✦Coinbase: Research Notes on the Global Offering
These notes describe the Coinbase platform (coinbase.com) as Squaby found it on October 20, 2026. They summarize what Coinbase publishes, what it reports in its filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and what official registers and regulators record. Squaby has not tested the platform hands-on. Coinbase serves customers through different legal entities depending on where they live, and its pages choose the legal terms by the visitor's location. Availability, products and fees differ by country; regional differences are named where Squaby found them. The criteria, points and sources are listed in the Squaby Score section above.
1. Background
According to its annual report for 2025, Coinbase was incorporated in May 2012 as Coinbase, Inc., and Coinbase Global, Inc. became its holding company in 2014. Coinbase Global's Class A shares have traded on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol COIN since April 14, 2021, and the company publishes audited annual reports. Customers in the European Economic Area (EEA) contract with Coinbase Luxembourg S.A. for crypto-asset services and with Coinbase Ireland Limited for e-money services; other regions have their own Coinbase companies and terms, for example Coinbase, Inc. in the United States, CB Payments Ltd in the United Kingdom and Coinbase Canada Inc. in Canada.
2. Enforcement Actions Since October 2021
Squaby found these actions with a fine or sanction on the authorities' own pages:
✓New York State Department of Financial Services (January 2023): Coinbase, Inc. agreed to pay a $50 million penalty and to invest a further $50 million in its compliance program over two years, after the regulator found failures in its anti-money laundering program. An independent monitor installed in 2022 was to continue for one more year, extendable by the regulator; Squaby found no official statement on when the monitorship ended.
✓De Nederlandsche Bank (January 2023): the Dutch central bank fined Coinbase Europe Limited EUR 3,325,000 for providing crypto services in the Netherlands without the required registration between November 2020 and at least August 2022. Coinbase obtained the registration in September 2022. The page does not show the outcome of Coinbase's objection.
✓UK Financial Conduct Authority (July 2024): CB Payments Limited was fined GBP 3,503,546 for repeatedly breaching a requirement not to take on high-risk customers. The firm agreed to resolve the matter and received a 30% discount.
✓Central Bank of Ireland (November 2025): Coinbase Europe Limited received a reprimand and a fine of EUR 21,464,734 for transaction-monitoring failures under Irish anti-money laundering law between April 2021 and March 2025. The High Court confirmed the sanctions on January 12, 2026.
The SEC's civil enforcement action against Coinbase, Inc. and Coinbase Global, Inc. was dismissed through a joint stipulation announced on February 27, 2025; the SEC said this was not based on an assessment of the merits. In June 2023, securities regulators in ten U.S. states took action against Coinbase's staking service. Five of them (Alabama, Illinois, Kentucky, South Carolina and Vermont) withdrew or dismissed their actions in 2025, but Coinbase's quarterly report for June 30, 2026 still lists the matters in California, Maryland, New Jersey, Washington and Wisconsin as pending. In California, Maryland, New Jersey and Wisconsin no new funds can be staked. Because these actions are unresolved, the Squaby Score counts the enforcement history as open. Squaby also searched for actions by other regulators and found none with a fine; those searches were not exhaustive.
3. Registrations, Licenses and Restricted Countries
Squaby confirmed Coinbase group companies in the official sources of three regulators:
✓European Union (MiCA): Coinbase Luxembourg S.A. is authorised by the Luxembourg Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) as a crypto-asset service provider since June 20, 2025, in both the CSSF register and the interim register of the European Securities and Markets Authority. The authorisation covers custody, exchange, order execution, reception and transmission of orders and transfer services, plus placing since January 19, 2026, and is passported to other EEA countries.
✓United Kingdom (Financial Conduct Authority): CB Payments Ltd, reference number 900635, is an authorised electronic money institution since July 12, 2018 and registered under the money laundering regulations since February 3, 2025. The register states that cryptoasset services of the firm are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong and that it has been subject to disciplinary or regulatory action.
✓Canada: Coinbase Canada Inc. appears in the Canadian Securities Administrators' list of crypto platforms authorized to do business with Canadians (decision of April 3, 2024, amended April 1, 2026).
Each of these is a separate regime and counts as its own jurisdiction. Coinbase's licenses page lists money transmitter licenses of Coinbase, Inc. in U.S. states and a New York virtual currency license; Squaby has not checked these entries in the state registers.
Legal entity: for the EEA, Coinbase publishes the name, the address and the company number of Coinbase Luxembourg S.A. (R.C.S. Luxembourg B292147). The number matches the company's record in the global LEI register, and the address matches the CSSF register. The LEI register and the ESMA register still show an earlier address.
Restricted countries: Coinbase says it blocks access from jurisdictions under the sanctions programs of the U.S. Treasury and other bodies, but it does not name the countries, and its list of supported countries could not be opened from Squaby's location. Check whether Coinbase serves your country before registering.
4. Security and Custody
✓No proof of reserves for exchange balances: Coinbase says that as a public company it proves its reserves through its audited financial statements, and it has funded research into crypto-native methods. Squaby found no proof of reserves that customers can check against their own balance. Coinbase publishes reserve addresses for its own wrapped tokens, which is a different product.
✓Custody: Coinbase says it stores the vast majority of assets offline in secured, guarded facilities, holds customer assets 1:1, and does not lend them unless the customer instructs it to. It does not publish the percentage.
✓Insurance: Coinbase Global's crime insurance covers a portion of the digital assets held in its storage systems against theft, but not losses from unauthorized access to an account through stolen credentials, and Coinbase says total losses may exceed insurance recoveries. The size of the policy is not stated. For U.S. customers, Coinbase says USD cash is held at banks that allow a claim for pass-through FDIC insurance of up to $250,000 per depositor; crypto holdings are not covered by it.
✓Account security: two-step verification is required. Coinbase supports authenticator apps, security keys and passkeys, and an address-book allowlist that limits sends to saved addresses, each available 48 hours after it is added.
✓Incident in 2025: in May 2025 Coinbase reported that a threat actor had paid contractors or employees in support roles outside the United States to copy customer data, including names, addresses, contact details, masked Social Security and bank account numbers, government ID images and account data, and then used it to trick customers. Coinbase said no passwords or private keys were exposed, that the staff involved could not access customer funds, and that it refused the extortion demand. Customers who were tricked into sending funds were voluntarily reimbursed; Coinbase reports $311.2 million paid in 2025 for the incident, including legal costs. This is the only incident with customer losses in the last five years that Squaby found in Coinbase's filings and in news reports, and the Squaby Score counts it as reimbursed.
5. Fees
✓Coinbase Advanced (spot): since September 16, 2026 the entry tier differs by region: 0.50% maker and 0.90% taker in the United States; 0.25% maker and 0.50% taker in the EU and the UK; 0.09% maker and 0.10% taker in Brazil, India and other international markets. The Squaby Score uses the international row. Lower tiers start at $10,000 in qualifying volume, and the VIP table goes down to 0.00% maker and 0.02% taker.
✓Simple buy and sell: the quoted price includes a spread, shown in the order preview, without stating its size. Coinbase may also charge a Coinbase fee that varies by payment method (it names 1.875%), and a 1% execution fee on limit orders in the simple interface. Coinbase One members trade without a trading fee within limits, but a spread may still be included.
✓Fee overview: trading, deposit and network fees are described in separate help articles, and the Advanced fee page requires a login, so there is no single public fee schedule.
✓Deposits and withdrawals: SEPA bank transfers in euros have no fees. Network fees for sending crypto are an estimate shown at the time of the transaction; no list per asset is published. On Coinbase Exchange, SWIFT deposits are free and SWIFT withdrawals cost the local equivalent of $19.
✓Staking: Coinbase takes a commission on staking rewards (35% for several assets in its fee article).
6. Markets, Products and Tools
✓Assets: Coinbase's two public market lists showed 408 distinct base assets in online spot markets on October 20, 2026. Which assets you can trade depends on your country.
✓Products: spot trading, perpetual futures for retail traders in eligible jurisdictions outside the United States, and staking in most jurisdictions with limits in some U.S. states. Squaby found no spot margin product. Derivatives carry a high risk of loss.
✓Orders and API: Coinbase Advanced offers market, limit, stop-limit, bracket, take-profit/stop-loss and TWAP orders. The developer documentation publishes rate limits, for example 10,000 requests per hour per key for the Coinbase App API.
✓Listing policy: Coinbase publishes the business criteria it uses to prioritize asset reviews (demand, traction, anticipated liquidity) and its review steps, and names project changes, failure to meet its review standards and project termination as typical reasons for a delisting.
7. Apps, Languages and Support
✓Apps: the Coinbase app is listed on the Apple App Store and on Google Play, published by Coinbase, Inc.
✓Languages: the language selector of the global site offered eight languages; some country versions add others.
✓Beginners: the simple buy and sell interface sits next to Coinbase Advanced, and Coinbase Learn offers articles for newcomers.
✓Support: Coinbase says it supports customers through chat, phone, email and mail during business hours. Some regional phone lines are listed as available 24/7, and round-the-clock priority support is part of the paid Coinbase One tiers, so the Squaby Score does not count standard support as 24/7. The help center is searchable and available in many languages, and Coinbase runs a public status page with incident history.
✓Complaints (EEA): Coinbase confirms a complaint within 10 business days and sends a final response within two months; unresolved crypto complaints can go to the CSSF and e-money complaints to the Irish Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman. Other regions have their own complaint terms.
✓Verification: after the identity check, Coinbase says the review status is sent within 24 hours.
8. Fiat Deposits and Withdrawals
✓Currencies: Coinbase Exchange documents USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, CAD and SGD. The app keeps cash in the local currency of supported countries, but Coinbase publishes no list of these currencies.
✓Methods (Europe): SEPA transfers, card payments with 3D Secure, PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and in some countries an easy bank transfer, iDEAL or BLIK. Other regions have their own methods.
✓Speed: card, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay and BLIK payments are listed as instant; SEPA takes 1 to 3 business days.
✓Withdrawals: cash can be withdrawn to a bank account, for example by SEPA.
✓Limits: Coinbase Exchange publishes default limits per payment method (for example EUR 100,000 per day for SEPA withdrawals); in the app, limits are shown in the account. No table per verification level is published.
Summary
Coinbase's documented strengths in Squaby's criteria are its asset and product range, its usability, its registrations in the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada, and its published legal entity for the EEA. It loses points on the missing proof of reserves, on its enforcement record (several fines since 2023 and staking actions by U.S. states that are still pending), on the 2025 data theft, which led to customer losses that Coinbase says it reimbursed, on support that is not stated as 24/7 for all customers, on the missing list of restricted countries and on the lack of a single fee schedule. Its fees depend strongly on the region: the U.S. entry tier on Coinbase Advanced is higher than the entry tiers Squaby recorded for Binance and Kraken. Check the terms, fees and products offered where you live before registering.