When I first started investing about a year ago, I had no idea what I was doing. I bought my first smidgeon of Bitcoin on Paypal, as I was already familiar with them and had an account. After that I ended up signing up for Coinbase, Uphold, Voyager, and Crypto.com. I strongly recommend just picking one and staying with it, as navigating multiple exchanges gets to be tedious and time consuming.
Unless you are already well versed in the cryptospace, exchanges like Voyager and CRYPTO.COM are a very easy way to get familiar with staking and how the APY works. COINBASE and Voyager have their pros and cons as well, I will list what I can think of about each so you can choose the one that fits you the best.
Coinbase:
Pros - Coinbase is user friendly, but the mobile app is clunky. You can purchase crypto using debit cards, Paypal, as well as bank account ACH transfers, which is handy. They have staking with coins like XTZ and ALGO and USDC. You can also earn free crypto by reading information and then taking quizzes that you can't fail to get a few dollars here and there, a nice way to dip your toes for free. There are some ways of getting paid directly into Coinbase as well, such as with Nicehash (a website that you can use to get paid for the computational power or 'hashing power' of your graphics card), although I believe Nicehash specifically may be phasing that out. They track many coins that other exchanges do not.
Cons - The interest for staking is fairly low. You aren't going to get more than 4-6% last I checked. As with most centralized exchanges, the fees are fairly high. You don't really want to do any day trading. You also can't withdraw to certain crypto networks, and some coins are not traded at all, but they do have a fairly good selection. Referral fee is low. Debit card is unappealing.
Uphold:
Pros - Also has some coins that other exchanges do not. They seem to also be planning on trading securities in the future but that is not possible yet. They allow payments with debit cards, ACH, and Paypal. Limit orders available. British company so theoretically would help diversify your coverage a little bit in some way I guess.
Cons - High fees. Many coins cannot be withdrawn to a wallet. No staking as of yet, and a wait list to do it. Debit card is unappealing. Low referral bonus.
Voyager:
Pros - Snappy, intuitive app. Rapidly updating quotes and a great selection of coins. Excellent staking rewards on coins that many others don't do like Litecoin. Some of your deposit is available immediately even with an ACH transfer. VGX is a strong governance token and Voyager has a bright future. Good referral bonus.
Cons - ACH transfers only, initially there was also a wait list to get in although that may not be the case now.
Neutral - I don't know anything about their debit card.
Crypto.com: (My personal favorite so far)
Pros - Well laid out app with "missions" to complete that earn you extra bits of CRO, their governance token. Great referral bonus. Excellent staking rewards and a full Defi wallet to connect to the exchange. They have a great selection of coins, and for the first 30 days after you make your first trade you pay 0 fees. The VISA prepaid debit rewards card is my favorite part. It's free and feeless. You reload it via the app and a third party checking account you access through the app. The free card gives 1% cash back in their native token CRO. If you stake 400 dollars worth of CRO, you get the ruby card, giving you 2$ cash back. There are several teirs with increasing rewards such as reimbursing you in CRO for the cost of your Spotify and Netflix accounts in CRO and access to the airport lounges. They are going crazy with the marketing and the Grammy's will be held this month at the new Crypto.com arena.
Cons - only ach transfers to the Metropolitan Bank checking account to add funds. App is user friendly but can be a bit slow moving.
There are also decentralized exchanges, such as Pancake Swap and Uniswap. These require a wallet to be set up before hand and there are other steps to be taken before you can participate in those. I will try to cover how to buy one token from a swap site in one of my upcoming posts, perhaps we can learn together.
Take time to read up and learn about each before making a decision, as with anything in this crazy arena. You won't find a centralized exchange with low fees, but there is a lot of money to be made in staking, and certainly in defi. We'll get there!
As always, stay safe, be patient, and don't just HODL, stake it too!
Uphold: https://uphold.com/signup?referral=3e1f15291c 10 bucks!
Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/app/z23eyern9s 25 bucks!
Coinbase: https://www.coinbase.com/join/spence_0t5?src=android-link 10 bucks!
Voyager: 25 bucks!
