BITCOIN COINBASE PREMIUM INDEX
Is Coinbase paying more for Bitcoin?
The gap between Coinbase's price and the other exchanges', every day since 2015. It used to be worth watching.
Coinbase against the other dollar exchanges
Coinbase against Bitstamp and Kraken, on the last price of each settled day since 17 Aug 2015. Both sides price Bitcoin in dollars, so this is the honest Coinbase premium. Before Kraken began reporting daily closes the comparison is Bitstamp alone, which is why the line is made of one exchange for most of its length and two now.
Inspect and compare dates
Pick two dates to compare the gap, then add a third or a fourth to see the path between them.
| Measure | Change | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Gap vs dollar exchanges | 0.0038% | −0.0051% | −0.0089% |
| Gap vs token-priced exchanges | −0.0295% | −0.1262% | −0.0967% |
The last thirty days
Level with the rest
Over the last 30 days Coinbase has been level with the other exchanges that price Bitcoin in dollars, averaging 0.0015% below them.
Measured against Bitstamp and Kraken, on each day's last price, to 19 Oct 2026. Direction is stated in words as well as in the sign, because a gap this small is easy to read backwards.
Measured the usual way instead
Against Binance and OKX, the same 30 days come out at 0.0634% below them.
That is the bigger, more quotable number, and two rows down is why it is not really about Coinbase.
What happened to the premium?
The gap was real and it was large. It has not passed 2% on a single day since 2017.
6.5%
was the widest gap, above the rest in 2017
27
days that year passed 2%
8
full years since one has
Firms whose whole business is closing gaps like this one got faster and better funded, and what used to last hours now lasts seconds. We keep drawing it daily anyway: a number being boring is a finding, and the day it stops being boring is the day worth seeing.
| Year | Average gap | Widest gap | Days past 2% |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 0.2534% | 1.51% above | 0 |
| 2016 | 0.2978% | 3.79% below | 2 |
| 2017 | 0.5416% | 6.49% above | 27 |
| 2018 | −0.0189% | 1.61% above | 0 |
| 2019 | 0.0124% | 0.20% above | 0 |
| 2020 | 0.0111% | 0.42% above | 0 |
| 2021 | −0.0077% | 0.30% above | 0 |
| 2022 | −0.0110% | 0.30% above | 0 |
| 2023 | −0.0009% | 0.16% above | 0 |
| 2024 | 0.0001% | 0.15% below | 0 |
| 2025 | −0.0004% | 0.07% below | 0 |
| 2026 | −0.0021% | 0.04% below | 0 |
Why is the published number bigger?
Most versions of this measure compare Coinbase, which prices Bitcoin in dollars, against exchanges that price it in a dollar-linked token. When the token is worth a fraction under a dollar, a price quoted in it comes out a fraction higher, and that shows up as Coinbase trading below the rest.
The check is simple. If the gap were about Coinbase, only Coinbase would show it. Over the same recent stretch Coinbase sat a few hundredths of a percent below the token-priced exchanges. So did Bitstamp. So did Kraken. All three within a rounding error of each other, and all three agreeing among themselves to about a thousandth of a percent. A number every dollar exchange shows identically is telling you about the token.
That is why the chart above has two views rather than one line. The dollar-against-dollar view is the Coinbase premium. The other is drawn beside it and labelled for what it is, because it is what you will see elsewhere.
A price quoted in a token and a price quoted in dollars are two different measurements, so comparing one with the other measures the token as much as the exchange.
What does this mean for you?
Treat a live Coinbase premium reading with suspicion, particularly a large one. Check what it is measured against. If the comparison crosses from dollars into a dollar-linked token, most of what you are looking at is the token.
And do not shop between exchanges on this. A gap of a few thousandths of a percent is smaller than the fee you will pay to go and get it. The premium was a signal in 2017. Today it is a nice illustration of a market that got efficient.
Understanding
The Bitcoin Coinbase Premium
Where it stands today
Coinbase's Bitcoin price has been level with the other dollar exchanges as of .
What is the Coinbase premium?
The Coinbase premium is the gap between what Bitcoin costs on Coinbase and what it costs elsewhere. The idea behind it is reasonable: Coinbase is one of the largest exchanges that prices Bitcoin directly in dollars, so if its buyers were pushing hard you might expect its price to run ahead of everyone else's. For a while that is exactly what happened. In 2017 Coinbase averaged half a percent above the other dollar exchanges and was 6.5% above them on its widest day.
Why did it stop moving?
It stopped. From 2018 onward there is not a single day in our record where the gap against the other dollar exchanges passed two percent, and since 2023 the yearly average has been within three thousandths of a percent of zero. The reason is not mysterious: firms that make their money closing gaps like this one got faster and better funded, and a gap that used to last hours now lasts seconds. The page still draws it every day, because a number being boring today is a finding, and because the day it stops being boring is worth seeing.
Why is the usual version bigger?
There is a catch in how this is usually measured, and it is the reason this page draws two lines instead of one. Most published versions compare Coinbase, which prices Bitcoin in dollars, against exchanges that price it in a dollar-linked token. That comparison is dominated by the token rather than by Coinbase. We checked it: over the same three months Coinbase sat about seven hundredths of a percent below those exchanges, and so did Bitstamp, and so did Kraken, all three within a rounding error of each other. A number that every dollar exchange shows identically is not telling you anything about Coinbase.
Which measure should I read?
So the honest measure is the other line: Coinbase against the exchanges that also price in dollars. That is the one to read as a Coinbase premium. The token-based line is drawn beside it and labelled for what it is, because it is what most other sites are showing you and it is worth being able to see the difference.
What do the two views show?
The first view is Coinbase against Bitstamp and Kraken, which also price Bitcoin in dollars, so both sides of it are quoted in the same currency. The second is Coinbase against Binance and OKX, which price in a dollar-linked token, so it crosses two currencies and measures the token's distance from a dollar as much as anything either exchange did. They are never averaged and never drawn as one line.
The numbers
behind the chart
What does the current reading show?
Gap vs dollar exchanges: the latest reading is −0.0051%, on . The highest reading since is 6.4871% on ; the lowest is −3.7942% on .
Gap vs token-priced exchanges: the latest reading is −0.1262%, on . The highest reading since is 13.3526% on ; the lowest is −5.2981% on .
Daily readings since 17 Aug 2015. Highest and lowest cover every reading since then; month-end values use the last reading on or before that date. The token-priced comparison starts later, when the exchanges behind it did.
What are the latest, highest and lowest readings?
| Measure | Latest | Highest | Lowest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gap vs dollar exchanges | −0.0051% | 6.4871% | −3.7942% |
| Gap vs token-priced exchanges | −0.1262% | 13.3526% | −5.2981% |
How do the readings compare with earlier dates?
| Reference date | Gap vs dollar exchanges | Gap vs token-priced exchanges |
|---|---|---|
| 1 month ago | 0.0038% | −0.0295% |
| 3 months ago | 0.0030% | −0.0693% |
| 6 months ago | −0.0025% | 0.0260% |
| 1 year ago | −0.0066% | 0.0281% |
| 2 years ago | 0.0069% | −0.0122% |
What was the reading at each month’s end?
| Reading date | Gap vs dollar exchanges | Gap vs token-priced exchanges |
|---|---|---|
| −0.0090% | −0.0776% | |
| −0.0075% | −0.0241% | |
| 0.0094% | −0.1011% | |
| −0.0087% | −0.1747% | |
| 0.0098% | −0.1396% | |
| −0.0055% | −0.0523% | |
| 0.0100% | −0.0870% | |
| −0.0256% | −0.0049% | |
| 0.0165% | −0.1168% | |
| 0.0022% | −0.1661% | |
| −0.0138% | 0.0065% | |
| 0.0012% | −0.0463% | |
| 0.0024% | 0.0172% | |
| −0.0194% | 0.0006% | |
| 0.0096% | 0.0015% | |
| −0.0054% | 0.0280% | |
| −0.0001% | 0.0493% | |
| 0.0016% | 0.0159% | |
| −0.0045% | −0.0232% | |
| −0.0276% | −0.0557% | |
| −0.0007% | −0.0229% | |
| −0.0287% | −0.2419% | |
| 0.0253% | 0.0590% | |
| −0.0472% | −0.1412% |
Source: Maketo’s daily record of what Bitcoin closed at on each exchange. Reading for .