How do you make money with Coinbase Earn?

You can put your assets to work through Coinbase Earn by staking your holdings, which pays rewards in exchange for the essential network maintenance made possible by your staked assets.

What is staking on Coinbase, and how much can you earn?

You can earn up to 12% by staking your assets, or holding them for a set period on the network. It’s similar to earning interest from savings deposits in a bank.

Are there fees for withdrawing money from Coinbase?

Withdrawals are free across all supported networks except Ethereum.

How safe is it to keep my money on Coinbase?

Coinbase is a publicly traded company and, therefore, subject to SEC regulations and oversight. While no platform is entirely risk-free, publications like Forbes laud Coinbase as one of the most reliably secure exchanges.

Can beginners make money on Coinbase, or is it only for experienced traders?

Novices and experts alike can make money on Coinbase by staking, trading and buying and holding.

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How To Make Money on Coinbase

March 24, 2025

5 min Read

Written by Andrew Lisa

Edited by Nupur Gambhir

Krakow, Poland, November 1, 2018, Bitcoin lies on dollars covering a portrait of the American President, the concept of the victory of cryptocurrency over paper money.

Bogdan Khmelnytskyi / Getty Images

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There are several ways to make money on Coinbase, including buying and holding assets, trading crypto and taking advantage of alternative earning opportunities like staking, yield farming and platform rewards.

Here’s what you need to know about how to make money on Coinbase, including innovative investing strategies and tips for success.

What Is Coinbase and How Does It Work?

A publicly traded company, Coinbase is America’s largest, most prominent, and, according to Forbes, safest and most trusted cryptocurrency exchange. It holds more than $300 billion of investment wealth in its custody and supports 240 digital assets and 300 unique trading pairs.

Members use Coinbase to buy, sell, secure and manage their holdings. Its user-friendly interface and diverse earning opportunities appeal to novices and experts alike.

The platform’s many offerings, products and resources include Coinbase Wallet, Coinbase One, Coinbase Advanced Trade and Coinbase Earn, all of which users can leverage to make money and build wealth.

Ways To Make Money on Coinbase

Coinbase offers a half-dozen unique ways for both beginners and advanced users to make money on the platform.

Buying and Holding Cryptocurrency

Many users apply standard stock investing strategies to cryptocurrency and use Coinbase to buy and hold digital assets the way they would use traditional brokerage accounts to buy and hold stocks.

Instead of buying shares of Apple, Amazon or Walmart in hopes of long-term appreciation, they might buy popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether.

There is no one right strategy for picking winners and it’s always possible to lose money — particularly with an investment as volatile as crypto — but you can mitigate risk by analyzing factors such as a coin’s market cap, historical performance, supply, trading volume and utility.

Trading Cryptocurrency

Some investors actively trade crypto instead of buying and holding for the long term. As with stocks, this is a higher-risk, higher-reward endeavor that most experts advise against for beginners.

Signing up for Coinbase and using the platform are free, but there are fees for buying, selling, or converting cryptocurrencies and for some withdrawals.

Active traders — including day traders and swing traders — can subscribe to premium services to mitigate those fees.

Coinbase One costs $29.99 per month and offers zero trading fees, priority support and increased staking rewards.
Coinbase Advanced Trade, formerly Coinbase Pro, is for more sophisticated users who trade frequently. It offers advanced tools, more choices and greater fee reductions the more you trade.

Staking Rewards

Even beginners can earn money by staking their crypto on Coinbase. Similar to a savings account or CD, staking involves holding your assets temporarily to support the blockchain’s validating mechanism in exchange for interest payments.

The service pays up to 12% and supports more than 130 coins, including Ethereum, Solana and Cardano. Your holdings never leave your wallet, you can unstake your tokens at any time and you can start with as little as $1. Coinbase writes that no staker has ever lost crypto on the platform.

Coinbase Learning Rewards

Coinbase incentivizes education by paying rewards for learning. Users who watch a video and complete a quiz about a specific coin get paid a modest amount of that token. For example, Coinbase will pay you $3 worth of SHPING and $3 worth of Near Protocol for learning about them and testing your knowledge.

Referral Program

Coinbase also pays rewards for bringing friends into the fold. The Coinbase One referral program pays $10 off your next month’s subscription fees for up to 10 friends for a maximum reward of $100. The friend gets an extended 30-day trial instead of the standard seven days, plus $10 off their first month.

Here’s how:

Navigate to Coinbase One home from the “more” menu
Go to your membership, then choose the referral entry point.
That leads to the referral dashboard, where you can share your referral code via text or your favorite messaging app.

Yield Farming and DeFi Opportunities

Also known as liquidity mining, yield farming lets users make money by holding their assets in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. In exchange for adding essential liquidity, the protocol rewards the user with tokens. The rewards can be higher than what you’d earn from staking, but the risks are magnified, too — smart contract flaws and value volatility can lead to losses.

Steps To Create a Coinbase Account

Follow these steps to get started using the platform.

Go to the Coinbase website or download the Coinbase app.
Select “sign up” or “create new account.” Register using your email address and create a password. Then, click the link that Coinbase sends to verify your email address.
Enter your personal information and confirm your identity by uploading a government-issued ID and a selfie.
Set up two-factor authentication (2FA) for account security.
Link your bank account or debit card to your Coinbase account.
Once your account is verified, you can begin using Coinbase and trading crypto.

How To Withdraw Earnings From Coinbase

When withdrawing funds, it’s essential to confirm that you’re using the right supported network first. If you initiate the transaction through an unsupported network, you can permanently lose your funds, which Coinbase can’t recover.

Supported networks include:

Arbitrum
Avalanche C-Chain
Ethereum
Polygon
Solana

Then, follow these steps:

Navigate to “Portfolio” and select “Withdraw.”
Choose “Crypto Address.”
Select your USDC network.
Input your USDC address and the amount to transfer and select “Withdraw.”

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