Uphold Review: Is It Worth It?
Uphold Review
In this Uphold review, we will be examining whether or not the Uphold Card and the Uphold Platform are worth your time!
Background And History
Uphold was founded in 2013 under the name Bitreserve by Halsey Minor.
in 2015, the company rebranded to Uphold and, besides crypto, it began offering stocks, commodities, currencies, and metals.
As of now, Uphold serves 184+ countries, across 80+ currencies (traditional and crypto) and commodities with frictionless foreign exchange and cross-border remittance for members around the world. Since its launch in 2015, Uphold has powered more than US$4+ billion in transactions.
Uphold is a multi-asset digital money platform offering financial services to a global market. Uphold's unique ‘Anything-to-Anything’ trading experience enables customers to trade directly between asset classes with embedded payments facilitating a future where everyone has access to financial services. Built on a core of proprietary technologies and e-money apps, Uphold embraces a future where people and businesses around the world have access to safe, transparent, fair, and affordable financial services.
Features
- Quick and easy: it takes only 11 clicks/taps from signup to completing the purchase
- Customizable dashboard: it can be adjusted to the users’ preferences by listing necessary assets and selecting trading options
- AutoPilot feature: you can schedule recurring transactions and buy assets regularly
- Direct funding from a bank account or debit card: no conversion is needed even if you pay with a currency that is not a base one in the country of your location, plus, it's free
- Anything to anything: Uphold allows users to trade between assets i.e BTC to XRP (no other platform offers this and it saves users on fees). You can also send your currency and your recipient receives the transfer in crypto.
- No fees: no fees are charged if you deposit via crypto
- Educational materials and tutorials: Uphold has prepared a Cryptonory (a dictionary of crypto terms), open API to developed Uphold-powered apps and services, a blog with explanations for beginners, and a daily newsletter on the market known as Uphold Unboxed
- Direct funds withdrawal: funds are delivered to a bank, crypto exchange, or private wallet without intermediaries.
- Access to 7 blockchain networks: this is more than Coinbase offers
- Low Minimum Deposit: You can deposit and start trading with as low as $10
- Limit orders feature: Set up up to 50 orders in one go, no need to secure your balance
Fees
Uphold is not a free platform, it charges UK and European customers a spread for buying and selling cryptocurrencies.
Uphold's pricing model is all-inclusive. The price you see before your trade is the price you pay when you trade. Unlike many platforms, Uphold's prices are locked in pre-trade*, and no hidden fees between Preview and Transact are added.
Please check the rate you’re getting on the Preview page. Only confirm your transaction if you’re happy with the rate and accept the trade.
- Like most trading venues, Uphold displays the current mid-market price on their charts; when you trade, you receive the current bid or ask price depending on whether you’re buying or selling. There is always a small difference between the mid-market and the bid/ask execution prices: it's how order books on exchanges work.
- Uphold charges 0% deposit fees, 0% withdrawal fees, 0% trading commissions, but it does charge the spreads in every trade.
- Network Fees - are charged when you withdraw to external crypto wallets, are passed on, and may vary depending on network congestion.
Service Fees: Business accounts for the UK and Europe
Fees are agreed upon on a volume basis. Please discuss this with Uphold's Business Development Team.
Service Fees: Individual accounts for the US and RoW
Cryptocurrencies
- In the U.S. Uphold's spread is typically 0.8 to 1.2% on BTC and ETH.
- In other parts of the world, Uphold's spread on the majors is typically around 1.8%.
- Spreads can be significantly higher for low-liquidity cryptos and tokens including XRP, ZIL, OXT, UPT, DOGE, and others. Check rates at Preview before you trade.
- Coordinated market activity such as Wall St Bets can distort markets. All spreads are likely to widen beyond those listed during times of acute market stress.
Fiat currencies
- Uphold's spread is typically 0.2% between major national currencies such as EUR, USD, and GBP.
U.S. Equities
- Uphold's spread is typically 1.0%. For trading outside market hours, Uphold adds a small spread based on the stock's volatility. A clock icon will appear when the U.S. public market is closed. U.S. market hours are 9.30 am to 4 pm ET on business days.
Precious metals
- Uphold's spread is typically 3% on top of the bid-ask prices at Uphold's supplier.
Privacy & Security
Uphold protects customer digital currency by storing roughly 90% of cryptocurrency held in its reserves in an offline cold storage solution securely protected by a multi-signature process to ensure no single person has the authority to move cryptocurrency. The remaining 10% is stored in secure online servers to manage liquidity for Uphold's service.
Uphold maintains an insurance policy to protect against theft of cryptocurrency due to a security breach or hack, employee theft, or fraudulent transfer and may cover up to the total asset value stored in its offline storage. Uphold's insurance policy does not cover any losses due to unauthorized access to your Uphold account. It is your responsibility to use strong passwords and 2-Step Verification to access your Uphold account and to approve withdrawals from your account.
Digital currency is not legal tender and is not backed by the government and therefore not subject to Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) or Securities Investor Protection Corporation protections.
Uphold has taken steps to provide an even higher level of standard than most financial services companies for all of its accounts in order to ensure your account and your personal information are secure. These include:
- Account verification: Uphold, as a financial service adhering to the strictest security measures, implements Know Your Customer (KYC) controls. In order to safeguard its services from being used by bad actors, for money laundering and for the financing of terrorism and illegal activities, Uphold requires you to provide certain personal information in order to create an account and to go through a verification process in order to become an Uphold member and access its full range of services.
- Login protection: Two Factor Authentication is enabled as default on all Uphold accounts. When this is enabled, each time you log in, you receive a pin code on your mobile phone which must be entered into the system in order to complete the transaction. Uphold also implements time-outs and limited login attempts to improve security and enforce strong password rules, presented to the user on creation, and store the passwords using industry-leading methods to protect them. The use of strong passwords combined with its two-factor authentication safely and securely protects your account in a way that is second to none.
- Data Protection: As a licensed, global firm, Uphold is required to adhere to EU data protection requirements, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) in the US, the People's Republic of China regulations to protect personal information, and all local, state, federal, and International law to protect Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and any personal data collected from its members is done in accordance with the highest industry standards.
- Encryption: All the information you supply to Uphold on the site is transmitted via Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol.
- Processes: When you submit information to Uphold's system, the team follows strict security processes to prevent any unauthorized access to your data. Data can only be accessed by authorized Uphold staff on a strictly need-to-know basis. All Uphold employees have passed thorough background checks, including criminal record checks, as part of the hiring process.
Assets
For an updated list of all the available assets on Uphold, please follow the link below.
Uphold Card
At the moment, the Uphold Card is only available in the US.
The Uphold Card allows you to spend crypto, national currencies, and precious metals at more than 50 million merchants and virtually all ATMs worldwide. Anywhere that Mastercard is accepted.
A ‘true’ debit card rather than a pre-loadable card, the Uphold Card is far more widely accepted than many of its competitors.
The card brings a whole new level of utility to your Uphold account.
You can hook up your Uphold Card to bitcoin, for example, and withdraw local currency in more than 180 countries, benefiting from automatic deductions from your bitcoin balance without any manual conversion into USD.
Similarly, when you travel abroad you can use your Uphold Card and avoid the punitive FX rates charged by banks, which can be above 10%.
Last but not least: with the Uphold Card you’ll earn Crypto Rewards on every transaction: 1% when you spend national currencies, and 2% for cryptocurrencies.
Uphold Card: Features
- ‘Crypto Reward’ of 2% if you spend cryptocurrencies, 1% on national currencies
- Save a ton in FX compared with banks
- Physical and virtual card formats
- Change your PIN within the app
- Freeze your card within the app
- Spend any asset supported by Uphold
- Easily change the asset you want to spend
- Instant spending alerts
- Statements of your purchases, by type
Uphold Card: Costs & Limits
- How much does the Uphold Card cost?
One-off issuance fee: $9.95 - What are the Uphold Card usage fees?
Withdrawals: $2.50 (per transaction)
International Withdrawals: $3.50 (per transaction)
Domestic purchase: Free
Foreign exchange: Free of charge - What are the spending limits?
Maximum per transaction: $5,000
Maximum spend: $10,000 per day
Cash withdrawal: $1,500 per day
Cash withdrawal per transaction: $500You’ll be able to spend your funds as soon as they are available in your Uphold wallet, except for funds deposited via ACH (these take up to 3 business days to settle).
Uphold Card: When will the Uphold Card be available outside of the US?
The Uphold Card will soon be launching in Europe and in Latin America. If you'd like to be one of the first to get it, you can sign up to Uphold's waitlist now.
Uphold Pros & Cons
Uphold: Pros
- Well established company
- Many features available
- Solid platform for trading many types of assets
- Strong privacy and security features
- PayPal will become an available payment method soon
- New assets are added to the platform on a regular basis
- Available in many countries
Uphold: Cons
- The Uphold Card is only available in the US
- Customer support is very limited
- The spread could be lower
"Uphold Disclaimer: Assets available on Uphold are different per region. All investments and trading are risky and may result in the loss of capital. Cryptoassets are largely unregulated and are therefore not subject to protection"
"Uphold Disclaimer: Cryptocurrency investing within the EU/UK (by Uphold Europe Limited) and (USA by Uphold HQ Inc).
You should be aware that the risk of loss in trading or holding cryptoassets can be very high. As with any asset, the value of cryptoassets can go up or down and there can be a substantial risk that you lose all your money buying, selling, holding or investing in cryptoassets. Your cryptoassets are not subject to protection. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding cryptoassets is suitable for you in light of your financial condition. Uphold makes no representation and assumes no liability as to the accuracy or completeness of the content of this publication, which has been prepared by our partner utilizing publicly available non-entity specific information about Uphold."
Uphold Review: Verdict
After our Uphold review, we've come to believe this is one of the most solid and reliable platforms on the market.
Uphold is a one-stop for trading various kinds of assets, from crypto, to stocks, or precious metals, on top of that, it even offers a card with which you can spend your cryptocurrencies.
The mobile and desktop apps are very intuitive and easy to use, in them you'll find many features, all backed by very strong privacy and security features.
Uphold has a great team behind it, new assets are added every month, and the team is dedicated to bettering the platform as it goes forward.
As of now, the Uphold card is not yet available for those outside the US, customer support is very slow and limited, and the spread could be considerably lower.
If you would like to sign up for Uphold, follow the link below!
