Coinbase is the deepest US-regulated USD spot book, and the default reference venue for a US issuer buying bitcoin. This page explains Coinbase's role in best execution for a large crypto order: its fee model, its depth, and where it sits when EnsoTrade routes a buy or sell across venues.
| Attribute | Coinbase |
|---|---|
| Access class | US-accessible (venue_class=us_spot) |
| Fee model | Advanced Trade charges tiered maker/taker fees that fall with 30-day volume; large desks reach single-digit basis points. |
| Depth / role in a route | Deep top-of-book in USD, so the first few million of a BTC clip move the price least here among US venues. |
| Rest vs cross | Routing decides per clip whether resting or crossing on Coinbase is cheaper, net of its fee. |
No single venue is cheapest for every size. The cheapest venue for the first $1M of a BTC clip is often not the cheapest for the next $10M, because each venue's book thins as you take it. EnsoTrade's market-impact and routing logic splits the order across venues like Coinbase so that each marginal piece buys where it is cheapest, net of fees — and prices it before you trade. For the live cost on Coinbase at your size, the ROUTE endpoint returns the number.
EnsoTrade prices a large order against live order books across venues — which venues to use, what size each piece should be, and whether to rest an order or cross the spread. It is independent measurement, not execution: your own desk or execution partner keeps placing the orders on its own accounts, and we never touch custody, keys or funds. Before a window we price it at your real clip size on the venues you can use; after a window we score the fill with full workings. We quote no price or saving until you give your real clip size and fee stack — then the number is yours to check.
Price an order before you trade and score the fill after, on live multi-venue order books. We never touch custody, keys or orders — the independence is the point.
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