I am not being obtuse or sarcastic here. Is it this? http://apexcrypto.com Because that website tells me nothing at all. And past that, Google only shows a few press releases.
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But on the consumer crypto coin collector criteria, it still seems like Coinbase has the mind-share. And I imagine they have the reach and scale to be in compliance with regulators, which is what makes them a more attractive investment.
Me? Square’s Cash app is awfully slick, and makes buying drugs…I mean…buying non-fiat currency to stick it to the man all very easy. But I have no idea if people use that feature frequently.
Apex Crypto is a crypto clearing house, similar to the clearing houses we have for the stock market. Companies like Robinhood, WeBull, SoFi, etc aren't building their crypto trading infrastructure from the ground up. They're plugging into services like this, which handle the exchange between fiat and crypto and a lot of the regulatory compliance. This drastically cuts down the complexities and lowers the barrier to entry for offering buying and selling of crypto.
I don't know all the details of the services they offer, but services like this are the reason it seems like every app under the sun will now let you buy and sell crypto.
Is this the same "Apex" that handles clearing for stocks?
When I did look, I found some press releases about them partnering, but it was light on details. Based on the name and the fact that their logos now match (they didn't used to), my guess is that they aren't two separate companies.
Looks like they made 4.57B$ in revenue with 97M$ in profit [1]. And "We’ve continued to see strong adoption, with 3 million customers [buying bitcoin] through the past year, and in January we saw 1 million new to bitcoin in just one month."
1: https://www.coindesk.com/square-cash-app-bitcoin-revenues-sw...
https://news.bloombergtax.com/financial-accounting/tesla-bit...
Fair, but I feel like most people I know aren't using crypto as a currency right now. They're more interested in holding or speculating on the price, so transferring to another wallet is a non-issue.
> Also, they claim no fees, but they add the fee to the spread (the spread is artificially increased to 1% both ways (2% total))
I'm not up to date on Coinbase's latest fee structure, but I think 2% still may be less than, or at least comparable, to what they are charging. Even if it isn't, the illusion of no fees will attract a certain amount of people.
> especially if you trade a substantial amount each month
Do people trade a lot using Coinbase (serious question)? I was under the impression that there were better platforms out there more suited to day/swing trading crypto.
But it goes down quickly. It gets cut in half if you trade $50k/month and goes to down to 0% if you trade a lot.
It's been a while since I've used Coinbase, but I feel if you want to just buy a small amount of crypto, the total fees can be up to like 10%.
Coinbase charges 2.5% to purchase.
Coinbase even undercuts themselves. Use the Coinbase App - 2.5% fee. Use the Coinbase Exchange App (Coinbase Pro) - 0.5% Fee.
So... buy your Bitcoin (and others) through the Coinbase Pro website/app, then transfer them into your Coinbase wallet/vault for free.
Coinbase Vault is providing access and liquidity to the whole DeFi market without ever saying it.
Its like not investing in Amazon because you didn't notice AWS. The similarity being limited to there being a non-consumer facing product that might be bigger than the visible one. Coinbase has a lot of growing revenue streams, which has almost nothing to do with the retail platform of non-crypto people looking to buy crypto.
Which stock broker app lets you deposit in Bitcoin? Or withdraw your Bitcoin to your own address?
I'm aware there can be many reasons for this but I couldn't help but wonder if Robinhood was baking in some hidden fees.
Of course it's really hard to predict what those future markets might be or how much value Coinbase will be able to extract from them, so I have no idea if $68 billion is a reasonable valuation.
Then there’s the gas fees on Uniswap. Not even worth bothering with unless you plan on making $1000+ trades.
The other thing to consider is that for newbies they offer a safe platform with a list of established coins. That counts for something.
> Then there’s the gas fees on Uniswap. Not even worth bothering with unless you plan on making $1000+ trades.
This is fixed by PancakeSwap.
I think the real solution are layer 2s, optimism comes to mind, but there are many others too.
Just a few years ago, they were by far the easiest was to buy crypto (IMO). At that time they also felt like the most legitimate site and for people who didn't 100% know what they were doing, but wanted to buy some Bitcoin, that perception of legitimacy is important. For those reasons, I feel like they kind of dominated the casual coin holder space, and I think they could justify the fees they were charging.
In the last year or so it feels like that's all changed. Because of things like Apex Crypto, it feels like pretty much every stock broker app will now let you buy Bitcoin and they'll do it with lower fees than Coinbase. It seems like their market (non-crypto people looking to buy crypto) is being eaten alive. I don't understand their value prop or why their higher fees make sense anymore.
I've been burned too many times, so I don't short stocks or buy puts, but I just can't see this being a good buy. Unless they drastically lower their fees, I just don't see them continuing to grow users.