You are considering signing up and choosing either Gemini or Uphold exchange. You probably want to verify your Brave Rewards wallet and deposit your accumulated Basic Attention Token (BAT). These two (2) exchanges are currently the Brave-appointed crypto exchanges of their choice.
Or maybe you are just wondering which two of these crypto exchanges are offering in terms of their features and differences.
Side note: Both Uphold and Gemini require their users to be at least 18 years of age.
Company Background
Uphold is a cloud-based multi-asset platform founded in 2014 by American entrepreneur Halsey Minor. He was the one who founded CNET in the 1990s. Uphold operates on a “fully-reserved” basis. This means that its obligation is fully backed by its assets in reserve. This is unlike the standard practice in financial institutions like banks, where they only have “fractional reserve”, which only contains a small portion. At the same time, they lend out the majority to get a higher return.
Uphold’s headquarters is in New York, the U.S. It is a private technology company legally referred to as Uphold Inc.
Gemini is also a US-based New York-headquartered cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2014. The company has a high security and compliance standards, which is their business mentality. As a result, Gemini is the world’s first SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 certified crypto exchange and custodian.
Registration Process
To register for Uphold, it offers a quick and easy access experience. You can open an account in less than a minute and start trading crypto and other assets immediately.
| Exchange | Basic Sign Up | Identity Verification (KYC) |
|---|---|---|
| Uphold | * Your Legal Name * Your Date of Birth * Your Phone Number * Your Email Address | * Current Residential Address * Either one; copy of Government ID, valid Driver’s License or valid Passport * A “live” selfie |
| Gemini | * Your Legal Name * Your Date of Birth * Your Phone Number * Your Email Address * Your Residential Address * Your Social Security Number (if any) | * Either one; copy of a valid Driver’s License or a valid Passport * Proof of address using the utility bill, cell phone bill or bank statement |
Supported Assets
| Exchange | Support |
|---|---|
| Uphold | * 74 Cryptocurrencies & Utility Tokens * 27 National Currencies * 50 U.S. stocks * 4 Precious Metals |
| Gemini | * 72 cryptocurrencies (native assets, stablecoins and ERC-20 tokens |
Uphold supports 74 cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH, XRP, BAT, ADA, BCH, DASH, DOGE, DOT, EOS, SOL, DOT, and many more.
Gemini supports over 72 cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH, BCH, LTC, DOGE, DAI, BAT, CVC, MATIC, and many more.
Trading & Service Fees
The data and figures shown below are as accurate as from the date of this article.
Uphold
For Uphold, it does not charge for the following; 0% fees on credit & debit card deposits, 0% crypto withdrawal fees and 0% trading commissions. However, the company is not a free platform, and they do have a business model.
Uphold earn by charging a spread.
- For crypto, the spread is typically 0.8 to 1.2% on BTC and EH
- For precious metals, the spread is typically 3% on top of the bid-ask prices at their supplier
- For fiat currencies, the spread is typically 0.2% for EUR, USD and GBP
- For U.S Equities, the spread is typically 1.0%.
Uphold also charges network fees when customers withdraw from external crypto wallets and service fees for companies that wish to open business accounts.
Gemini
When you buy and sell crypto on Gemini, you’ll be charged both a convenience and a transaction fee every time. The convenience fee is about 0.5% of the Gemini market price for a given trade. Then, you’ll be charged a transaction fee based on the amount you trade on top of the convenience fee.
For crypto-to-crypto swapping, for example, from Bitcoin to Dogecoin, this fee is a standard 1.49%. The fee varies by the type of currency you use for buying and selling crypto and ranges from a flat fee for less expensive orders to a percentage of more costly transactions.
Gemini withdrawal charges different withdrawal fees for each crypto if you make more than ten (10) monthly withdrawals.
Withdrawal
Uphold supports the withdrawal of funds to bank accounts in 36 countries. It also supports withdrawing funds to private wallets on seven (7) crypto networks with no fees involved.
Gemini supports withdrawing funds to bank accounts via ACH and wire transfer to your linked bank account in your name.
Funding Methods
For Uphold, the funding methods can be via credit/debit card, linking your U.S. bank account, wire transfer, using SEPA, SWIFT, or direct crypto to crypto deposit.
For Gemini, you can fund your account with fiat currency or crypto. For fiat, you need to link your bank account or wire transfer. Then, you have to deposit it into your unique Gemini deposit address for crypto.
Unique Features
- Uphold offers a unique one-step trading capability, e.g. moving BTC to XRP, moving USD to DASH, etc. This involves moving funds from one form of value to another in just one step. This is considered two separate transactions on other crypto exchanges and incurring 2 different fees.
- Uphold has a Debit card that allows you to choose to pay with crypto, metals, gold, or other currencies. You get both a physical card and a virtual card to shop online. The debit card uses the Mastercard® network, which means you can use it at almost 50 million merchants and ATMs worldwide. It comes with zero foreign transaction fees. Users can earn 1% back in USD for every USD-sourced transaction and 2% back in the cryptocurrency used for every crypto purchase through the Uphold debit card.
- Gemini has a Peer-to-peer trading feature that offers direct trading between buyers and sellers through the Gemini clearing portal. The charges are at the spread cost, and it does not have any minimum order size.
- Gemini’s ActiveTRader platform offers experienced and advanced traders a beef-up platform with advanced charting, tracking of multiple order types and block trading.
Trading Volume
- Based on checks done at the time of this article.
Uphold is currently not listed on price monitoring sites like CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko. Therefore its daily trading volume is unknown.
Gemini has a daily 24-hour trading volume of approximately USD 113 million worth of trades, according to CoinMarketCap, upon last checked at the time of this article.
Conclusion
Uphold is suitable for those who want a wide range of products, not only cryptocurrencies since they offer precious metals and national currencies. Uphold has a minimalist design for the Ux interface and would appeal to beginners. However, they do not seem to have a high enough daily trading volume.
Gemini is suitable for beginners and experienced traders since they offer the advanced Gemini ActiveTrader platform. In addition, although they have a more stringent identity verification process, they have a larger trading volume than Uphold.
