Key Takeaways
- Uphold is a cloud-based platform that allows users to trade fiat currencies, cryptocurrencies, precious metals, and equities.
- The platform offers transparent fees with commission-free pricing and low spreads ranging from 0.4% to 1.0%.
- Users can make seamless trades across multiple asset classes, like converting between cryptocurrencies and traditional currencies in one step.
- Uphold maintains real-time transparency of its reserves and is audited quarterly to ensure solvency.
- While Uphold offers diverse asset classes, it lacks advanced trading tools and options found on some other platforms.
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What Is Uphold?
The term Uphold refers to a cloud-based financial service platform. The service enables individuals to securely move, convert, hold, and sell various assets, including fiat currencies, cryptocurrencies, equities, and precious metals. Users can fund their accounts from credit or debit cards, bank accounts, or cryptocurrency networks. They can also easily move funds from one form of value to another.
Uphold says that it seeks to reduce the transaction costs and fees associated with currency exchange.
Understanding How Uphold Functions
Uphold positions itself as a digital money platform for the global market. Halsey Minor founded it in 2014, and it launched a year later. Originally known as Bitreserve, it was renamed Uphold. The company emphasizes it is not a bank but a “real-time transparent and verifiable reserve.”
Uphold offers 40 equities, 27 fiat currencies, four types of precious metals, and more than 130 cryptocurrencies. Users can send funds to others and trade multiple assets on one screen. They can also easily convert funds from one asset to another in one step, which could require two transactions and fees on other platforms.
The stated goal is to reduce the transaction costs involved in exchanging money, particularly for cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin. In the earliest years of cryptocurrencies, those wishing to hold and trade in the currency often faced a steep learning curve. Unlike traditional currencies whose infrastructure developed slowly over centuries, cryptocurrency enthusiasts and entrepreneurs needed to develop their own infrastructure from scratch.
The company has similar initiatives to reduce transaction fees. It claims that it is less expensive on average than other household-name cryptocurrency platforms Indeed, the company has moved to commission-free pricing. The price that users see before they trade is the price they pay when they trade.
Fast Fact
Third-party developers are able to develop additional software offerings based on the Uphold platform. This is made possible through Uphold Connect, the company’s application programming interface (API).
Breaking Down Uphold’s Exchange Fees
Many cryptocurrency traders share a desire to increase the transparency of these financial platforms. Uphold was inspired in part by the lack of financial transparency revealed by the 2007-2008 financial crisis. One practical example of this commitment is that Uphold publishes its reserve status in real-time, showing the individual asset and liability balances for its tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3 reserves. The company is audited quarterly to verify solvency.
For cryptocurrencies, Uphold provides an all-inclusive price with a spread between 0.5% and 1.0%. Depending on trading behavior and volume, the spread may drop to 0.4%. Deposits via debit and credit cards are free, with zero withdrawal fees except for standard network charges.
In March 2018, Uphold added the cryptocurrency Ripple (XRP) to its platform, offering Uphold members zero transaction fees on the first five million XRP purchased. This move represented a bold entry into the XRP marketplace, as Coinbase—one of the world’s largest digital currency exchanges—did not support XRP at that time.
Important
Uphold operates by fully backing its obligations with assets held in reserve. Unlike banks that use fractional reserves—keeping only a fraction of assets and lending out the rest—Uphold keeps full reserves for all obligations.
Essential Requirements for Using Uphold
When users sign up for Uphold, they are asked to provide the following personal information:
- Legal name
- Date of birth
- Phone number
In order to withdraw or send funds to other people, individuals must become verified users. To become a verified user, Uphold requires a current residential address, a valid government photo identification, and a live selfie.
Pros and Cons of Using Uphold
Just like any other platform, individuals must consider the benefits and drawbacks of using Uphold. We’ve listed some of the most common ones below.
Advantages
Uphold users can make trades, exchanges, and transfers across multiple asset classes. And the service allows users to convert from one asset class to another. This includes traditional currencies, precious metals, cryptocurrencies, and equities.
The company is very transparent about its fee structure. This means there are no surprises about how much Uphold charges for using the platform and how much it charges per transaction. As noted above, Uphold’s all-inclusive price comes with a small spread between 0.5% to 1.0% but it can be as low as 0.4%.
Disadvantages
While Uphold provides various asset classes, the options in each are limited. As of July 2022, there were trades for four precious metals and 40 equities, including Tesla, Apple, Cisco, Proctor & Gamble, and Home Depot.
Unlike other digital platforms, users won’t find any advanced features on Uphold. This includes things like charts, research, and other tools that many savvy traders are used to using as part of their daily activities.
Comparing Uphold and Coinbase
Coinbase is another well-known financial platform. Unlike Uphold, Coinbase only allows users to buy, sell, trade, and hold cryptocurrencies—not different asset classes. It was founded in 2012 as a way to trade Bitcoin and now supports multiple digital currencies, including Ethereum and Dogecoin.
Users can choose between Coinbase and Coinbase Pro. The former provides a user-friendly experience for those who are just starting out while the latter offers more advanced features as well as a higher number of trades and trade types like limit and stop orders.
Uphold is very transparent about its fee structure. Coinbase users, on the other hand, can’t access a fee schedule on the company’s website for the simple service. And there are significant differences between the two platforms. While trading using a bank account is free for Uphold users, Coinbase charges 1.49%. Trading fees on Coinbase are based on the size of the trade so trades of $10 or less incur a $0.99 fee while those between $50 to $200 incur a $2.99 fee. Coinbase Pro does offer a fee schedule on its website.
Where Is Uphold Located?
Uphold is a digital financial platform that allows individuals to trade and transfer various assets, including currencies, precious metals, and cryptocurrencies. The company is based in New York.
Is Uphold a Wallet or an Exchange?
Uphold is a multi-asset exchange—not just a digital wallet. As such, it is a platform that allows users to exchange and transfer fiat currencies, precious metals, cryptocurrencies, and certain stocks.
Is Uphold Safe?
Uphold is a safe trading platform to use. The company has industry standard checks and balances in place, including Know Your Client (KYC) verification. It also uses two-factor authentication. Other security measures include third-party due diligence, a bug bounty program, staff background checks, and routine auditing and system testing.
Does Uphold Report to the IRS?
The Bottom Line
Uphold’s multi-asset platform allows traders to exchange currencies, cryptocurrencies, equities, and precious metals. The company behind the platform highlights its commitment to transparency in security and fees, in comparison with other crypto trading platforms. However, it has fewer trading tools than some larger exchanges, which might deter more sophisticated traders.
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