Coinbase Referral Program
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Table of Contents
About Coinbase
Coinbase is the largest crypto-currency exchange in North America and was publicly listed on 14 April 2021.
Founded in June of 2012, Coinbase is a digital currency wallet and platform where merchants and consumers can transact with new digital currencies.
Watch a video on Coinbase’s “Mission, Vision & Strategy”:
Supported cryptocurrencies
Coinbase supports a wide number of cryptocurrencies. You can check them out here.
Useful features for Singapore users
From March 2023, customers in Singapore can:
- FAST transfer funds to and from their Coinbase accounts using any bank in Singapore for free
- sign up to the platform conveniently using Singpass
Personal experience sharing
Ease of registration
Registration was efficient. After I registered with my email and phone number for two-factor authentication (2FA), I added my credit card information to my Coinbase profile.
However, before I was allowed to perform any purchase transactions, I had to upload a photo ID to be verified.
The verification took only a couple of minutes and I was good to go.
I was charged a cash advance fee when investing through credit card
I did my first couple of purchases (S$150 and S$300) at Coinbase via credit card. However, when I received my credit card monthly statement, I was taken aback that a separate charge of S$15 was imposed for each of these two transactions.

I searched on Google and found:
“Coinbase, the most popular cryptocurrency exchange and the one most associated with recent speculation by retail investors, sent an email to some customers early Feb. 1, alerting them that credit card networks are beginning to treat cryptocurrency purchases as cash advances, leading to fees and higher interest rates on these transactions.”
…
“Recently, the MCC code for digital currency purchases was changed by a number of the major credit card networks,” Coinbase’s email said. “The new code will allow banks and card issuers to charge additional ‘cash advance’ fees. These fees are not charged or collected by Coinbase.”
Source: investopedia.com [29 Jun 2019]
I am not sure if this cash advance charge is applied by all Singapore bank card issuers. For reference, the credit card I used was issued by ICBC.
The solution to avoid the cash advance fee? Use a debit card instead.
Receiving FREE alt coins from completing mini-courses
Coinbase has a feature named ‘Learning Rewards’ where users can learn about alt coins, answer some simple quiz questions, and receive airdrops.
These are some of the airdrops I received:
- August 2022
- HOPR (HOPR): US$3
- Aleph.im (ALEPH): US$3
- Jan 2022
- Fetch (FET): US$3
- Nov 2021
- Loopring (LRC): US$1.50
- Sep 2021
- Ankr (ANKR): USD$3
- Jun 2021
- Polygon (MATIC): USD$3
- May 2021
- SKL (SKALE Token): USD$3
- Apr 2021
- FORTH (Ampleforth Governance Token): USD$3
- Mar 2021
- UMA (Universal Market Access): USD$6
- NMR (Numeraire): USD$3
- Feb 2021
- NU (NuCypher): USD$3
- COMP (Compound): USD$9
- XLM (Stellar Lumens): USD$10
- Jan 2021
- GRT (The Graph): USD$3
- CGLD (Celo): USD$6