Coinbase

Coinbase is a crypto exchange and custodian that lets people buy, sell, hold and send crypto through its apps, and that runs order-book exchanges, custody and payment infrastructure for institutions and developers. Its annual report describes four exchanges: the Coinbase Exchange for spot trading, Coinbase International Exchange for perpetual futures, Coinbase Derivatives Exchange for US-regulated futures, and Deribit for options.

The listed parent is Coinbase Global, Inc. (Nasdaq: COIN). Coinbase, Inc., the US operating company, was founded in 2012 and became a subsidiary of Coinbase Global in 2014, according to the company's 2025 annual report. On 15 December 2025 the parent moved its state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas. Coinbase describes itself as remote-first and says it keeps no headquarters; the address in its SEC filings is there only because the SEC asks for one.

Brian Armstrong, a co-founder, is chief executive. Fred Ehrsam, the other co-founder, sits on the board. The company's About page lists Emilie Choi as president and chief operating officer and Alesia Haas as chief financial officer, and reports more than 4,300 employees and service in more than 100 countries as of 30 June 2026.

There is no exchange token. Coinbase's commercial link to a stablecoin is USDC: it co-founded the Centre Consortium behind USDC in 2018 with Circle, and stablecoin revenue was $292 million in the second quarter of 2026, close to a quarter of total revenue.

Most people meet Coinbase through the main app, which has two ways to trade. The simple buy and sell screen quotes a price that already includes a spread and adds a Coinbase fee on top. Coinbase Advanced is an order-book screen where you pay a maker or taker fee and no spread. Both draw on the same account and the same custody.

Coinbase says every trade from a primary balance is executed through Coinbase Exchange's central limit order book or competitive auctions, apart from trades routed to decentralized exchanges through its DEX trading feature, and that it has no payment-for-order-flow arrangements with market makers.

Around that core sit several separate products:

• Coinbase One: a paid subscription that removes trading fees on many simple trades, though a spread can still apply and the 1% limit-order fee is not waived.
• Coinbase Card: a Visa debit card issued in the US by Pathward, N.A. and in the EU by Paysafe Payment Solutions; no Coinbase transaction fee, but a spread applies when crypto is sold to fund a purchase.
• Staking: Coinbase stakes supported assets and keeps a commission on rewards, 35% as standard for ADA, ATOM, AVAX, DOT, ETH, MATIC, SOL and XTZ.
• Coinbase Wallet: a self-custody wallet where you hold the keys. It is a different risk model from the exchange account, and Coinbase cannot freeze or recover those funds.
• Coinbase Prime and Coinbase Custody Trust Company: institutional trading and qualified custody.
• Base: a blockchain network used by Coinbase's DEX trading and payment features; Coinbase's Q2 2026 results put more than 99% of agentic stablecoin transaction volume on it.

Stocks and prediction markets appear on the home page with the note that they are not available in every jurisdiction, so the product list a user sees depends on where the account is held.

Coinbase does not publish one fixed retail price list. Its fee disclosure says the Coinbase fee on simple trades depends on payment method, order size, market conditions, location and asset, and is shown on the order preview before you confirm. The firm limits it in one place: its California disclosure states the fee will not exceed $10 for orders under $200 or 6% of the order value above that.

The Advanced maker and taker schedule sits behind sign-in; the public help page explains how tiers work but not the rates. A measurement this site took on 14 July 2026 put the all-in cost of a $10,000 bitcoin buy on Coinbase Advanced at 0.60%, and found 28.2 BTC of depth within 0.1% of the best ask and 330.0 BTC within 0.5%. Those are dated measurements, not a published rate.

Withdrawals of crypto carry a network fee that Coinbase estimates in advance; because it batches transactions, the fees collected can exceed what it actually pays to the network, which its disclosure acknowledges.

In the US, Coinbase, Inc. holds money transmitter licences issued by individual states, listed on its licences page under NMLS ID 1163082, plus a New York BitLicense (122466). Its licences page covers residents of every state and Puerto Rico, though individual products such as staking, derivatives or prediction markets vary by state.

In the European Economic Area, Coinbase Luxembourg S.A. is authorised under MiCA by Luxembourg's CSSF. ESMA's interim register, updated 22 October 2026, shows the authorisation dated 20 June 2025 and covering custody, exchange of crypto for funds and for other crypto, order execution, placing, reception and transmission of orders, and transfer services across EEA states. The register does not list operation of a trading platform for this entity.

In the UK, CB Payments Ltd is an FCA-authorised electronic money institution and has been registered for cryptoasset activity under the Money Laundering Regulations since 3 February 2025. The FCA register warns, as it does for all crypto firms, that cryptoasset services are unlikely to be protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

Coinbase does not publish a single list of supported countries on its public pages; availability appears in the sign-up flow. Like all US firms it blocks sanctioned jurisdictions. Identity verification with a government ID is required before trading, and the KYC data collected is the same data that was exposed in the 2025 support-staff breach described below.

Coinbase's case rests on being a regulated, audited public company rather than on cryptographic proof. Its financial statements are audited by Deloitte & Touche, it files quarterly with the SEC, and its state licences carry examination and bonding requirements. It does not publish a proof of reserves: no Merkle tree, no reserve wallet list, no way for a customer to confirm independently that their balance is backed. Our guide on how to check that an exchange holds your money sets out what each kind of evidence does and does not show.

On insurance, Coinbase's own page says a group crime policy protects a portion of the crypto it holds against theft, including cybersecurity breaches, but does not cover losses from someone using your stolen login details and does not cover NFTs. Its 2025 annual report adds that total customer assets are substantially more than corporate assets and available insurance, and that the crime policy runs for one year without automatic renewal.

The same annual report carries a risk factor that matters to anyone holding a large balance: because custodially held crypto may be treated as property of a bankruptcy estate, customers could be treated as general unsecured creditors if Coinbase failed. The company states this itself, in a filing it is legally required to keep accurate. What happens if an exchange goes bankrupt depends heavily on how custody terms are written.

Cash is treated differently. For US customers, dollars are pooled in custodial accounts at banks and credit unions (Coinbase names JPMorgan Chase, Cross River Bank, Customers Bank, VyStar Credit Union and Pathward) or invested in Treasuries and money market funds. Where dollars sit as bank deposits, Coinbase says the accounts are set up for pass-through FDIC or NCUSIF cover up to $250,000 per customer, which protects against a bank failing, not against Coinbase failing. Crypto is not covered by FDIC or SIPC.

On 11 May 2025 Coinbase received an extortion email from someone claiming to hold customer data. In its SEC filing four days later, Coinbase said the attacker had paid contractors or employees in support roles outside the US to copy data from internal systems. The data included names, addresses, phone numbers and emails, the last four digits of Social Security numbers, masked bank account numbers, government ID images, and balance and transaction history. Coinbase said passwords and private keys were not taken and no one could move customer funds directly.

Coinbase refused to pay, dismissed the staff involved, and said it would reimburse eligible retail customers who had been tricked into sending funds to the attacker. It estimated the cost of remediation and reimbursement at $180 million to $400 million. The leak explains why so many Coinbase users receive convincing scam calls and texts: the callers often know real personal details.

A common version is a text saying a withdrawal code was requested, with a number to call or a link to cancel it. Coinbase's help pages say its staff will never ask for your password, two-step verification codes or private keys, and that it does not send texts to verify transactions. An unexpected sign-in or device confirmation, according to Coinbase, can mean someone already has your password. The steps it recommends: open the app yourself rather than following the message, change your password, lock the account in the app if anything looks wrong, review active sessions and confirmed devices, and report it to [email protected]. It also recommends moving from SMS codes to a security key or passkey.

Coinbase's enforcement history is mostly about compliance controls rather than lost customer assets. In January 2023 the New York Department of Financial Services settled with Coinbase over know-your-customer and transaction-monitoring failures, including a backlog of more than 100,000 unreviewed alerts by late 2021; Coinbase paid a $50 million penalty and committed another $50 million to its compliance program over two years.

In July 2024 the UK's FCA fined CB Payments Ltd £3,503,546 after it onboarded 13,416 high-risk customers despite a 2020 agreement not to. The SEC sued Coinbase in June 2023, alleging it operated as an unregistered exchange, broker and clearing agency; the agency dropped the case with prejudice in February 2025, stating the decision was a policy matter and not a ruling on the merits.

Opening an account takes an email, phone number and identity verification with a government ID. Funding methods include bank transfer and debit card, and the fee for each is shown on the order preview before you confirm.

Getting out means either selling to cash and withdrawing to a bank, or sending crypto to a wallet you control. Sending to another Coinbase user's primary balance is free; sending on-chain costs the estimated network fee. Staked assets unstake without a fee if you wait the network's unbonding period, while instant unstaking carries a fee shown at the time. Our guide on moving crypto off an exchange covers testing a small transfer first.

Coinbase support runs through help.coinbase.com, which offers a virtual assistant and chat inside the signed-in account. Its US licences page lists 1-888-908-7930 as the number for Coinbase, Inc. complaints, alongside an online complaint form, and each state section names the regulator to escalate an unresolved complaint to. UK customers have a separate route through CB Payments Ltd.

Search ads and social posts advertising a Coinbase support number are a known scam channel. Coinbase staff will not ask you to move funds to a new wallet, install remote-access software or read out a code. If someone calls you, hang up and contact Coinbase from inside the app.

Key dates from Coinbase's filings and announcements:

• 2012: Coinbase, Inc. founded.
• 2014: Coinbase Global, Inc. becomes the parent company.
• 2018: Coinbase co-founds the Centre Consortium with Circle to launch USDC.
• January 2023: $50 million NYDFS settlement over compliance failures.
• June 2023: SEC sues Coinbase; the case is dismissed with prejudice in February 2025.
• July 2024: FCA fines UK subsidiary CB Payments Ltd £3.5 million.
• May 2025: Coinbase discloses the support-staff data theft and refuses an extortion demand.
• June 2025: Coinbase Luxembourg S.A. receives MiCA authorisation from the CSSF.
• December 2025: Coinbase Global reincorporates in Texas.
• Q2 2026: Assets on platform $246 billion; Deribit operates as Coinbase's options exchange.