Gemini Exchange Review: One of the Most Robust Cryptocurrency Platforms

Gemini is the rare crypto exchange that's equally suitable for beginners and advanced crypto investors. It offers a broad lineup of cryptocurrencies, a spectacular library of educational content, and plenty of other valuable features. Read our full Gemini review for all the info you need to decide if it's right for you.

This cryptocurrency exchange is a good fit for: Investors of all skill levels who want a full-featured cryptocurrency platform.

Top perks

Advanced trading platform

Gemini's default trading platform is easy to use and provides more than enough for most investors to buy and sell cryptocurrency. The exchange also offers Gemini ActiveTrader, a high-performance crypto trading platform designed for experienced investors.

Gemini ActiveTrader includes the ability to place multiple order types, such as market or limit orders, advanced charting tools, deep order book visibility, and more. It also has lower trading fees, so even if you're not interested in the features, we still recommend using it to place trades.

Looking for a place to buy crypto? Check out The Ascent's Best Crypto Apps and Exchanges

Gemini Earn

Gemini Earn is one of the biggest advantages the Gemini exchange has over most of its competitors. This lending program allows you to earn interest on your idle cryptocurrency balances.

There are dozens of different cryptocurrencies you can lend through Gemini Earn, including stablecoins designed to maintain a consistent value. The program also pays competitive interest rates.

LEARN MORE: What Is Crypto Lending?

Gemini Pay

Gemini offers the Gemini Pay feature through its mobile app. This allows users to pay for goods and services with their cryptocurrencies at more than 30,000 retail locations in the U.S. with QR code technology. Users can choose which cryptocurrency to use -- for example, you can choose to spend Ethereum (ETH) to buy dinner, but leave your Bitcoin balance intact.

Educational resources

The Gemini Cryptopedia may be the most impressive collection of cryptocurrency educational content any exchange has to offer. It has hundreds of well-written articles on everything from the history of Bitcoin to how non-fungible tokens (NFTs) work.

Mobile app

If you want to buy and sell digital currency from your smartphone or tablet, Gemini has an excellent mobile app. It's available on the Apple App Store and Google Play, and it has high ratings on both.

Gemini Credit Card

The Gemini Credit Card™ lets you earn crypto rewards on your purchases. It doesn't charge an annual fee or a foreign transaction fee, and it earns up to 3% back in the cryptocurrency of your choice. You can also switch to a different cryptocurrency at any time.

It's worth mentioning that like other crypto credit cards, the Gemini Credit Card™ doesn't quite have enough benefits to compete with traditional rewards cards. But if you're really interested in crypto rewards, this credit card is one of the better options.

RELATED: Check out The Ascent's picks for the Best Credit Cards.

Available in all U.S. states

Several cryptocurrency exchanges aren't able to offer their services in every U.S. state, especially those that pay interest on crypto deposits. Gemini's commitment to compliance means it can operate throughout the country.

What could be improved

Expensive fees on default platform

The biggest drawback with Gemini is its fee structure, at least for those who don't use its ActiveTrader interface. On the web exchange and mobile app, fees range from $0.99 to $2.99 for orders of up to $200. Orders over $200 have a 1.49% fee.

That's quite a bit more expensive than many crypto exchanges, as there are several that charge trading fees of 0.5% or less. Gemini does offer competitive fees with Gemini ActiveTrader. However, it's disappointing that investors who use its default platform get charged more.

Missing some popular cryptocurrencies

Gemini lets you buy and sell plenty of cryptocurrencies, but there are also some big ones that it's missing. A few of the more notable examples include:

• Cardano (ADA)
• Avalanche (AVAX)
• Tron (TRX)
• Stellar (XLM)

Those are all cryptocurrencies that have spent time in the top 25. If you're interested in investing in any of them, you'll need to look elsewhere.

If you want a larger selection of cryptocurrencies: Coinbase is Gemini's closest competitor, and it offers a much larger selection of over 200 cryptocurrencies. It also balances a beginner-friendly platform with advanced trading features. Fees are a bit higher on Coinbase than on Gemini, though.

If you want to trade stocks as well: Robinhood is primarily known as a stock trading platform, but it also has a solid selection of cryptocurrencies available. It's one of the best stock brokers and overall investing platforms for beginners, especially since it's 100% commission-free.

Thinking about Robinhood? See The Ascent's guide to Gemini vs. Robinhood.

Gemini is a crypto exchange that's available as a web platform and mobile app. You can use it to buy, sell, and store cryptocurrencies.

The exchange accepts fiat money deposits by ACH transfer from a bank account, wire transfer, and debit card payment. Withdrawals can be made by ACH transfer and wire transfer. You can also deposit and withdraw cryptocurrency funds.

In addition to its main Gemini Exchange platform, Gemini provides several other products for crypto investors. These include:

• Gemini ActiveTrader: An advanced crypto trading platform
• Gemini Earn: A lending program to earn interest on cryptocurrencies
• Gemini Wallet: A safe, secure wallet infrastructure
• Gemini Credit Card™: A crypto rewards credit card
• Gemini Clearing: A service to facilitate off-exchange crypto trades

Gemini also owns Nifty Gateway, an NFT marketplace. While many NFT marketplaces allow anyone to mint NFTs, Nifty Gateway is a curated digital art platform, so it's much more selective.

RELATED: See The Ascent's List of the Best NFT Marketplaces.

Gemini has different trading fees depending on which of its platforms you use. The default Gemini Exchange, which is the platform used by the exchange's web platform and mobile app, is significantly more expensive than Gemini ActiveTrader.

Gemini Exchange fees

On the web platform and mobile app, Gemini charges a convenience fee and a transaction fee on crypto trading. The convenience fee is a markup of 0.5% over a cryptocurrency's quoted price. For example, if Bitcoin has a prevailing market price of $10,000, Gemini would charge $10,050.

The transaction fee is based on the order amount as follows:

Gemini ActiveTrader fees

Gemini ActiveTrader uses a maker-taker fee model. Liquidity-making orders, meaning those that aren't filled immediately, are charged the maker fee. Liquidity-taking orders, meaning those that are filled immediately by an existing order on the order book, are charged the taker fee.

Fee amounts are based on your 30-day trading volume. Here's the full Gemini ActiveTrade fee table:

Gemini transfer fees

U.S. dollar deposits and withdrawals made by ACH transfer or wire transfer are free on Gemini. Deposits can also be made by debit card, but there's a 3.49% fee.

Cryptocurrency deposits are also free. Cryptocurrency withdrawals have either a flat fee or a dynamic fee depending on the cryptocurrency. Ethereum and ERC20 tokens (crypto tokens built on the Ethereum blockchain) have dynamic fees based on the network fees at the time for that blockchain. Other cryptocurrencies have a flat fee. Gemini Dollar (GUSD), the exchange's stablecoin, is the exception and has no withdrawal fee.

Gemini has over 100 cryptocurrencies available for trading. Its wide selection is one of its strong points, as it offers more digital assets than many popular crypto exchanges. You'll be able to invest in many of the market leaders, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana (SOL). If you're looking for smaller cryptocurrencies that haven't gotten as much attention yet, Gemini has plenty of those, as well.

There are a few big cryptocurrencies that Gemini doesn't offer, with Cardano being one of the most notable omissions. However, it still does a good job of providing a variety of cryptocurrency options.

RELATED: See The Ascent's Guide to Cryptocurrency Availability on the Top Exchanges.

Gemini sets a high standard for security, making it a safe place to trade and store cryptocurrency.

It stores the majority of digital assets offline in cold crypto storage, which means on servers that aren't connected to the internet and are difficult to hack. For the portion of assets kept in hot storage (online storage), Gemini maintains digital asset insurance. This policy insures against the theft of digital assets from a direct security breach or hack of Gemini's systems or theft by a Gemini employee.

Keep in mind that Gemini's insurance doesn't cover losses resulting from unauthorized access to a user's account. For example, if a hacker managed to get into your account and steal funds, insurance wouldn't cover the loss.

That's why it's important to keep your account safe. Fortunately, Gemini offers multiple security features to help with that. It requires that you set up two-factor authentication (2FA) and it allows you to create a list of approved withdrawal addresses.

U.S. dollars in your Gemini account are also protected. These cash deposits have the same FDIC insurance that many banks and credit unions offer, covering up to $250,000 per eligible account.

• You want a user-friendly platform with a great mobile app to buy, store, and sell cryptocurrencies.
• You want to earn interest on your cryptocurrency holdings.