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Is it safe to store my coins (BTC & ETH) on the Coinbase platform or is it safer to download a wallet to keep them in?

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    you should download a wallet to keep your coins. While your coins are sitting in an exchange, they do not necessarily belong to you.
    – rny
    Commented May 8, 2017 at 11:50
  • Sorry this is a personal question that cannot be answered. It depends on your comfort with risk and technical confidence. Coinbase can be hacked, or the government could seize your funds (Greece, Cyprus, India). Compare that to you could get hacked, or lose your password.
    – Chloe
    Commented May 19, 2017 at 18:38
  • Also as a side note dealing directly with the btc had trade offs too. There are many cases of lost wallet public keys and or private keys, sending to a public address for which the private key is not known etc. Even a typo or wrong digit amounts to the destruction off btc ownership. Bitcoin works well but may be unintuitive for even the smartest person. What ever you do exercise caution and be certain when handling btc directly.
    – marshal craft
    Commented Dec 15, 2017 at 12:08

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I would recommend diversifying your btc holdings as much as possible. What if something happens to your wallet? That wouldn't necessary be better than coinbase. You could keep some in a personal wallet, some on several exchanges. Ideally by diversifying your capital, you can some what mitigate commonality of the risk. This prevents the possibility of a single devastating loss.

That said consider some alternative, if there is a single fault, but the probability is very low, that may be a good choice.

Consider https, which typically relies on one main root of trust who's security has been well verified, compared to some of googles authyoath crap (which places trust on a diverse sequence of relatively completely insecure mechanism) which have been hacked whilst https remains secure.

P.s. Google, stick to search engines.

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    That being said, advice is often easier given than taken, my btc reside primarily on gdax o.o
    – marshal craft
    Commented May 5, 2017 at 6:16
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Coinbase allows the purchase, sale and holding of three cryptocurrencies as of 7/4/17. Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC) are supported on the Coinbase platform and there is also a U.S. Dollar wallet (USD) where you can store U.S. Dollars from sales of coins or from transfers. Coinbase has insurance that protects every customer against the loss of digital currencies. If digital currencies are stolen, Coinbase's insurance company will make you whole. Also, if you are a U.S. Citizen, your U.S. Dollar wallet (USD) is protected up to $250,000.00 by F.D.I.C insurance. The USD is where you park your cash before a purchase or after a sale. I store 99% of my digital currencies on Coinbase and I sleep quite well.

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    While your coins are safe enough for you to sleep happy, you should remember that Coinbase can close/freeze your account, for example the Free Ross account was suspended (later reversed). They can and do also close accounts for other reasons, for example sending your bitcoin directly to/from known gambling sites as outlined in their TOS "You may not use your Coinbase Account to engage in the following categories of activity... Gambling".
    – Daniel Morritt
    Commented Jul 4, 2017 at 16:14
  • Thank you for your answer, am trying to figure where to keep my coins, and knowing coinbase is insured like this makes me feel a lot better than a software wallet which could be emptied one morning some hacker finds my keys, with zero recourse but crying.
    – user16081
    Commented Jan 6, 2018 at 15:00
  • But read the fine print "Please note that the insurance policy covers any losses resulting from a breach of Coinbase’s physical security, cyber security, or by employee theft. This insurance policy does not cover any losses resulting from the compromise of your individual Coinbase account. It is your responsibility to use a strong password and maintain control of all login credentials you use to access Coinbase"" from support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/…
    – james6125
    Commented Jul 5, 2019 at 23:29
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I wouldn't do it.

In case you do that you trust all your Bitcoins to someone who may be hacked or go out of business.

I would keep my coins in cold storage.

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  • Thanks for the response. So which wallet do you recommend? (BitcoinWallet?)
    – Coffey
    Commented May 4, 2017 at 11:15
  • Also are these wallets currency specific? Meaning ... if I download BitcoinWallet, can I put Ethereum in there too? Thank you.
    – Coffey
    Commented May 4, 2017 at 11:19
  • I use bitcoin-qt but there are many out there you can use. With bitcoin-qt you don't relay on anyone, you're part of the network and your wallet is kept by you. Regarding your second question, it may depend on where your wallet is, if it is kept on an online provider you may be able to have diferent wallets keep by him, but I don't know about this.
    – YoMismo
    Commented May 4, 2017 at 13:04

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