Coinbase is a big company. It's also a well-known company with an established institutional base of customers. It’s often the first stop for new crypto users. It was one of our first apps back during the early days of Beeple NFT hype and Ape NFTs.
Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini are all fighting for new customers in 2025, perhaps more so than other years because Trump has changed the game.
In this piece, we’ll break down why Coinbase is a solid #2 Centralized Exchange(CEX) for us, focusing on three things: the Learning Rewards, the overall app experience, and why it’s a beginner's best friend.
Before BTC and ETH take off into the stratosphere on another Executive Order or war time news in 2026, you may benefit from hodling additional BTC and ETH in both hot wallets, cold wallets and exchanges, like Kraken and Coinbase. The sign up bonuses, tutorial bonuses and other freebies are worth catching while they're available.
*** So don't sleep on opportunities, keep your eyes peeled(read crypto news+tweets+discord+telegram etc), this is a pro crypto Administration (for now!). ***
1. Learning Rewards: Easy Crypto for a Few Clicks
This is arguably one of Coinbase’s smartest moves. Buried in the app is the Learning Rewards section. Every now and then—like a crypto Easter egg—new free crypto education tutorials pop up. These tech bros want you to try out their new blockchain, or to hear about their new fandangled crypto scheme that will make everything blockchain wrapped.
It's a bit boring but totally worth a few minutes of your time. If you're ready, open a Coinbase account using this link: https://coinbase.com/join/QH4PV2H?src=referral-link
You watch a short video or click through a few slides, answer a basic question, and bam. They drop a few bucks of that crypto right into your account. We’re talking $1 to $5 per tutorial, sometimes less, sometimes a bit more. They are REALLY EASY and you almost can't lose their multiple-choice quizzes. It’s not life-changing money, but it’s free crypto for five minutes of your time. It adds up, and it’s a zero-risk way to learn about a new project.
With regular price fluctuations, wait until those reward tokens accumulate value and then dump them if you want. Then reinvest the earnings into your top winners AGAIN. Or just be lazy and hodl like there's no tomorrow. We've had some of these learning crypto tokens grow probably 2x in a few years or 3x at this point, just by letting them laze around in the sun.
Long term, we expect this to get bigger. As more new tokens hit the scene in 2026 and beyond, using these little tutorials will be the go-to method for projects to introduce their tokenization frameworks and operations to millions of users. It’s a win-win-win.
(As an aside: Coinmarketcap, a crypto data analysis and news site, has adopted tutorial rewards (airdrops and tutorials) and so has DappRadar but they've paywalled a lot of it.)
2. The App: Mostly Smooth with the Occasional Glitch
The Coinbase phone app is clean. It’s intuitive. For a beginner, it’s probably the easiest interface to understand. Buying, selling, and checking your portfolio is a straightforward experience.
Coinbase on the phone can be glitchy, especially with the camera for identity verification (KYC). You might have to try a few times to get your driver's license to scan. Sometimes the QR code reader has had issues (at least prior to 2025 we recall these issues being prevalent).
Once you’re in, however, it’s easy to use and convenient.
A quick word on fees: the standard app fees are… okay. They’re somewhat competitive but not the best. This is where you need to know about the profit spread. The easy interface sometimes comes with a slightly higher cost for your crypto. For better rates, you gotta level up to Coinbase Advanced Trade. You’ll get better-priced BTC and other crypto there. So, Do Your Own Research (DYOR) on which platform fits your style.
3. Why It’s a Beginner’s Best Bet
Coinbase is the McDonald's of crypto apps—you always know what you’re gonna get. It has easy bank linking, buying/selling many alts and memecoins that Kraken may not have, it has staking, and there's tax docs. It’s a one-stop shop but not perfect so it deserves the #2 spot.
A free $30 for doing your first $20 trade is a no-brainer. It immediately gives you a small stake in the game. And I think that's what Coinbase was all about anyway, being FAMILIAR to many non crypto users. Another bank that you feel familiarity with. To that end, they've succeeded in branding themselves as close to banks and not super peer-to-peer, DEX-embracing BTC maximalists! So keep that in mind while using Coinbase and keep your cold wallets cold and your hot wallets hot!
To sum up, Coinbase earns its spot for being ridiculously easy to use and for literally paying you to learn. It’s a fantastic onboarding ramp and to us, another accessory to a plethora of crypto wallets, DEXs and CEXs that we can use to access blockchain fintech.
Seize the day and those $ Coinbase tutorials (they come around every so often!).
How To Get Your $30 Sign-up Bonus:
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Open a Coinbase account using this link: https://coinbase.com/join/QH4PV2H?src=referral-link
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Verify your identity (get that driver's license ready!).
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Buy or sell at least $20 in any crypto within the required time.
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Receive your $30 bonus in your account!
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After you've signed up, be sure to invite others so you can earn some bonuses too
