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Uphold Review 2024: Everything You Need to Know

Uphold launched in the United States back in 2015, before the insane cryptocurrency bubble of 2017. The platform initially functioned more like a traditional e-currency wallet, such as PayPal, but it’s since expanded to become a full-fledged cryptocurrency exchange with a portfolio of assets that includes numerous cryptocurrencies but also foreign currencies, precious metals and more.

Uphold also lets users stake certain digital assets to earn passive income in select jurisdictions. The company also offers the Uphold Card in the UK, which is a Mastercard debit that allows you to easily spend any of your Uphold assets wherever Mastercard is accepted.

Perhaps most importantly, Uphold has an extremely transparent proof of reserves that is updated in real-time and is easily accessible. We’ll take a closer look at the platform and its services in our Uphold review below.

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Uphold Overview

Uphold Exchange Logo

Uphold

  • The ultimate anything-to-anything exchange with support for foreign currencies, crypto, precious metals and more
  • Easy sign-up process with streamlined UI
  • Remarkably secure with proof of assets feature
  • Available to people in over 150 different countries
Funding Methods Credit & Debit Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Bank Transfer, Crypto
Cryptocurrencies 250+
Countries 150+
Terms Apply. Cryptoassets are highly volatile. Your capital is at risk. Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment, and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong

Uphold General Overview

Pros

  • Users can store cryptocurrency, precious metals, and fiat currencies

  • Uphold hasn’t faced any serious security issues since its launch in 2015

  • Unique security feature The Vault, which offers self custody solutions.

  • Innovative fee structure, which includes no deposit fees

  • Take profit feature lets users automatically take profit when it’s available

Cons

  • Not as popular as some competing exchanges

  • Identity verification required upon withdrawal

  • Significant fee for credit card deposits

  • Simplistic software compared to competitors

Comparing the Best Crypto Exchanges To Uphold

In this review, we will take a look at Uphold and see how it compares to other top cryptocurrency exchanges. One of Uphold’s notable features is that it allows you to trade fiat currencies and precious metals in addition to cryptocurrencies. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced trader, knowing how Uphold compares to its rivals will help you make better decisions when it comes to trading digital assets.

Crypto Exchange

Why Use This Exchange

Our Rating

Visit

Uphold

Multi-asset trading: crypto, fiat, metals.

Kraken

Extraordinary tools for pro traders.

Binance

Multiple trading options and low fees.

Coinbase

Excellent interface for newcomers.

Gemini

High security and regulation.

Uphold at a Glance

Users
1 Million+
Volume
Unknown+
Trust rating
high
Overall rating

Uphold Sign-up Process

Uphold is available on both desktop computers and smartphones, so to get started with this cryptocurrency exchange platform, you must either visit Uphold.com or find the Uphold app in your phone’s app store. When you begin the sign-up process, you will need to provide the following basic information:

  • Email address
  • Password
  • Enrolling as business or individual
  • Country of residence
  • Full name
  • Username
  • Date of birth
  • State or province

Like nearly every other cryptocurrency exchange, the usability of Uphold will be limited unless additional personal information is provided. Users who only provide the above information are limited to a lifetime transaction ceiling of $1,000. To remove this limit and gain access to additional features, such as funding your account via a debit or credit card, users must provide documentation in the form of a valid government-issued ID.

In most cases, Uphold is able to fully verify users within 24 hours.

What You Can Buy

Uphold advertises itself as the “Anything to Anything” exchange and the billing fits. Uphold offers not only 250 different cryptocurrencies but also a wide selection of fiat currencies and precious metals.

The precious metals (Gold, Silver, Platinum, Palladium) offering is really quote unusual for a crypto exchange the concept of swapping BTC for Gold or vice versa is quite novel.

Note that Uphold assets are divided into different tiers (1, 2, 3). Tier 3 assets are available for buy, hold, trade, deposit and withdraw. Some of the other tiers are more restricted.

Here’s a partial list of some of the most popular assets:

Uphold assets

Supported Applications

Uphold is available on most computing platforms. The cryptocurrency service is available on any computer via the company’s website, and apps are also available for Apple and Android phones.

The UI is quite modern and easy to understand although it does lack some of the advanced trading features you might find on the competing exchanges.

Fees

There are a large number of different fee structures to look at for Uphold due to the variety of different assets that can be bought, held, and sold on the platform.

There are no fees for depositing money onto Uphold, unless that deposit is made via a debit or credit card. It’s worth noting that you can deposit up to $2,500 per transaction using Google Pay in the USA, which is very high compared to competitors.

Most withdrawal methods involve a fee of $2.99 or $3.99. These withdrawals will also involve a network fee if they are made via a cryptocurrency.

Conversion fees for the various assets available on Uphold range from 0.65% to 3.95%.

Is Uphold Exchange Safe?

Uphold is considered to be one of the safest ways to buy cryptocurrency by many digital asset experts. Since launching in 2014, Uphold has maintained an exemplary reputation for security among its customers. The site is unique in the sheer amount of assets it offers — including gold and silver — and that might help explain why security seems to be so important to the company.

It also offers a solid proof of reserves program, which is one of the strongest security features that an exchange can provide.

Uphold also features a rather unique security solution called The Vault. The Vault is a subscription based service that lets users hold coins in a multi-signature wallet, which gives users the option of self custody. In theory this alleviates much of the problems with holding crypto on exchanges. It’s currently only available for XRP but Uphold has plans to expand to more coins in the future.

On the flip side there have been some complaints about Uphold’s customer service over the years but that appears to be getting better and the number of issues seems to have gone down significantly in the last year.

Uphold Vault

What is Uphold's Take Profit Feature?

Uphold offers an interesting feature on their app where users can essentially make profit taking automatic.

It works by letting users set up an automated limit order to sell a cryptocurrency they are holding when it goes up by a certain percentage (set by user). Of course the crypto actually has to increase in value for their to be any profit to be had but it’s an interesting way of taking emotion out of the dilemma of deciding when to take profit.

Here’s how to set it up on your own account:

  1. Tap option to ‘Take Profit’ when buying an asset
  2. Set the percentage increase in price at which you want to take profit
  3. You’re all set! Hopefully profit starts to roll in.

The Uphold Take Profit Feature

Connection with Brave

Uphold is the designated wallet provider for the Brave Browser. Even though Brave has a wallet built into the browser, you can’t send your Basic Attention Tokens to a cryptocurrency address from the browser itself, you can only tip through YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, etc.

In order to unlock your BAT from the advertising rewards, or earn tips as a publisher on one of the supporting networks, you need to sign up, and complete registration for an uphold account. For more information on the Brave Browser and Basic Attention Token, head on over to our guides.

Uphold Best Features

Here’s a look at some of the top reasons crypto users pick Uphold over other exchanges:

Proof of Reserves

With knowledge of exchange reserves and liabilities being more important than ever, Uphold’s long standing transparency regarding their holdings and obligations stands out in the crowd. They provide a live Reserve Status where you can see the assets in their reserve, their obligations, transaction volume, and number of transactions.

They even go a step further and break down those reserves and obligations into 10 categories. These categories include currencies for bank transfers, currencies to hold, exchange or send to around the world, crypto holdings, precious metals, environmental assets, and every other type of asset that is available on Uphold. Below is an example:

Uphold Proof of Reserves

Convert Anything to Anything

One of the most convenient aspects of Uphold Exchange is that you can convert any of their assets to any of their other supported assets from the same trading page. There is no need to enter different accounts or platforms to convert something like Bitcoin to a US stock like Apple. Simply enter what you want to trade and what you want to receive, and Uphold will do the heavy lifting. The fee you pay for the conversion varies by the types of assets involved and works as a price spread.

Uphold Card

The Uphold Card is a Mastercard Debit card accessible to Uphold Exchange users in the UK. The Uphold Card can be used anywhere Mastercard is accepted both online and in person, with no annual fees or activation fees. Those who are limited to the virtual card can add it to their Apple or Google Pay wallets.

The Uphold Card allows users to spend any asset they hold in the Uphold wallet, whether crypto, precious metals, commodities, or fiat. Any time a purchase is made using the Uphold Card the user gets 4% cashback in the form of Ripple (XRP), which can then be spent or converted to any of the assets available on Uphold, whether Bitcoin or gold.

“Terms Apply. Cryptoassets are highly volatile. Your capital is at risk. Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment, and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong.”

Vault

Uphold offers users of their platform a feature called Vault. It is an assisted self-custody wallet application, meaning you do hold the private keys to the wallet but there is also a subscription attached through which you can recover your keys and funds if you lose them. It is similar to Ledger Recover.

Vault allows you to keep full control over your cryptocurrency assets but gives you the peace of mind of being able to recover access if you somehow lose it.

With Uphold Vault, you can pay either a monthly subscription of $4.99, or a yearly one at $49.99. You get a vault key and a backup key, while Uphold also holds a key that can only be used to help you recover a lost key. 

vault private keys

The Uphold Vault application has the added bonus of being directly connected to Uphold’s trading platform, allowing you to trade any of the supported assets without having to move them from the wallet itself.

Currently, the Vault supports Bitcoin (BTC) and Ripple (XRP), but there is planned support coming for other layer one blockchain networks such as Stellar (XLM) and XDC Network (XDC) in 2024. 

Uphold Frequently Asked Questions


Yes. Uphold is a full exchange with a variety of different features including limit orders, precious metals and much more. It’s a complete platform.


Yes Uphold offers Apple Pay for deposits and withdrawals. Apple Pay is super fast and there are no fees related to using it.


Becoming a member of Uphold enables additional functionality for users and removes the $1,000 all-time limit on transactions. The process of becoming an Uphold member is basically the same as gaining access to a verified account at any other cryptocurrency exchange. To gain access to this level of membership, a form of government-issued ID, such as a driver’s license or passport, must be provided to Uphold.


Yes. Uphold offers a unique “any asset to any asset” feature where users can swap a variety of cryptocurrencies but also to precious metals, which means you can seamlessly trade something like Bitcoin for silver. It’s one of the killer features on Uphold.


Uphold offers a custodial wallet, meaning, they store the keys to your cryptocurrency. All of the assets held in an Uphold account are held by Uphold themselves rather than the individual user.


There are some features that are free of cost on Uphold (namely deposits and transfers between users); however, withdrawals and currency conversations come with fees, which are sometimes hidden in the buy and sell spreads.


Yes, you can sell Basic Attention Token (BAT) on Uphold.


For those who are new to the cryptocurrency space, Uphold compares favourably to Coinbase. The usability of the app interface is comparable to Coinbase, but Uphold generally charges lower fees. Advanced traders will still probably want to opt for another platform that can offer even lower fees.


Uphold plans to offer deposit insurance for its users, but there is no indication that this insurance is currently available. It should be noted that Uphold’s precious metals stored in various vaults around the world are insured.


Uphold is registered as Uphold Europe Limited in London, England.


Purchasing silver or gold on Uphold should be viewed as generally safe. The precious metals are stored in five protected and insured vaults around the world.


Uphold is (at least temporarily) not available in the following countries:

  • Argentina
  • Brazil
  • Dominican Republic
  • Ecuador
  • Mexico
  • Morocco
  • Nepal
  • Nigeria
  • Pakistan
  • Panama
  • Paraguay
  • Peru
  • Philippines
  • South Africa
  • Sri Lanka
  • Thailand
  • Turkey
  • Uzbekistan
Arthur Crowson

About the Author

Arthur Crowson

Arthur Crowson is an award-winning writer and editor who hails from the Pacific Northwest. His career began in traditional news media but he transitioned to online media in the mid-2000s and has written extensively about the online poker boom and the rise of cryptocurrency.

Uphold Exchange

  • Secure exchange with proof of reserves
  • Trade crypto, fiat currency and precious metals
  • Available in 150+ countries
Terms Apply. Cryptoassets are highly volatile. Your capital is at risk. Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment, and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong
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