Gemini
Key Takeaways
Pros
Easy to use.
Ability to trade a large number of cryptocurrencies.
Earn interest on a variety of cryptocurrencies.
Credit card with crypto rewards is in the works for Summer 2021.
Cons
Relatively high fees for the basic account
Tracking profit and loss is not that straightforward.
Gemini is a New York based crypto exchange founded by the Winklevoss twins, who you may remember from the The Social Network Movie that portrayed the early beginnings of Facebook. The Gemini app is broken out into four main sections:
Markets: Where you can view current prices.
Portfolio: To view your holdings and account value.
Earn: Where you can earn interest on various crypto holdings.
Pay: (Mobile only) Or Gemini Pay, where you can spend your crypto at thousands of retail locations.
Get $10 in Bitcoin
See referral link to get $10 in free Bitcoin when you trade your first $100 on Gemini.
Drawbacks and Downsides
Let's start with the fees. They’re high in the basic account. Gemini uses layered fees, first is a convenience fee (not that convenient) of 0.5%. Second is their transaction fee which varies based on the amount of the transaction. It can range from $0.99 to $2.99. For transactions larger than $200 the fee is 1.49%. So what does this mean for you? Best case you can expect about 2% in fees (0.5% spread fee + 1.5% transaction fee) any time you buy or sell. I recommend trading as close to $200 (or more if you are able) as you can to keep the percentage you pay in fees to a minimum.
You can see the Gemini fee schedule here.
This last drawback is more of an interface issue. When viewing your portfolio, it is not that obvious what profit and loss is for each of your positions. Are your Ethereum holdings up 10% or down 10%? Knowing this information can be helpful when making the decision to buy more or sell, especially around tax time. Obviously you can keep track with spreadsheets to compare how much you have invested compared to how much your crypto portfolio is worth now, but this defeats the point. It would be nice if Gemini kept track of this for you.
Positives and Perks
First, the sign up and funding process is very quick and simple. Creating the account and connecting to your bank account should take less than ten minutes. In short, you’ll need to provide your contact info and verify your identity. You can link your bank account, debit card or wire transfer. For most people, linking a bank account is likely the simplest and cheapest option.
In addition to the quick sign up process, the Gemini interface is intuitive and easy to use (mobile and desktop). Buying and selling various cryptos is usually just a couple clicks away.
Gemini supports a large amount of cryptocurrencies to trade, with new tokens being added regularly. Unless you are only interested in trading the major cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum, it is very nice to have a large selection to choose from. This is a quickly evolving space and when you do your research and find smaller tokens with great potential, Coinbase often supports these.
Gemini Earn allows you over 30 different cryptos. Interest rates vary from about 1% to 7%. These rates are updated periodically based on market forces. Gemini offers high interest rates (over 7%) on two stablecoins, Gemini Dollar and Dai. The main perk of the Gemini dollar (GUSD) is that you can buy it without any transaction fees.
Gemini Active Trader
There’s good news if the fees I mentioned above made you cringe a bit. Gemini Active Trader offers much lower fees for trading. On Gemini Active Trader the fees are about 0.35% per transaction (lower if you trade more than $500,000 in a month). Compared to roughly 2% per transaction on a basic Gemini account, this is a welcomed improvement. Lower fees mean more money goes towards your investments.
Here is more info on the Gemini Active Trader fee schedule.
With Gemiini Active Trader, the interface is a little more complicated than the basic Gemini exchange. More charts and trading options that can be confusing to a novice investor.
The good news is that even though it is a separate exchange, you can use the same sign in info for your basic Gemini account. It's definitely worth taking some time to familiarize yourself with Active Trader so you can save yourself from high fees.
Final thoughts
Gemini is an easy to use crypto exchange that offers great flexibility for its users. The basic account makes it easy to introduce yourself to the crypto markets and once you’re ready the Active Trader platform will allow you to have even more trading options with much lower fees.
Gemini Earn also allows users to earn interest on some of their crypto holdings without worrying about locking them up for weeks or months. This is a nice feature for those crypto investors looking at longer term investment horizons and want to earn some income.
Overall Gemini is a great exchange for beginner and intermediate crypto investors.
Get $10 in Bitcoin
See referral link to get $10 in free Bitcoin when you trade your first $100 on Gemini.
