GoodCrypto

Binance vs Coinbase: What’s a Better Alternative?

Good Crypto Team
Binance or bitfinex_main

Many novices go to the bitcoin exchange Coinbase when first introduced to digital currencies because it’s an easy-to-go and straightforward platform to start trading. But after some time of using it you begin to notice that their fees are higher than the market and the core functionality such as order types and charts lacks certain professional instruments. For example, Coinbase doesn’t have futures and margin trading, and this is basically how another option comes to mind of many, many crypto enthusiasts – Binance. So, wait a second, is Binance better than Coinbase?

While comparing Coinbase and Binance in the following piece, we’ll talk a lot about KYC, trading types, withdrawal/deposits, fees and more. But here’s the thing, Captain Obvious: neither of both exchanges is perfect, of course, and each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages.

As an illustration, Coinbase fees are much higher than on Binance. Plus, if you do something to object to the Coinbase rules, you can get shut down – many people go nuts on Reddit about it. And yet, Binance.com doesn’t operate in the States, relying on its American counterpart, Binance.US, the venue that, honestly, causes many users to raise their eyebrows because of lack of information on the web.

Well, then, is it Coinbase or Binance? None, actually. Make sure to not mistake Binance.US for Binance.com or Coinbase.com for Coinbase Pro (former GDAX). Binance.US and Coinbase Pro operate only in the States, while Binance.com and Coinbase.com are international trading venues and different platforms. So the right question would be: is it Coinbase Pro, Coinbase.com, Binance.US or Binance.com?

Even though there’s no such thing as the best crypto exchange between these two brands, in the following piece, we’ll thoroughly explore these platforms to help you choose the better alternative.

What is Coinbase Exchange?

Coinbase, or rather Coinbase Global, Inc., is one of the veteran cryptocurrency exchanges famous for being the first digital-currency platform to go public on the Nasdaq exchange via a direct listing in April 2021. As of May 2021, the company’s American outlet Coinbase Pro was the largest cryptocurrency trading venue in the States according to the Coinbase market cap, with the trading volume exceeding $8 billion and its stock (COIN) trading at $247. The Coinbase current number of users is around 13 million.

The platform was established in June 2012 by a former Airbnb engineer, Brian Armstrong. The entrepreneur enrolled in the Y Combinator startup program and was lucky enough to receive $150,000. Another cofounder Fred Ehrsam, a former Goldman Sachs trader, joined later – he used to be a professional gamer, which introduced him to the concept of in-game digital cryptocurrencies, so he gladly hopped in.

A British programmer and Blockchain.info co-founder Ben Reeves was planning to participate in the project, however, had parted ways with Armstrong before the startup received the first investment from Y Combinator because of different stands on how the wallet should have operated.

Armstrong and Ehrsam launched the service in October 2012, making buying and selling bitcoins much easier for non tech-savvy consumers – through bank transfers. Today Coinbase offers a variety of different payment methods to their clients guaranteeing safety for all the balances under $250K.

What is Binance Bitcoin Exchange?

If it is safe to say that Coinbase’s interface makes crypto available to all the novices out there, including your grandmother, then Binance is an ultimate champion in providing users with all the tools needed for professional trading.

As you probably will learn from every Binance review, it was founded 5 years later than Coinbase, in July 2017, but, as of May 2021, Binance was the largest crypto venue in the world, showing a cosmic number of slightly over $193 billion in trading volume.

The exchange offers a wide range of altcoins, futures, staking options, their own DEX and even their own coin, BNB, that makes the trading process cheaper, but – no, its stock is not listed anywhere on a traditional exchange like NASDAQ.

Being launched in China by Changpeng Zhao, commonly known as “CZ”, the platform had to move its headquarters a few times due to the country’s legislation and, generally, increasing regulation of cryptocurrency. Now, it’s a Cayman Islands-domiciled cryptocurrency exchange that has an American analogue, Binance.US.

Interestingly, CZ had previously founded Fusion Systems in 2005 in Shanghai, the company that was building high-frequency trading systems for stockbrokers, and even worked for Blockchain.info as the third member of the cryptocurrency wallet’s team in 2013.

How Easy is It to Register And Verify?

Completing KYC in crypto is almost like playing a videogame, at the end of each level you kind of have to mollify a boss. Except, the boss is an exchange, and a videogame is not a videogame but a real-life question of whether you’ll ever be able to withdraw the amount you want to withdraw. Take a look.

Coinbase Pro

The good news is that if you’re already verified on one of the Coinbase venues, there’s no need for you to go through the same cycle again on the pro platform. If not – the easiest way to complete the Coinbase registration is the mobile app. Just open it, click Settings and then “Identity Verification”. Once verified, log into Coinbase Pro with the same access details as for Coinbase and start trading.

There are three verification levels on top of Coinbase.com, and, loosely, on Coinbase Pro. Why “loosely”? Stay intrigued for a while, we’ll talk about it later.

KYC types Phone Number Personal Information ID
Level 1

✅

 

 
Level 2

✅

✅

 
Level 3

✅

✅

✅

Coinbase.com verification levels

Level 1 is the basic verification level that requires your phone number and email address.

Level 2 includes your full name, date of birth and residential address. However, the term “personal information” is a little bit intense in this case since it also includes a few additional questions (quiz), such as “what is your source of funds”, “employment status” and “what will you use Coinbase for?”

Level 3 is rather interesting. As a rule, you only have to upload your ID document (either passport, or driver’s license, or national ID card). However, if needed, Coinbase gains the upper hand in requesting additional details, including, but not limited to taxpayer identification number, a government identification and information regarding your bank account such as the name of the bank, the account type, routing number, and account number. In some cases, where permitted by law, they also require special categories of personal data, such as biometric information. The Coinbase id verification time is anywhere between 2 and 3 minutes.

Binance.com

In order to complete the Binance verification process, login to the website of the exchange, click on the icon of your profile and proceed to the identification tab.

There are three verification levels available on top of Binance.com – take a look at the table down below.

KYC types Name Date of Birth ID or passport Address
Basic

✅

 ✅

 
ID verification ✅ ✅ ✅
Address verification ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅

Binance.com verification levels

Basic verification: this verification level only requires your first and last names as well as the date of birth – so, how long does Binance verification take? Honestly, the whole process is very easy and takes only 1 to 2 minutes.

ID verification: in order to complete the second-level verification, which is a little bit more challenging, you’ll have to do two things: add your identity card and take a selfie. By the way, the process of taking the selfie is a little extravagant. It includes shaking your head, nodding a few times or opening your mouth – so make sure your girlfriend isn’t next to you while you’re doing this. The Binance verification time of your ID details might take anywhere between 10 minutes and several hours.

Address verification: as to completing this level, you can choose which papers to use, either a utility bill (electricity, gas, water/sewage, fibre/broadband services), a bank statement or a government-issued proof of address document. The Binance verification time of your address details may take between 6 hours and 2 days.

Binance.US

As the official page states, in 2019, “Binance.US opened registration for all U.S. citizens, and in return, Binance.com stopped new U.S. citizens from registering on the Binance.com website.”

The announcement further reads, “if you have an account on Binance.com, you cannot log into your account through Binance.US because these are considered two separate platforms.” To that end, KYC processes on these two separate venues might also look different – in fact, they are. Take a peak!

KYC types Name Date of
Birth		 SSN Phone number ID or passport Address Questionnaire
Basic

✅

 ✅ ✅

 
Advanced (ID) ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅
Advanced (Address) ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅
Fiat ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅

Binance.US verification levels

Basic verification: the amount of green checks is overwhelming. Even the basic verification on Binance.US is quite exposing. For example, you have to provide them with your social security number (SSN) in the initial stages.

Advanced verification: this verification can be of two types, either an ID-based or an address-based verification requiring respectively the details mentioned.

Fiat verification: no need to tell you that the questions in the questionnaire are being even more “intimate”, they include such “ingredients” as the purpose of your account, a source of income, association with prime trust, anticipated volume of fiat deposits & withdrawals and an anticipated number of fiat deposits and withdrawals.

With all that said, don’t forget that even though the U.S. has got one of the strictest financial regulations on the planet, all of your U.S. dollar funds under $250k on Binance.US and Coinbase Pro are FDIC-insured, so maybe it’s worth it.

Deposit And Withdrawal Of Money

Now, let’s take a look at quirks and perks you’re about to obtain on Coinbase Pro and Binance(s) with every new verification level.

Coinbase Pro

On Coinbase Pro, there’s no separate system that defines your verification level as vividly and clearly as it is done on Coinbase.com, and, needless to say, on Binance(s). So it is indeed hard to get you married to certain numbers at this point. However, everything will depend on your answers to this little questionnaire popping up on Coinbase Pro every time you want to increase your withdrawal limit:

The request form to increase withdrawal limits on pro.coinbase.com

Say, you’ve convinced them to increase your fiat withdrawal amount after all. At this point, you can withdraw either to your verified bank account (1) or to your Coinbase.com wallet (2). Coinbase deposit time from Coinbase Pro will take seconds.

With the verified bank account and verified desired withdrawal limit, you can withdraw as much fiat as you like.

With the Coinbase.com wallet, withdrawing limits will be dependent on the payment method you are using to withdraw.

KYC types Difficulty Verification time Deposits/Withdrawals Withdrawal limits
Level 1

😄

 2-3 mins Bank account
Credit/Debit Card

Up to $9,5k
Level 2 🙃 2-3 mins Bank account
Credit/Debit Card
Wire transfer		 Up to $250k
Level 3 🙃 2-3 mins Bank account
Credit/Debit Card
Wire transfer
Send / Receive crypto		 Unlimited

Coinbase.com verification benefits

In case you wonder how to deposit crypto using Coinbase Pro, for example, how to deposit from Coinbase to Binance, just choose the withdrawal option on the trading terminal, click on the crypto address option and then insert the public address of the targeted wallet.

Deposit crypto from Coinbase Pro to any other crypto platform

Binance.com

Are you wondering how to deposit money into Binance? In order to deposit fiat, click on Wallet and, then, on Overview. You will see deposit and withdrawal options as shown below:

How to withdraw from Binance / how to deposit money into Binance

Basically, you can deposit different fiat currencies, such as USD or GBP, using Silvergate Bank (SWIFT).

Also you can surely deposit crypto. Just click on the yellow button Deposit, and you will see this screen:

Once clicking “Deposit Crypto”, the platform will generate the public address you can use to deposit from any other crypto platform to Binance.

The withdrawal process looks somewhat familiar since you kind of have to use the same interfaces.

If you don’t know how to withdraw money from Binance, click the button Withdraw as shown below…

…and you’ll see the withdrawal options:

As you can see, you can withdraw either fiat using Silvergate or crypto once clicking on the button Crypto:

See, how there’s a field to insert the public address of the wallet you want to transfer your money to.

It’s interesting to mention that the basic verification on Binance.com only allows you to withdraw a maximum of 2 BTC per day, but when you have it obtained, you can trade crypto pairs all right. The basic Binance verification time takes no longer than 2 minutes, and yet, if you manage to complete it, you get to transfer up to €5,000 in fiat per day to your bank.

The ID verification enlarges your 24-hour deposit limit to €5,000 in fiat and to 100 BTC in crypto – users normally go through it to also buy crypto instantly with a credit or debit card, deposit and withdraw fiat via bank transfers or local channels and buy or sell crypto via p2p trading.

KYC types Difficulty Verification time Withdrawal limit
per day		 Purchases with a credit/debit card Bank transfers Trading
Basic 😄 1-2 minutes €5,000/2 BTC ❌

❌

Crypto pairs
ID verification 🤔 Less than 2 hours €5,000/100 BTC

✅

✅

 Fiat/crypto pairs
Address verification 🙃 About 1 hour €10,000/100 BTC

✅

✅

 Fiat/crypto pairs

Binance.com verification benefits

As to the address verification, with that much of your privacy exposed, you can withdraw up to 100 BTC or €10,000 per day. The fiat amount is quoted in euro, not in U.S. dollar, because Binance.com is not compliant with the U.S. regulations – Binance U.S. is.

Binance.US

Now, take a look at the set of benefits that goes with certain verification levels on Binance.US.

In addition to what is already put into the table down below, a fact worth mentioning is that only debit cards are available on top of the American branch of Binance, no credit cards are supported.

Another interesting thing about Binance.US is that with the basic verification status, you can only deposit one thousand dollars in fiat and up to five thousand dollars in crypto equivalent. In order to successfully complete the basic identification process on Binance.US, be prepared to activate 2FA – no worries, the whole thing doesn’t take long.

KYC types Difficulty Verification time Withdrawal limit
per day		 Purchases with a debit card Bank transfers Trading
Basic 😄 Approx. 1 min $5k in crypto & $1k

✅

✅

 Crypto pairs
Advanced:
ID-based or
address-
based		 🤔 Approx. 5 mins $1mln in crypto

✅

✅

 Crypto pairs
Fiat 🙃 Approx. 5 mins $5k with ACH $7,5mln with wire transfer

✅

✅

 Fiat/crypto pairs

Binance.US verification benefits

So, how long does Binance.US verification take? It is easy to come across some threads on Reddit where people discuss how it takes them up to 30 days to get verified on the platform, but in most cases, if the documents are true and accurate, the process shouldn’t take more than 5 mins. If it does, don’t wait, submit a request to the support desk.

Types of Trading

Coinbase Pro Trading

If they asked you to describe this platform in one sentence, you could go with “Coinbase Pro is an easy-to-use professional terminal for crypto traders.” It’s a pity that they only have spot trading to offer. But in the fall of 2020, Coinbase margin trading was desabled in response to new guidance from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Coinbase Pro Interface

The orders you can place on Coinbase Pro are market, limit and stop orders. As they say on their trading rules page, a market order is an order to buy or sell a specified quantity of an asset at the best available price of existing orders on the order book. A limit order is an order to buy or sell a specified quantity of an asset at a specified price. As to the stop order type, it is an instruction to post an order to buy or sell a specified quantity of an asset but only if and when the last trade price on the order book equals or surpasses the stop price.

In spite of the fact that a trading terminal on this U.S. exchange makes it very easy to place orders, it is still short of advanced orders, such as Trailing Stop and Trailing Stop Limit. It’s also not possible to set Take Profit and Stop Loss on Coinbase Pro, let alone Trailing Take Profit.

The good news is that you can use all of those on Coinbase Pro by installing Good Crypto App. Also, Good Crypto doesn’t freeze your balances when you set any type of stop orders, so you can freely operate these funds before the stop order execution. Moving forward – Coinbase charts are also somewhat dry in terms of technical indicators, timeframes and graph types, for example, only candlestick and line charts are available. But no worries, you can retrieve TradingView charts from our app, too.

When it comes to the Coinbase PRO trading fees, here is a detailed breakdown outlining each pricing tier below:

Coinbase Pro Taker/Maker Fees

24h trading volume Coins listed Markets listed Fiat Number of active users CoinMarketCap
Liquidity Index*
Coinbase Pro $3,022,458,420 58 186

USD, EUR, GBP

≈13 mln

 563

As to Coinbase coins listed, there 58 assets consisting of orthodox and unorthodox tokens such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, SUSHI, Synthetix, 1inch, The Graph etc. The exchange offers 186 markets, the fiat currencies available for trading include USD, EUR and GBP.

You can get familiar with all the latest trading fees on Coinbase Pro by yourself.

Eventually, as opposed to Binance, Coinbase PRO doesn’t have a native coin that may reduce trading fees or provide traders with other benefits like stacking rewards, token sale participation tickets, etc.

Binance.com Trading

There are many trading types available on top of Binance: spot trading, margin trading, futures trading, p2p trading, swap trading (like on Uniswap) landing, staking… Honestly, if there’s anything crypto existing out there, name it, because Binance probably supports/has it.

They have their own decentralized exchange (DEX), two blockchains (Binance Chain and Binance Smart Chain), and finally, their own Binance cryptocurrency. The Binance coin is called BNB, and if you hold enough of it, these holdings decrease your trading fees, along with other benefits like stacking rewards, token sale participation tickets, etc..

If you want to learn how to buy Binance coins, just follow this link.

Spot Trading on Binance.com

A spot market is called like that because in this case trades are made “on the spot.” The trades are settled immediately, so the current market price of an asset is often referred to as the spot price.

Let’s take a look at a simple and easy-to-use interface on Binance you can use if you want to do spot trading.

Simple interface on Binance for spot trading

There are also other interface types on Binance: for p2p and margin trading as well as a convert and an advanced interface for spot trading. Here’s an advanced interface:

Advanced interface on Binance for spot trading

Order types available include limit order, market order, stop-limit and OCO order types. Hopefully, you remember that limit order is an order that you place on the order book with a specific limit price. A market order is an order to quickly buy or sell at the best available current price. As to stop-limit, think of the stop price that triggers a limit order, and the limit price as the specific price of the limit order that was triggered. Wondering about the most intriguing OCO order type? It is a one-cancels-the-other (OCO) order that combines two market orders, where if one is fully or partially fulfilled, the other is canceled.

Now let’s take a peek at Binance trading fees, here is a detailed breakdown outlining each level:

Binance.com Spot Trading Fees

You can get familiar with all the latest spot trading fees on Binance.com by yourself.

Binance.com lists 358 coins, 1214 markets and more than 43 fiat currencies. In other words, you can find almost any popular and well-established altcoin, such as Kusama, Polkadot, 1inch, and Verge on Binance. It supports three types of trade orders: limit, market, and stop limit orders, which is of course not much if you’re used to trading via the Good Crypto App.

Binance Margin Trading

Margin trading is the money you initially deposit into your account to effectively borrow more money from an exchange or other traders who earn interest based on market demand for this feature. Traders buy on margin to increase their trading power and leverage gains; while this approach can amplify results, it can amplify results both to the upside and the downside, so keep it in mind.

Margin is only a tool to create so-called leverage, which is normally presented as a ratio of 3x, 20x, 100x etc.

When it comes to the Binance margin trading fees, here is a detailed breakdown outlining each level:

You can get familiar with all the latest margin trading fees on Binance.com by yourself.

Binance margin trading interface

According to the Binance margin trading guide presented on their website, after activating your margin account, you will have to transfer funds from your regular Binance Wallet to your Margin Trading Wallet. Your Margin Wallet balance determines the amount of funds you can borrow, following a fixed rate of 5:1 (5x). So, for example, if you have 1 BTC, you can borrow 4 more.

Binance Futures Trading

USDⓈ-M futures contracts on Binance have clear pricing rules and are settled either in USDT or BUSD

According to Binance, they see futures contracts, often referred to as futures, as agreements that bind traders to buy or sell assets in the future at a specific price and date. These financial instruments are frequently used by both hedgers and speculators as a way to potentially anticipate future price movements, either for hedging against risks or for making profits.

In contrast to margin trading that magnifies trading results so that traders turn larger gains on successful trades, a futures contract is an agreement to buy or sell the underlying asset at a predetermined price in the future. As the Binance team nicely puts it in their guide, while trading futures, you can make a profit by using up to 125X leverage – (20x by default).

Binance.com derivative trading options

In order to open a futures position, click on the tab Derivatives, choose the option you’d prefer and transfer funds into your futures account to start trading. Compared to the spot trading functionality where Binance offers limit order, market order, stop limit order, stop market order, for crypto derivatives they additionally offer a trailing stop order, a post-only order and a limit TP/SL order.

As we’ve already explained in the piece comparing Kraken and Coinbase Pro, there are basically two main reasons why users generally trade futures: they hedge against market fluctuations and speculate on market direction at a higher scale.

There are four derivative trading types on top of Binance.com: COIN-M Futures (quarterly), USDⓈ-M Futures (perpetual), Binance Leveraged Tokens (tokenized version of leveraged futures positions) and Binance Options (simplified version of traditional options). As to the Binance Futures fee schedule, here is a detailed breakdown for each level:

Fee schedule on Binance Futures

P2P Trading on Binance.com

Binance P2P gives you a chance to trade more than 50 fiat currencies with peers around the globe and use more than 150 payment methods. As Binance’s official page reads, you can buy crypto using your local currency, take advantage of a competitive price in your market and sell that crypto in other markets worldwide where people are willing to pay more for the same amount of crypto.

p2p trading on Binance.com

Binance doesn’t charge any fees for transacting via the platform. This way, every deal you make results in you getting the full gain. In 2020, Binance P2P processed $7 billion worth of transactions made through 3.8 million orders, with daily volumes reaching as high as $54 million.

Staking on Binance.com

The concept of Binance staking is based on the proof-of-staking mechanism that allows blockchains to operate in a more energy-efficient way than the proof-of-work consensus. The nature of this mechanism is that participants can lock or “stake” coins in their wallets in order to validate the next block on the network and, thus, provide a certain level of decentralization.

The more coins are locked up in the wallet, the more chances the owner of the wallet has to become a validator. And this is where Binance staking and, honestly, other staking platforms come into play. For staking coins, potential validators get rewards in the form of coins minted by this proof-of-stake blockchain.

DeFi staking on Binance.com

There are two staking types on Binance: locked staking and DeFi staking.

Binance locked staking is the process of holding funds in a wallet that supports the operations of a traditional proof-of-stake blockchain. There are 55 locked staking products, as of now, including AVAX, DODO, IOTX, DASH, CELR etc. By the time of writing, AVAX’s estimated APY is, for example, 34.79%, while for DODO this number is 57.79%.

Binance DeFi staking acts on behalf of users who want to participate in certain DeFi products. The list of 11 DeFi staking products includes but is not limited to ETH, LINK, SXP, BNB and BUSD.

You should always keep these numbers in check, but, as of writing, an estimated APY (annual percentage yield) for staking Ethereum on Binance is 1.73%, LINK – 2.39% and SXP – 5.45%.

There are no fees for staking coins on Binance.

Lending on Binance.com

If you commit to hold your crypto and want to earn interest at the same time, you might want to try Binance lending. How does that work? Each user on the platform can lend their crypto assets to margin traders and make returns on this kind of activity. You will be able to receive a total amount that includes daily interest after withdrawing your loaned funds.

There are 3 different lending products on Binance. Let’s take a look at all of them.

One of the lending products on Binance.com, Flexible Savings

Flexible Savings gives you flexibility to redeem your funds at any time. As an illustration, a 7-day yield on USDT will make 5.79% for the moment, and BTC only 1.2%.

One of the lending products on Binance.com, Locked Savings

Locked Savings is different to Flexible Savings in a way that the funds can be withdrawn only after a certain period of time. For example, for locking USDT for 7 days you will earn 6.31%. Note that the platform pays you more for staking coins for a locked period of time!

One of the lending products on Binance.com, Activities

The Binance activities products might potentially bring you more money than all the other lending products because of the limited supply and higher demand. Take a look at the 14-day CTSI offer that promises 40% in profit.

Binance.US

You, probably, do remember that Binance.US and Binance.com are two different venues, which means that the variety of trading options on the American venue is much less. Have a glance!

Spot Trading on Binance.US

Compared to its international counterpart Binance.com, Binance.US lists only 54 coins, 109 markets and one fiat currency, USD.

Their general trading fee is 0.1%, while for buying and selling instantly you will have to pay 0.5%. If you use BNB to pay for trading fees, you will have to pay 25% less. Normally trading fees are determined by your 30-day trading volume and your daily balance just like on Binance.com.

Do you want to learn more about the fee calculation on Binance.US? Visit this page.

Staking on Binance.US

Binance.US currently supports staking for VET, XTZ, ATOM, EOS, ONE, and ALGO.

Staking products on Binance.US

To learn more about your rewards, select the View More button on the staking page followed by the My Rewards button.

The exchange’s guide states that an estimated annual reward (akin to an APY) for staking the ALGO coin is overall 8%. It means that after a year of staking ALGO, you might earn that much However, practically, for the period of 2021/08/01 – 2021/08/31 the estimated annual reward, as noted on the Binance US website, was 5.0077 %.

The exchange further mentions that currently there are no lock-up periods. Staking rewards are calculated daily (hourly snapshots) and distributed monthly.

Security

So is Binance safe, is Coinbase safe, and which one is safer? The very first honest difference between American exchanges (Binance.US and Coinbase Pro) and the international trading venue, Binance.com, is probably the FDIC-insurance. If you store less than $250,000 in your wallet on the two U.S. exchanges, you’re federally secured by the U.S. government in case there’s a breach of the platform’s physical security, cyber security, or by employee theft.

FDIC-insurance Bounty Program Stays Logged In Funds in Cold Storage SaFu
Coinbase Pro ✅ ✅

✅

98%

❌
Binance.com ❌ ✅

❌

“Vast Majority”

✅
Binance.US ✅ ✅

❌

“Vast Majority”

 ❌

Differences in security measures on Binance.com, Binance.US and Coinbase Pro

However, Binance.com also has an ace up its sleeve, the so-called SaFu fund. According to their website, in July 2018, they created the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SaFu) and began allocating 10% of all trading fees received into this fund to provide insurance to potential breaches. The funds are stored in secure hard wallets to be accessed only in cases of extreme emergency.

Here’s a good illustration of how the fund works. In 2019, the hackers were able to withdraw 7000 BTC in one transaction, and Binance used the SaFu fund to cover this incident in full. No user funds were affected. So, this smart approach to the platform long-term sustainability directly points at how safe Binance is.

But what about the American branch? Is Binance.US safe? Since Binance.US claims to use the same technologies as Binance.com we might expect them to use the same security measures – and as we know from the official page, “as a way to protect users’ funds, Binance only holds a small percentage of coins in its hot wallets. The remaining is kept in cold storage, disconnected from the Internet” – which means that probably the majority of user funds on Binance.US are stored in cold wallets, too.

As to the Binance.US bounty program, it pays rewards in BUSD. The international branch of the crypto exchange has the same program and states that “only vulnerabilities with a working proof of concept that shows how it can be exploited will be considered eligible for monetary rewards.”

How safe is Coinbase? It also encourages responsible disclosure of security vulnerabilities via their bug bounty. Also, as they state on their website, Coinbase Pro stores your funds through a combination of online “hot storage” and offline “cold” storage, maintaining 98% or more of customer digital currency in cold storage, with the remainder on secure hot servers to serve the liquidity needs of their customers.

Exchange Liquidity

There are several parameters that measure the health of the market. Together with trading volume, bid-and-ask spread and the number of listed coins and markets, liquidity helps a trader learn if they can convert assets into cash quickly and cheaply.

Read more in our article on “What is liquidity and How to find a liquid exchange?”

Basically, if a market is liquid it is very easy to execute trades without causing a significant impact on price – and this is exactly what we’re looking for in a crypto exchange.

Let’s compare components essential for liquidity of the exchanges in focus as their data is presented in open sources:

24h trading volume Coins listed Markets listed Fiat Number of active users CoinMarketCap
Liquidity Index*
Coinbase Pro $3,022,458,420 58 186

USD, EUR, GBP

≈13 mln

 563
Binance.com $84,497,035,543 358 1214

AED, ARS, AUD
+
43 more

>15 mln

 741
Binance.US $649,134,963 54 109

USD

N/A

 336

Liquidity on Coinbase Pro, Binance.com, Binance.US

*Liquidity Index on CoinMarketCap scores a market pair from 0 to 1000 based on the slippage incurred by various order sizes. A higher score indicates more liquidity. It’s important to note that CoinMarketCap is owned by Binance.

Exchange Community

Telegram Twitter Reddit Instagram
Coinbase Pro ❌ @CoinbasePro
567.6k followers		 r/coinbase
119k members

@coinbase
147k followers
Binance.com @binanceexchange
200k followers		 @binance
3.1m followers		 r/binance
303k members

@binance
1m followers
Binance.US @binanceus
2883 followers		 @binance.US
124.5k followers		 ❌ @binance_us
18.7k followers

Communities of Coinbase Pro, Binance.com, Binance.US

If you look at the table up above closely, you’ll see that all the numbers speak for themselves. There’s some unhappy fuss on the Internet about the unassuming Binance.US community, which is much less active than those of other exchanges. In earnest, we don’t even know who the founders of the platform are and where their headquarters are located, which might be frowned upon on the sidelines. So, in this context, Coinbase community of course looks much better, even though it is nothing like the triumphant 3.1 million of Binance.com Twitter active followers. No matter if you like it or not, in the 21st century social media is one powerful credibility tool, especially in the crypto community where reputation sometimes is the only guarantor of security. So, there’s no doubt, of course, which crypto community among these three stands out.

Coinbase vs Binance Fees

Note that fees on crypto exchanges are subject to constant changes, so make sure to monitor them on a regular basis.

The most relevant Coinbase Pro fee schedule you can find here. As to the fee schedule on Binance.com, click this link. Fees on Binance.US are presented on their website, too.

Maker Fees Taker Fees Deposit Fees Withdrawal Fees Debit/Credit Card
Instant Buy Fees
Coinbase Pro 0.5%
(up to $10k)		 0.5%
(up to $10k)
  • Crypto:
    network’s fee
  • Fiat:
    your bank’s fee
  • Crypto:
    no fee
  • Fiat:
    your bank’s fee

3.5%
Binance.com 0.07%-0.1%
(up to 50 BTC)		 0.08%-0.1%
(up to 50 BTC)
  • Crypto:
    no fee
  • Fiat:
    your bank’s fee
  • Crypto: $1-$15
  • Fiat: $1-$15

3.99%
Binance.US 0.1% 0.1%
  • Crypto:
    no fee
  • Fiat:
    your bank’s fee
  • Crypto: network’s fee
  • Fiat: your bank’s fee
 4.5%

As you can see, Binance’s trading fee differs from Coinbase’s trading fee, with Coinbase’s fees being much higher.

As to your Coinbase withdrawal fee, as well as your Binance withdrawal fee, it depends on the way you prefer to transfer your money. The only difference is that Binance charges a fee amount from a fixed range while Coinbase grounds its withdrawal fees on an amount that is charged by your bank and network.

There’s no money on your account after you’ve transferred? While cryptocurrency withdrawals and deposits are fast, wire transfers can be the same day and ACH transfers may take a few days, so – no worries.

Coinbase Charts vs Binance Charts

Coinbase Pro

As we’ve already covered in our article comparing Kraken vs Coinbase Pro, Coinbase charts can be only customized based on time range, chart type (candlestick and line), and overlay (12- and 26-Day EMAs). So, it may not be enough for middle and advanced traders. If you need advanced charting and technical indicators on Coinbase Pro – you can find them in GoodCrypto, we’ve recently built in TradingView functionality allowing you to use advanced trading tools on 30 crypto exchanges integrated into the app.

Coinbase Pro depth chart

Still, the platform has their own depth chart, a visual representation of the order book, showing bid and ask orders over a range of prices, along with the cumulative size.

If by any chance the interface is too difficult for you, go to Coinbase.com where buying and selling is much less complicated.

Binance.com & Binance.US

Binance.US claims that they use the same technologies as Binance.com, it’s no wonder that the advanced chart interfaces on both venues do look like each other. However, on Binance.US there are only two interface types available while on Binance.com, there are three:

Binance.com & Binance.US depth chart

The advanced interface on Binance.US offers three different chart types: the original chart, the TradingView chart and the depth chart.

Comparison Table

Coinbase Pro Binance.US Binance.com
Verification Levels Full disclosure to trade more than $10k Full disclosure to trade more than $5k

Full disclosure to trade more than €5k
Types of Trading
  • Spot trading
  • Spot trading
  • Staking
  • Spot trading
  • Margin trading
  • Futures trading
  • Staking
  • Lending
  • p2p trading
Security FDIC-insurance FDIC-insurance

SaFu-fund
CoinMarketCap
Liquidity Index		 563 336

741
Fees
  • Maker/Taker Fees 0.5%
  • Maker/Taker Fees 0.1%
  • Maker/Taker Fees 0.1%
Charts
  • Candlestick chart
  • Line chart
  • Depth chart
  • TradingView
  • Original
  • Depth chart
  • TradingView
  • Original
  • Depth chart
Socials

Conclusion

So, which one have you chosen? Coinbase or Binance? As we’ve already said in the very beginning of the article, you cannot go wrong choosing either Coinbase Pro or Binance.US if you live in the States. Both exchanges have advantages: active Twitter community (although Binance community is bigger), FDIC-insurance, easy onboarding for crypto novices who want to try spot trading.

However, there are also disadvantages just like with any product existing out there. If you’re looking for a Coinbase alternative, or a Binance alternative because the fees or KYC procedures are too much for you, make sure to also check out Kraken, Gemini or FTX.US. And don’t forget to download the Good Crypto App if you like to trade with your balances unfreezed and plan to use advanced charting functionality, automation elements and not only basic Market and Limit orders, but also Stop Limit, Stop Market, Trailing Stop Buy, Trailing Stop Limit Buy, Reverse Trailing Stop Buy and Reverse Trailing Stop Limit.