My Experience With Coinbase And Abra: Which Is Better?

Disclaimer : I am not a financial advisor. Don’t listen to me. You are responsible for your own decisions.

*This post is not to promote Abra or Coinbase, only to let people know about my experience with a possible alternative. Use whatever works for you.

Like many of us, I started out on, and continue to use, Coinbase. Coinbase is where I bought my first fraction of a Bitcoin, and the only place I've ever sold crypto for fiat (although it's been over a year since I've done that).

I started out buying directly from my bank, which took roughly 5 days per transaction, if I remember correctly. I was unable to link any other cards, and actually had to use my secondary checking account because my primary account (U.S. Bank) was unable to be connected for some reason.

While I liked the smaller fees for buying through my bank, the waiting times killed me, and I read that credit card transactions were instant, even if they charged a higher fee. I was willing to pay the fees, considering I was often trading Bitcoin or Ethereum directly for another asset that was unable to be bought via fiat, and my patience is often not the best when I'm looking to fill my bags. Once I went the credit card route, I never really looked back, and the higher fee just became part of it.

Eventually, Coinbase started charging cash advance fees to buy with a credit card. While this caught me off guard, as the customers were not warned about this before it happened, I don't really think this was a bad thing, as you were technically getting a spendable currency using your credit card balance. I continued to buy via credit cards in larger quantities and just swallowed the fee. I did this until some of my cards stopped working (not from being maxed but because new policy was being implemented by each credit card company).

This lead me to get an Amex card, considering I had not heard that they were rejecting buys on Coinbase. When I got my card, I learned they didn't accept Amex at all, so I just used the card for general purposes.

Basically, it seemed like if I wanted to use the combination of credit cards and Coinbase, I would be out of luck.

Therefore, I made a second attempt to link my primary checking account to Coinbase. This time it worked, and I was actually able to get my assets instantly using that account. Now I was back to using money that I actually had and wasn't borrowing, and everything was working properly and more quickly than ever.

One day while I was browsing videos, I stumbled across a video about Abra. I learned you could buy crypto with an Amex card, and considering I already had one, I thought I'd give it a chance. I had no issues with Coinbase currently, but would like the option to use a credit card if I wanted to load up my bags on a dip.

I linked the accounts, and was able to buy with a 4 percent fee, which seemed reasonable, considering it was similar to a cash advance. The part that was negative, however, was that you could only buy $200 per day, which was pretty limiting. The only reason I would want to use a credit card would be to load up on a dip during a time where I didn't have a ton of cash to spare.

Anyway, I decided to attempt to get $1000 worth of coins using Abra, and figured it would take about 5 days. I got up to $800, and now I cannot buy more because my card was declined. I didn't really feel like calling the number on my card about this issue, but learned that other people had a similar issue, and the credit card company was just waiting on the merchant for the purchase.

The whole situation seemed like a pretty inconvenient way to conveniently get more crypto when I was short on cash. I didn't want to have to wait 24 hours to make continuous purchases, and didn't want to deal with technical support any time I wanted to buy significant amounts.

Meanwhile, any purchase on Coinbase worked fine, and it also forced me to only spend money that I had, which I think is smart.

So at the end of the day, unless you have an Amex and are willing to jump through some hoops to make some credit card purchases, Coinbase still seems to be the better option, for now.

That being said, I would like to point out some things about Abra that make it intriguing, and might allow it to be a better alternative if they can improve some of their issues.

First of all, Abra allows you to seamlessly trade between crypto and fiat. It's not a process where you are transferring to your bank, but just holding it in your Abra account, functioning in a way that is similar to Tether, which I'm only assuming considering I've never actually utilized Tether. This is interesting, considering you can sell for fiat after a pump and buy again if it dips again. While this is true with Coinbase, you aren't actually transferring into and out of your bank account, which makes things a little more flexible.

Second, Abra has support for many more crypto currencies than Coinbase does. I only utilized a few, but there are a decent amount there that can make crypto trading right from the app very easy, without the use for an exchange. This is something that will likely attract new users who don't want to dive into the whole world of exchanges.

Another great thing that is more about security is the fact that you actually hold your own private keys. You utilize a seed, and while this could be a little more difficult than just trusting Coinbase with your money, it is a step towards more decentralization and responsibility for one's own assets.

One final note that I want to make is that you can't actually withdraw any crypto that is not Bitcoin. For example, if you bought any given asset other than BTC, including the major players like ETH, you must exchange it back to BTC or fiat to withdraw. While this might not be a deal breaker for some, I would love to have withdrawals expand to more assets, as I'm sure others would as well, and I hope this is only temporary.

If Abra can continue to capitalize on their huge advantages, while fixing some of their issues, I would be a very happy customer, and I believe many more will follow. However, until then, I'll stick with what I've been doing.