Uphold is a crypto wallet widely used especially by those who use Brave as their browser.
In fact, for years now Brave has been collaborating with Uphold by allowing users to transfer BAT rewards earned in the browser to the Uphold wallet.
In other words, BAT rewards are accumulated on the Brave Rewards wallet, and from there they can then be sent to the Uphold wallet where they can be converted into many other digital assets and currencies
Summary
The exchange
In fact, one of the special features of the Uphold crypto wallet is that it has a built-in exchange that allows various cryptocurrencies to be exchanged.
Indeed, it is actually a full-fledged digital money platform, created to provide convenient and secure access to both traditional currencies and cryptocurrencies and other investments. The platform has more than 10 million users and publishes data on its reserves updated in real time.
At its core is a crypto exchange and wallet, with more than 250 cryptocurrencies and tokens, but only three fiat currencies.
However, it is still a centralized exchange with custodial wallet, so in this respect not particularly different from other crypto platforms.
It is based in Lithuania, where Uphold Lithuania UAB appears to be a legally registered financial company under license number 305967101.
The company
Uphold was founded in 2015, so it has been operating in the markets for almost a decade now. Up to the time of the beginning of the collaboration with Brave in 2019, it had collected about 1 million users, but perhaps because of this collaboration, it later grew to 10 million.
It was also reportedly the first ever financial trader in the world to associate a debit card with the wallet to pay using cryptocurrencies in the wallet.
Trading
One of the special features of this platform concerns trading itself.
Indeed, on Uphold there is what is known as Anything-to-Anything trading, which allows any asset to be traded directly into any other asset without having to make intermediate conversions. Since there are no commissions on exchanges it can be particularly useful because it makes trading easier and faster.
Although there are no commissions on exchanges, the company nevertheless imposes a spread on prices, which means that purchases are actually made at a slightly higher price than the market price. The spread, and not commissions, are the company’s source of income.
It is worth noting that in addition to cryptocurrencies, it also allows trading in precious metals and forex, and has a programmable recursive buying and selling function that can be useful especially for those doing DCA (Dollar Cost Averaging).
The target
As one might imagine, Uphold’s target audience is particularly small investors and retail speculators.
In fact, the platform is designed to be easy to use, versatile, and low cost, with overall fairly basic functionality. For example, there are Limit Orders, but it does not offer the advanced functionality that professionals require.
On the other hand, the advantage is that it can offer a very user-friendly user interface, without complex graphs, tables of numbers, and moving data.
Thus, it is also no coincidence that it was among the first to offer a Mastercard debit card that can be funded with cryptocurrency, since many users are indeed individuals who use its wallet to quickly and easily make exchanges and payments.
Interestingly, however, it does not seem to offer an excellent support service, despite the fact that the target audience actually requires it.
Security
One of the aspects on which this platform seems to focus the most is security. After all, the retail target is by far the most prone to theft or fraud, so in order to serve it, it is necessary to provide very high levels of security.
In particular, not only does Uphold require identity verification, but it imposes a very secure wallet login procedure, so much so that it is sometimes slow. The platform itself is fast, but logging in can be slightly laborious, especially for first-time users.
However, this serves to maintain a high level of security, which is very important as it is a custodial wallet.
Conclusions
For being a seemingly secure exchange, and certainly easy to use, it does not seem to have very many users. Moreover, many of these are probably Brave users who receive BAT rewards.
Furthermore, trading volumes are low, indicative of limited use, or with small capital. Then again, the rewards in BAT that Brave distributes are definitely small.
The news regarding the evolution of the platform is also not much, perhaps because over time it has been overtaken by more aggressive competitors who have been able to absorb most of the customer base. Moreover, being based in Lithuania certainly does not help the US market presence.
Since registration is free, there is no reason to discourage it, not least because by registering, there is at least a chance to see the very simple user interface to figure out whether it can be considered an advantage or not.
