Blockchain.com is a veteran crypto exchange and wallet provider. How do its features, services, and approach to security measure up?
Founded | 2011 |
Headquarters | Luxembourg City, Luxembourg |
Website | https://www.blockchain.com/ |
Leading Blockchain Universities | - |
Daily volume trading | $19.7 million |
Number of cryptocurrencies | 11 |
Cryptocurrency Fees | - |
Minimum deposit | As low as $5 USD |
Digital Wallet | Yes |
Promotion | None |
Currency | Fiat and crypto |
Deposit Method | Credit card |
Blockchain.com is a grizzled veteran in terms of crypto services. It was founded in 2011 by Ben Reeves under the name Blockchain.info and was initially designed for bitcoin analysis.
In 2012 Reeves collaborated with Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong in famed tech startup Y Combinator. Both were working on a payment platform for bitcoin where users could make payments in bitcoin and exchange bitcoin for other currencies.
Reeves and Armstrong parted ways over differing opinions on custodial wallets. Armstrong believed that exchanges should control users’ cryptocurrency, while Reeves believed that users should retain their private keys.
Armstrong went on to co-found Coinbase, which is one of the most successful custodial wallets on the market. Reeves had his own success; by 2014, Blockchain.com was the most popular bitcoin wallet. As of 2021, there are 65 million Blockchain.com wallets, and 28% of bitcoin transactions since 2012 were initiated or received by a Blockchain.com wallet.
It’s not a surprise that the Blockchain.com wallet is such a success. It’s open-source and non-custodial. In terms of wallets for popular exchanges, it’s a unicorn. Blockchain.com offers access to sophisticated APIs that come with a community of 25,000+ developers.
Blockchain.com is one of the select few crypto exchanges that has yet to be hacked.
Users are strongly encouraged to use two-factor authentication, which can be set up with SMS, Yubikey, or Google Authenticator. There is a comprehensive security overview page on the Blockchain.com support section which goes over best practices for different tokens.
There are also other user-side security measures offered under the Advanced Security Settings in the Blockchain.com wallet. Users can set up an IP whitelist, block wallet access via anonymous browser Tor, and use PBKDF2 password stretching.
While their security overview is a little vague, Blockchain.com appears to conform to industry standard security practice. They use standardized cryptography to encrypt user information. Funds are mostly held in cold storage, unconnected to the Internet and protected from potential theft. The exchange offers an ongoing bug bounty on HackerOne that encourages security researchers to alert the team to potential exploits, and uses internal monitoring.
Blockchain.com has made it relatively easy to open an account. To get started, follow the instructions below:
1. Go to the official Blockchain.com website, https://www.blockchain.com/, and click “Get Started”.
2. Enter your email, choose a password, and you’re good to go!
3. Once you’ve made an account, you’ll want to provide verification to increase your trading limits. To do so, navigate to the settings and choose “Trading Limits” from the dropdown menu.
4. Choose “Silver Tier”, Enter your personal information, and click “Submit” once you’re done.
5. Once you’ve unlocked Silver Tier, you can move on to Gold Tier. To get Gold level verification, you’ll need to provide a government-issued ID. You’ll be asked to upload a photo of your ID, as well as a picture of your face. The verification process can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 5 days.
Once you’ve opened and verified your Blockchain.com account, it’s easy to start trading. Users can fund a wallet with fiat or crypto. To fund a wallet with fiat, click the “Buy/Sell Crypto” button on the top right of the screen. Once there, you can choose from 11 cryptocurrencies and the amount you want to buy.
From there, you’ll confirm the amount of crypto you’re buying, enter your card details, and voila! You have a funded account.
Once you’ve set up your wallet, you can connect it to the Blockchain.com exchange. To do that, click the “Exchange” button on the left hand menu. Click the “Connect Wallet” button on the next page, and then the purple “Connect Now” button. You’ll be taken to the Blockchain.com exchange in a new window and asked to create another account.
Once you’ve created an exchange account, you’re good to start trading.
Blockchain.com currently supports 4 fiat currencies: USD, EUR, GBP, and TRY.
Yes! Blockchain.com offers an incredibly popular non-custodial wallet.
Bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), ether (ETH), stellar (XLM), Paxos Standard (PAX), Tether (USDT), Aave, and YFI are supported.
The Blockchain.com Wallet also currently supports Polkadot (DOT) and Algorand (ALGO) within the wallet’s Trading Account.
Don’t send other cryptocurrencies to a Blockchain.com wallet address – they will be inaccessible if you do.
Blockchain.com is safe. It has never been hacked, and conforms to industry standard security practices.
You might also like to read the Coinbase review.
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