GDAX was Coinbase's exchange for active traders. Coinbase renamed it Coinbase Pro in 2018, then shut Coinbase Pro down and moved its features into Advanced Trade, part of the regular Coinbase app. gdax.com no longer loads, and pro.coinbase.com now redirects to Advanced Trade.
If you had money on GDAX, it didn't disappear. It followed your Coinbase account through each change. Below is how GDAX started, what it offered and how it was wound down.
History of GDAX
GDAX's history is closely tied to Coinbase's. Coinbase opened the first licensed bitcoin exchange in the U.S. in January 2015 and quickly became one of the names that made crypto trading popular, in the U.S. and worldwide.
Growth brought its own problem: casual buyers and professional traders wanted very different things. Coinbase's answer was to give traders their own platform, and in 2016 its exchange became GDAX, short for Global Digital Asset Exchange.
A Platform for Professional Traders
GDAX was built for experienced traders, and not everyone loved it. BestBitcoinExchange.io reported that GDAX, aimed at "seasonal traders and expert users," got a mixed response, partly because "the interface of GDAX is not as simple as many other cryptocurrency exchanges out there."
Besides bitcoin, GDAX offered trading in Litecoin and Ether, against U.S. dollars, euros and British pounds, and later added Bitcoin Cash. Traders could pair one cryptocurrency against another (bitcoin for Ether, say) or against a fiat currency (Ether for U.S. dollars).
GDAX was popular. At one point it tweeted: "A new all-time high in daily volume! Over $650 million of $BTC, $ETH, and $LTC have been traded in the past 24 hours."
The Maker-Taker Fee Model
GDAX charged fees using the maker-taker model. As Investopedia explains it, "Orders generating liquidity (maker orders) are charged fees at a different rate than those which take liquidity (taker orders)." The same source notes that "cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals can be done for free, and there are no fees for either maintaining a GDAX account or for holding funds in an account."
Traders could also set orders that executed automatically when the market hit a set price: buy if a coin fell to a certain level, or sell if it rose to one.
Those automatic orders were at the center of GDAX's most famous day. On June 21, 2017, a multimillion-dollar sell order crashed the price of Ether on GDAX from about $319 to 10 cents in seconds, triggering a cascade of stop and margin orders. Coinbase honored the trades and said it would credit customers whose orders had been triggered by the crash.
Security
GDAX benefited from Coinbase's security setup. Coinbase said at the time that "98% of customer funds are stored offline" and that "sensitive data that would normally reside on our servers is disconnected entirely from the internet." It also said all employees passed a criminal background check before being hired.
Coinbase also said that U.S. customers' dollar balances were held in bank accounts eligible for FDIC insurance, up to $250,000 per customer. That covered cash, not crypto.
GDAX Becomes Coinbase Pro
In May 2018, Coinbase announced that GDAX would become Coinbase Pro, calling it "an evolution of GDAX, specifically designed for individual crypto traders." Coinbase added that "GDAX helped us discover the active crypto trader, and realize that this new type of customer requires a platform tailored to their needs."
For GDAX customers, the switch was automatic: "All transactions and balances from GDAX will automatically appear in Coinbase Pro." Coinbase Pro also added a portfolio view called "My Wallets" showing balances and orders in one place.
At the same time, Coinbase bought Paradex, an Ethereum trading startup. As Forbes's Michael del Castillo wrote, "Paradex lets users 'relay' cryptocurrency directly to one another without a third party ever needing to custody the token."
For a while, gdax.com redirected to pro.coinbase.com. That redirect later stopped working, and gdax.com no longer loads at all.
Coinbase Pro Shuts Down
Coinbase Pro lasted about four years. In June 2022, Coinbase announced it would phase Pro out and move its features into Advanced Trade, a trading mode inside the main Coinbase app. Its reasoning was that running two products meant duplicated features and made users move money back and forth between them.
Advanced Trade kept what traders used Pro for, including order books, charts and volume-based maker-taker fees. Coinbase has since retired Coinbase Pro entirely, and pro.coinbase.com now redirects to Advanced Trade on coinbase.com.
Where Did My GDAX or Coinbase Pro Money Go?
Into your regular Coinbase account. GDAX balances moved to Coinbase Pro in 2018, and Coinbase moved Coinbase Pro balances into the main Coinbase account when it shut Pro down. Coinbase Pro always used your Coinbase login, so sign in at coinbase.com with the same email.
If you can't get into that account (old email, lost two-factor device, forgotten password), use Coinbase's own account recovery through its official help site. That has to go through Coinbase, because Coinbase holds the funds. We can't recover exchange accounts, and nobody outside Coinbase can.
Be careful what you click. Search for "Coinbase Pro login" today and you'll find look-alike pages hosted on Google Sites, course platforms and other free hosts, posing as official login guides for a product that no longer exists. Coinbase Pro doesn't have its own login anymore, so any page asking for your Coinbase password or recovery code under that name is a phishing page. We break down how these scams usually reach people in our guides to Coinbase scam emails and Coinbase scam texts.
Coinbase vs. Coinbase Wallet
Coinbase also makes a separate self-custody app, Coinbase Wallet, and the two are easy to mix up. GDAX and Coinbase Pro money sits in your Coinbase exchange account. Coinbase Wallet holds keys you control yourself, protected by a recovery phrase and, in the browser extension, a password. Our Coinbase vs. Coinbase Wallet guide explains the difference.
If your problem is a Coinbase Wallet browser extension you can't unlock, that's the kind of case we take. See how to recover a Coinbase Wallet password, or what to do about a lost Coinbase Wallet recovery phrase.
Frequently asked questions
Is GDAX still around? No. GDAX became Coinbase Pro in May 2018, and Coinbase later shut Coinbase Pro down and replaced it with Advanced Trade inside the main Coinbase app. gdax.com no longer loads.
What happened to Coinbase Pro? Coinbase announced in June 2022 that it would phase Coinbase Pro out and move its features into Advanced Trade. Pro has since been retired, and pro.coinbase.com redirects to Advanced Trade on coinbase.com.
I had money on GDAX. Where is it now? In your regular Coinbase account. Balances moved from GDAX to Coinbase Pro in 2018, and from Coinbase Pro to the main Coinbase account when Pro shut down. Sign in at coinbase.com with the same email you used for GDAX.
Is there still a Coinbase Pro login? No. Pro used your Coinbase login, and it now opens Advanced Trade. Pages offering a "Coinbase Pro login" are often phishing sites, so go to coinbase.com directly.
Can Crypto Asset Recovery get into my old Coinbase account? No. Coinbase holds the funds in exchange accounts, so only Coinbase's own account recovery can restore access. We recover passwords and recovery phrases for self-custody wallets, such as the Coinbase Wallet browser extension.
