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>Coinbase should be viewed as a wealth & asset management company at this point. The real profit center of the company is Coinbase Custody, which is all about e
by oarabbus_ 6y ago
>Coinbase should be viewed as a wealth & asset management company at this point. The real profit center of the company is Coinbase Custody, which is all about extremely secure holding of Bitcoins for extremely rich customers.
If this is actually the case, I'd much rather use Gemini than Coinbase. Gemini seems much more fiduciary-minded in their verbiage on their site, and the fact they don't throw a bunch of "shitcoins" at your face on every other click. Their fees are lower, too (but higher than Coinbase Pro, which is more for the trading-minded) and they have a daily auctioning system which to my knowledge coinbase has no equivalent.
Also, Coinbase is notorious for the servers crashing on every price spike. Gemini, on the other hand, stays out of the headlines regarding uptime, which is what a wealth management company should do.
Full disclaimer: I have accounts I use in both Gemini and Coinbase, I don't believe myself to be biased here, and I actively use both services.
But if you really want a "wealth and asset management" service, I would personally recommend Gemini as the platform. If you think you have a leg up on the market and would like to trade for profit, go with Coinbase.
- nostrademons 6y agoDo you have $100M to invest? The rules are completely different for institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals. Generally if you're looking at "the verbiage on their site" you are not the target market for such services, and the products available to you are completely different from the products available to them. My wife's job is all conducted over the phone; when I was working for a company that sold software to hedge funds, our website was blank (and just gave a phone number to call).
- oarabbus_ 6y agoI'm not entirely sure if I understand what you're saying completely, but if I do, then that's even _more_ to my point I made. If I have $100M to invest, why the hell would I go on Coinbase like a common day trader millenial looking to make $2500, rather than use Gemini Trust to store my millions, where I could save hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars using their auction system? To loosely use an analogy if you will, Robinhood is to Coinbase as Vanguard is to Gemini.
- beaner 6y agoInstitutions and professionals don't seem to agree. For example, Microstrategy chose Coinbase to acquire over 40,000 BTC recently. [0] Maybe there are some aspects you're not considering. Seems difficult to believe you know how to spend their money better than they do. [0] https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-is-helping-corporate-companies-diversify-with-crypto-444e8d91ebca https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-is-helping-corporate-comp...
- wmf 6y agoI think nostrademons was trying to make the point that Coinbase Custody has nothing to do with Coinbase. Even if Coinbase looks amateur, maybe Coinbase Custody and Gemini Custody are both equally professional.
- nostrademons 6y agoYes. Also, interestingly products made for the ultra wealthy are less professional than those for a consumer marketplace. I don't know any consumer website that could get away with a webpage that just says "Contact us for more information. 555-555-5555." But this is pretty common for products that target hedge funds and family offices. The real professionalism happens in the grooming that happens after that initial call, which is all person-to-person relationships.
- chrisked 6y agoRentec being one of the most successful hedge funds come to mind. Here is their site and investor login https://www.rentec.com/Home.action?index=true https://www.rentec.com/Home.action?index=true
- moeadham 6y agoYou’re grossly over estimating the margins in Crypto custody.
- oarabbus_ 6y agoNot entirely sure how you got that from my post comparing Coinbase to Gemini while responding to a parent comment talking about wealth management, but OK. I'm not the one claiming there are any sort of worthwhile margins in crypto storage.
- smabie 6y agoIf you want to trade, use a derivatives powerhouse like binance. Trading crypto spot is mostly just a waste of time. Until Coinbase and Gemini add futures and swaps, no trading firm or individual is going to trade with them. Full stop.
- zytek 6y agoCould you elaborate for those with less financial markets experience? Why trading spot is a waste of time?
- smabie 6y agoVolume is much lower, the amount of leverage you can get is lower (I don't believe you can get any leverage actually on coimbase), and the kinds of strategies you can run are limited. Futures and swaps just give you so many more contracts to arb and more leverage if you want it.
- vl 6y agoBTW, Gemini has different fee structure on ActiveTrader accounts vs regular accounts.