Coinhako vs Coinbase – What’s The Difference?

Last updated on June 6th, 2021

When you’re looking for a crypto exchange to use, you may have stumbled upon Coinhako and Coinbase.

Both of them sound so similar! So which one should you be using?

Here’s what you need to know:

The difference between Coinhako and Coinbase

Coinhako is founded in Singapore, and allows for payments via a SGD wallet. Meanwhile, Coinbase is founded in the US, but they only allow you to buy crypto using a credit or debit card. Moreover, you can’t withdraw your crypto from their platform.

Here’s an in-depth comparison between these 2 exchanges:

Founder

Coinhako is a cryptocurrency exchange that is based in Singapore and founded in 2014. Meanwhile, Coinbase is headquartered in the United States, and started in 2012.

In fact, Coinbase has one of the largest trading volumes for crypto trades!

Both of them seem to be rather reputable companies that have a strong background in the cryptocurrency scene.

Number of currencies

Coinhako allows you fully trade 21 tokens, while it has limited support for 9 other currencies:

Full support for 21 tokens

Coinhako allows you to Buy, Sell, Swap, Send or Receive 21 currencies on their platform.

Swapping refers to you switching between one cryptocurrency to another.

Some of the more popular ones include:

1. BTC
2. ETH
3. DAI
4. LTC

Coinhako is the only exchange that allows you to buy DOGE from SGD.

Limited support for other tokens

Coinhako also has a few tokens that you can have on their platform. However, the functions that you can use with them are quite limited:

You are able to buy ADA and BNB, which aren’t found in most crypto exchanges that support SGD.

For trade-only tokens, you can only Buy, Sell or Swap these currencies. You are unable to send or receive them from external wallets.

For USDT and USDC, these are rather complicated. You are able to receive both USDT and USDC from external wallets.

However, they will be converted into USD and be credited into your USD wallet on Coinhako.

If you wish to withdraw from your USD wallet, you can only do so in the form of USDT or USDC too.

Coinbase has a much larger variety of currencies

Since Coinbase is a much larger exchange, it does provide a lot more trading options.

You can trade 42 different cryptocurrencies on their exchange from Singapore!

However, the options for certain currencies may be slightly more limited.

There are 4 tiers of currencies that you can have on Coinbase:

Tier	Definition
Tier 1	Buy, Sell, Send and Receive
Tier 2	Buy, Send and Receive
Tier 3	Send and Receive
Tier 4	Receive only

Here are some examples of the currencies that you can have on the different tiers:

Tier	Currencies
Tier 1	ALGO, ATOM, FIL, GRT
Tier 2	BTC, BAT, DAI, EOS, ETH, LTC
Tier 3	XRP
Tier 4	BSV

It is quite interesting to see that you can’t sell most of the popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin!

However, this only applies to Singapore, and not the US, EU or UK.

Methods of buying crypto

There are 2 main ways that you can buy crypto on either exchange:

1. Your SGD wallet
2. Via a credit or debit card

Coinhako allows you to use both methods

For Coinhako, you are able to use both methods to buy crypto.

To use the Coinhako SGD wallet, you can transfer funds in using 2 methods:

#1 Xfers

You are able to deposit SGD using your Xfers account.

Xfers is a payment solution that allow you to transfer your money securely into the crypto exchanges.

It sort of acts like the middleman between your bank accounts and the exchanges.

However, you will need to first transfer your SGD to your Xfers account via FAST. After that, you can transfer your SGD from your Xfers account to either Coinhako.

One thing you may want to note is that you will be charged a deposit fee!

#2 FAST transfer

Coinhako also allows you to fund your account via bank transfer. You are able to send your money to Coinhako directly via FAST.

Coinbase only allows you to use a credit or debit card to purchase cryptocurrencies

For Coinbase, they do not offer any SGD wallets to store your funds.

Instead, you can only use the credit / debit card method to purchase crypto.

You will need to make sure that your debit or credit card is a 3D secured card before you can use it to buy crypto!

As such, Coinbase is slightly more inflexible in their payment methods compared to Coinhako.

You are buying crypto directly instead of trading

When you are purchasing crypto on either exchange, you are buying it directly based on the prevailing market rate.

This is slightly different from trading, where you get to choose the limit price that you pay!

As such, the exchange rate of the crypto that you’re paying may differ slightly.

Withdrawal of funds

Coinhako allows you to withdraw your funds to your bank account.

However, withdrawing from Coinbase is not supported in Singapore!

This is due to certain regulations by MAS. You are unable to sell your crypto on Coinbase and have the proceeds credited to your credit or debit card.

This means that you can’t directly withdraw the crypto that you own on Coinbase. One possible way to do this would be to send your crypto to an external wallet.

However when you do this, you may be charged rather hefty fees!

Sending and receiving crypto

Both Coinhako and Coinbase allow you to send and receive crypto from external wallets.

You are only able to send and receive the 21 currencies on Coinhako!

For those currencies that you can’t send or receive them, the functions will be greyed out.

For Coinbase, you can send and receive almost all of the currencies on their platform.

The only one that you can’t receive from an external wallet is BSV.

This makes Coinbase more versatile in terms of sending and receiving crypto!

Fees

The most important thing when it comes to trading crypto are the fees. You should try to minimise your fees as much as possible!

Here are some of the fees you may incur when using either exchange:

#1 Depositing and withdrawing fees

Here are the fees that you will be charged when depositing and withdrawing from Coinhako:

	Deposits	Withdrawals
Coinhako	0.55% (Xfers), 0 (Inter-bank)	$2 SGD per withdrawal

To reduce the amount of fees, it would be better to do a FAST transfer to Coinhako instead. This saves you 0.55% worth of fees!

However, when you withdraw funds from your SGD wallet, you will incur $2 for every withdrawal that you make.

If you’re only withdrawing a small amount, the fees may quite hefty!

This only applies to Coinhako. Coinbase does not allow you to directly withdraw funds from the exchange.

#2 Buying and selling crypto

Here are the fees that you’ll be charged for both exchanges:

Coinhako charges a flat 1% fee

You will need to pay a flat 1% fee for any transaction you make with Coinhako.

The best part is that you are not charged a minimum fee! Even if you buy a small amount of crypto, you will still only be charged 1%.

However for a limited time, you can use the promo code ‘COINGECKO‘ to trade at only 0.8%.

Moreover if you are buying crypto using a credit or debit card, you will also be charged a 3% processing fee! This fee is charged by the payment provider and not by Coinhako.

Coinbase charges a 3.99% fee

When you purchase crypto on Coinbase from Singapore, you can only do so using a credit or debit card.

Coinbase charges a 3.99% fee for every purchase that you make!

As such, the purchasing fees are almost similar for Coinhako and Coinbase, if you use a credit card (4% vs 3.99%).

Trading via your SGD wallet on Coinhako will be the cheapest since it only costs 1%.

If you are a frequent trader, you may want to consider Luno Exchange instead which only charges 0.1% for each trade!

#3 Sending and receiving fees

You may want to send or receive your crypto from an external wallet.

For sending crypto on both Coinhako and Coinbase, most of the fees charged are dynamic. This depends on the network traffic and miner fees that the exchanges will incur.

If you want to receive crypto from an external wallet, no fees are charged by either exchange.

However, you’ll need to consider the fees you incur when sending crypto from your external wallets!

Limits and minimum amounts

When you want to buy crypto on either exchange, you may be subject to certain limits and minimum amounts.

Exchange	Minimum per Trade	Limits
Coinhako	$45	SGD $20,000 (daily)
Coinbase	SGD $2	SGD $1,200 (weekly)

Coinbase has a lower minimum. However, the weekly limits are quite low if you’re a frequent trader!

Earning extra crypto with Coinbase Earn

Coinbase has a special program called Coinbase Earn.

You are able to earn cryptocurrency by watching videos and answering questions on them!

This does sound really attractive. However, I’ve been unable to start earning my free crypto yet.

This is because I’m still on the waitlist, and you will most likely be on it too if you sign up for it now.

While this is a good feature to have, you may not be able to earn any crypto in the end!

Security

You may have heard of how crypto exchanges can be hacked, and these hackers can steal your cryptocurrencies!

So how do these exchanges try and combat this?

Coinhako stores the majority of your currencies in a cold storage

Coinhako mentioned that they store the majority of your crypto in their ‘highly secure’ cold storage accounts.

Meanwhile, only a small percentage of your funds will be stored on their exchange. This helps to facilitate liquidity where you are able to sell or withdraw your funds.

If hackers are able to gain access to your holdings, they will only gain access to the small percentage on the exchange.

To get the rest of your funds, they will need to hack the cold storage account. This is much harder to do!

As such, most of your crypto with Coinhako will be safe and secure.

Coinhako also allows you to use 2FA apps like Authy to make your account extra secure.

Coinbase uses a similar approach

Coinbase stores 98% of all the crypto on their exchange offline.

Even if they get hacked, your funds should still be secure!

Coinbase also uses the Authy app for 2FA verification.

Regulation

The MAS has explicitly said that they do not regulate cryptocurrencies. This is because they do not recognise it as legal tender.

However, they still regulate most exchanges that operate in Singapore via the Payment Services Act.

These exchanges would require a license to operate in Singapore. Coinhako and Coinbase have both applied for a temporary exemption, which will last till 28 Jan 2021.

Moreover, the Singaporean government intends to tighten regulations on these exchanges as well.

This will help to ensure that both exchanges will be under the regulation of the Singapore authorities.

Platforms

Both exchanges have web and mobile platforms.

Here is how Coinhako’s web platform looks like,

and their mobile app.

Meanwhile, here is Coinbase’s web platform,

as well as the mobile app.

Both of these platforms seem to be very sleek and easy to use.

Verdict

Here is a comparison between Coinhako and Coinbase:

	Coinhako	Coinbase
Year Founded	2014	2012
HQ	Singapore	USA
Number of Currencies	30	42
Funding Methods	Xfers FAST	NA
Methods of Buying	SGD Wallet Credit / Debit Card	Credit / Debit Card Only
Withdrawal of Funds	Bank Account	NA
Deposit Fees	0.55% (Xfers),   0 (Inter-bank)	NA
Withdrawal Fees	SGD$2 per withdrawal	NA
Trading Fees	1% (SGD Wallet) 4% (Credit / Debit Card)	3.99% (Credit / Debit Card)
Sending Fees	Dynamic	Dynamic
Minimum Per Trade	$45	SGD $2
Earning Program	NA	Coinbase Earn
Security	Cold storage + hot wallet	Cold storage + hot wallet

So which exchange should you choose?

I believe that Coinhako seems to be the better exchange for these reasons:

1. Cheaper fees (when buying via SGD wallet)
2. Easier method of withdrawal (via FAST transfer)

Coinhako is a Singaporean crypto exchange, so it does offer great support if you’re a Singaporean investor.

Moreover, the fees are quite expensive for Coinbase!

As such, I believe that Coinhako will be the better option if you wish to trade crypto.

Conclusion

Coinhako seems to be the better exchange for buying crypto, due to the support it has in Singapore.

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