But only one specifically frustrated me so much. Coinbase, is the wallet that will not let you have access to "your" account and "your" coins whenever you want, they will not even let you withdraw money if you convert your coins into /$. In your most critical moments of investing, you have actually nothing.
I chose to have Coinbase as my main wallet, as I can buy and sell (or I thought) anytime Bitcoin/Ethereum/Litecoin.
Every damn time a currency is suddenly raising (has a bump) and there is sure it will again drop or it will be down and it is going to go up, Coinbase will NOT let you have access to your account! You are left to see in agony without any way to have access to something that belongs to you.
Coinbase isn't a wallet. It's a third party exchange. You don't control your private keys with coins held there, so it should come as no surprise that you don't always have access to your funds. This is particularly true right now when Coinbase has more traffic than they can handle. If you want to ensure complete control over your money, you need to hold your cryptocurrencies in a local wallet.
The way I like to trade altcoins: I keep everything in my airgapped PC or hardware wallets. When it comes time to trade into other coins, I use Shapeshift or Changelly to trade directly from one wallet and into another. That way, I don't have to worry about an exchange being offline when I'm trying to execute a trade.