Coinbase is a publicly traded company, subject to shareholder interests.  The exchange has gained a reputation for being unreliable when liquidity or price for select coins are volatile.  Relying on the exchange is discouraged although if you choose to, we suggest transferring the assets into your own custody as early as feasible.

Red Flag Alert: Although BitMart carries more difficult to find coins/tokens, they do not always allow you to transfer them to your own custody and instead require you to liquidate instead.  We advise against doing business with this company.

Red Flag Alert: Okcoin subjects clients to stringent internal policies that are not required by law or regulation.  We advise working with competing institutions without being subject to the same overreach policies. 

Mercatox is a obscure exchange that is based out of the Marshall Islands.  It is best known for offering exchanges of BTC or ETH for the infamous VERI (Veritasium) token. It is suggested to only use this exchange to quickly obtain VERI, transfer to a private wallet, and nothing more. 

Red Flag Alert: Uphold charges higher than average exchange rates and typically scores less than three out of five stars when reviewed online.  In addition, they hold your funds for up to 60 days after initial deposit.  We advise working with competitors that do not freeze your funds.

Red Flag Alert: AnchorUSD is backed and partially funded/developed by Big Tech IBM company with a history of principles that do not reflect the potential of sound money built on blockchain technologies.

Robinhood does not allow you to custody your own crypto.  This removes the ability to transfer the crypto which forces any and all transactions to be taxable due to a disposition of assets.

Atomic is a mobile wallet in addition to desktop/application that provides self custody of your cryptocurrency portfolio.  After the results of an audit were published, we are recommending against the use of the Atomic wallet until further notice.

Red Flag Alert: We do not advise the use of any privacy device that adheres to the AOPP protocol, as it defeats the purpose and benefits of decentralization for society at large.  The Trezor cold storage device falls in this category as of the time of this review.  Their stance in this regard is of longer term concern.

Red Flag Alert: Bitcoin IRA has been reported to have higher than average prices accompanied with bad customer service.  We believe there are much better alternatives.

If you have other suggestions for products or providers worthy of including in this reference page, please feel free to let us know and we would be happy to get back to you with our decision to include them or not.