Headquarters
San Francisco, CA, USA
Description
The Most Trusted Digital Asset Exchange
Website
24-hour trade volume
263 Million dollars
Availability
U.S., U.K., Canada, Singapore, Australia, Europe and more
Looking for the best bitcoin exchange in 2018? Check out our Best Bitcoin Exchange Guide to compare all of the top cryptocurrency exchanges side-by-side.
User Experience
Design
GDAX packs a powerful feature set into a concise and well thought out platform. As I navigated it for the first time, it felt very familiar and I never felt lost or overwhelmed by the UI elements. I think it's a great compromise between professional functionality and novice simplicity. Several of the account settings are actually just links to Coinbase, which I didn't mind, but it throws you off to be redirected away from GDAX.
Beginner-Friendly
Yes - This is an excellent platform for beginners. Unlike many other exchanges GDAX makes it very easy to understand how to use some of the advanced trading features like the Stop Loss and Limit features. It's very easy to fund GDAX accounts since it syncs with your Coinbase wallets.
Pro Tip: You can avoid some of the Coinbase fees if you use GDAX to trade cryptocurrencies and then transfer the funds into your Coinbase wallet.
Documentation
Yes - The GDAX support documentation was concise and easy to navigate. I was able to easily find answers to several questions. It doesn't look like they have too many articles, however, the content they do have is thorough and helpful.
Customer Support
TBD
Security
Verification Tiers
Since GDAX is owned and operated by Coinbase, all Coinbase users automatically have an account with GDAX. The verification tiers are essentially the same, except that GDAX does offer higher limits for institutional traders.
Tier 1 - $10,000 weekly buy/sell limit
- Requires a verified account, but doesn't require a government issued ID
Tier 2 - $15,000 weekly buy/sell limit
- Requires upload of government issued ID
Tier 3 - TBD
Coinbase account limits are not well defined like other platforms but instead based on the perceived risk of each individual account. As such, your limits will likely differ from mine.
2-Factor Authentication
Yes — via Coinbase.
Insurance
Yes — All digital currency that Coinbase holds online is insured. If you are a U.S.-based customer, your funds are FDIC insured up to $250,000. Less than 2% of customer funds are actually held online, just enough to cover regular transactions. The rest is held offline in cold storage.
Storage
98% of all funds are stored offline to protect against threat or loss. GDAX uses geographically distributed safety deposit boxes around the world to store sensitive customer data.
Encryption
Yes — AES-256 Encryption (a.k.a. State of the art financial encryption)
Payment & Fees
Fee Structure
Trading Fees
GDAX primarily charges fees for trading and operates on a maker/taker fee model like almost every other exchange. Your fees are based primarily on your volume of trades.
Deposits & Withdrawals
ACH Deposit: Free
ACH Withdrawal: Free
SEPA Deposit: Free
SEPA Withdrawal: 0.15 Eur
Account
GDAX Account & Holding Funds: Free
Accepted Payment Methods
Bank account, bank wire, Coinbase wallets, BTC address
Supported Currencies
BTC (Bitcoin)
LTC (Litecoin)
ETH (Ethereum)
Technology
Reliability
99.8% uptime - Check out the GDAX status page.
Mobile App
No - However, the website was designed to work well on mobile devices. I didn't have any trouble getting the full platform functionality out of the mobile site on my smartphone.