, and the system immediately displays the amount of coins you get:

For reverse transaction, a consumer has to write down the number of coins he/she wants to obtain – the money sum column will appear:

To sell, a consumer is choosing from what place to take the coins (BTC, LTC or ETH wallets) and where to send funds (USD Wallet, PayPal, or bank account). The rest of it is the same procedure as with buying – select the amount of coins to sell and/or your rate.

How to buy cryptocurrencies from Coinbase?

Traders can buy cryptocurrencies from Coinbase either via the web browser or using the Coinbase mobile app. The steps are as follows:

Sign in to Coinbase or sign up to create a new account
After successful registration, click on the buy/sell option, which reflects on the top-right section of the homepage when using the web browser and at the bottom in the Coinbase mobile app
Click on the buy option to choose a digital asset
Enter the amount to buy either in crypto or its equivalent fiat currency
Choose a payment method
Complete the purchase