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.

The Bitfi wallet is among the most secure and private on the market today.  It operates over wireless although the private key never leaves in-memory encryption.  The device is the size of a small phone and if lost, a new one could be ordered and used just the same.  In addition, Bitfi offers a backup software based method to retrieve cryptocurrency in the event of a disaster.  Bitfi provides built-in Changelly exchange to help minimize transfers in favor of swaps.

Purism provides a suite of devices dedicated to freedom, privacy, and security.

Umbrel is a decentralized personal server cloud service.

The PMA Team

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.