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Gemini Review
Published June 4, 2017
Jared McKinney

Headquarters: New York, NY, USA

Description: Security. Liquidity. Trust

Website: https://gemini.com

24-hour trade volume: $21 M

Availability: 45 U.S. States, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and U.K.

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User Experience

Design

The user interface is simple and easy to navigate but less impressive than GDAX, for example.

Beginner-Friendly

Yes - Account setup was incredibly user-friendly and made for a pleasant onboarding experience. Although it looks like verification might take some time, the process was easy to complete.

Documentation

Yes - Documentation for common questions exists but could be greatly improved upon. Most of the answers are very basic and I never came across additional details or instructional diagrams.

Customer Support

24-hour response time

Security

Verification Tiers

Account setup and verification required the usual documentation:

  • Name
  • Address
  • Social
  • Driver's license

I did not, however, have to submit a signed and dated photo which was nice.

How long does verification take?

It only took me 24 hours to get verified but I did see this warning after I submitted my info:

gemini-verification-warning

2-Factor Authentication

Yes — via Authy. I'm not sure if I just missed it, but it would be nice to be able to use Google Authenticator, or another 2FA option.

Insurance

Yes - U.S. funds are eligible for FDIC insurance. Not sure if that's some sort of legal workaround or just poor wording. Digital funds are not FDIC insured, however, the company is insured by a top-tier insurance company to protect against internal malfeasance.

Storage

Yes - the majority of digital assets are stored offline using cold storage.

Payment & Fees

Fee Structure

Transfer Fees (Deposits & Withdrawals)

Transfer Fees - 0 transfer fees to deposit or withdraw in crypto, wire, ACH, etc. However, banks may still charge a wire fee.

Trading Fees (Maker/Taker)

Gemini provides fairly detailed documentation on their fee structure, which is good given the complexity. Relatively speaking, their fees are very competitive and in most cases slightly less than other U.S. exchanges.

gemini-taker-fee-schedule gemini-taker-fee-schedule

Accepted Payment Methods

Bank account (USD), bank wire (USD), BTC, ETH

Supported Trading Pairs

BTC/USD

ETH/USD

BTC/ETH

Technology

Site Reliability

I haven't had any issues with reliability on Gemini. They don't have a status page, so it's a little hard to know if other's have experienced outages.

Mobile App

No - The website is also not mobile friendly, which is surprising given the overall technical sophistication of the platform.

Gemini Alternatives

  1. CEX.IO Review
  2. Coinbase Review
  3. GDAX Review
  4. Binance Review
  5. Kraken Review
  6. Poloniex Review
  7. HitBTC Review
  8. Bittrex Review