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Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

blog.coinbase.com

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Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#231

Post by giancarlostoro »

ewillbefull wrote: post #151
adrianmacneil wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be a silly question, but did you use your Coinbase account to conduct any illegal transactions? The team there really cares about customer experience, so generally if they are ignoring you it's because your account has some connection to illegal/banned activity, which they can't disclose due to ridiculous financial laws.

They only appear to care about the customer experience when someone complains on social media, until then they have a history of being jerks to their users. They closed my account after I made a (relatively small) wire transfer after not using their service for a while. The year before I made much larger transfers that didn't seem to concern them. Suddenly I needed to provide them with lots of financial information.…

What's really odd about this (to me at least) is I've never had such an experience from any of my real banks.

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#232

Post by danneu »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #221
adrianmacneil wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you conduct transactions on their platform, then they know the source/destination, notes, amount etc. AML laws require them to detect and prevent illegal activity on their platform (just the same as Square, Stripe, Venmo/PayPal, your bank etc).

Based on that information it would seem the only illegal transactions there could be (that coinbase could detect) would be transactions over a certain amount (illegal, where?) or transactions with banned destinations (I believe HSBC used to [alledgedly they don't, now?] process transactions for Iran, as well as other banned destinations.). Is there a comprehensive list of banned destinations?

I most often hear about people getting banned for using bitcoin gambling sites within a hop of their coinbase account. For example, withdrawing from Coinbase straight to "1LuckyB5VGzdZLZSBZvw8DR17iiFCpST7L" as an obvious example. Though they are smarter about it than just static "bad address" lookup.

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#233

Post by modoc »

kuschku wrote: post #219
bpicolo wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For credit cards in the US you virtually never use a PIN. Debit cards only

Well, even then. Require the customer to verify that he/she received the card in their online banking interface. Mark it as invalid/stolen/whatever before that.

This may seem foreign to most people here, but there's still a TON of people who don't do online banking or have an account setup/bookmarked for all their financial institutions online sites.

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#235

Post by Symbiote »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #198
drcode wrote: post #39

Just a reminder to Bitcoin newbies: This card looks like an OK product (still open questions about how much coinbase is gaming the ask/bid spread) but just realize that this card does NOT use Bitcoin, it uses "Coinbase Bitcoin"[1] which is Bitcoin for which the coinbase company is managing your private key: You only truly own Bitcoins if you own the private key for the account (users of MtGox learn this the hard way…

Well no you're not really using bitcoin, not even Coinbase bitcoin. At the end of the day the creditcard simply uses a normal credit card transaction, which is denominated in dollars and paid for by Coinbase, in dollars, to the merchant. All Coinbase does is 1) make sure you enough bitcoin to cover the transaction 2) sell your bitcoin to recoup the dollars they're paying on your behalf to the merchant None of this ha…

> creditcards are basically plastic sheets of text

Looking again at the site, there's no chip on the card. I thought the USA had finally introduced these — did I misunderstand something?

(All my cards have had chips for over 10 years.)

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#236

Post by spilk »

aianus wrote: post #180
spilk wrote: post #49

You don't have bitcoin if you just have a balance in Coinbase, so this debit card really has no connection to Bitcoin at all. No transactions will reach the blockchain when you use this card.

That's silly, that's like saying you don't have USD if all you have is a USD-denominated deposit checking account at a bank.

That's absolutely true, though. You are trusting the bank (and the federal insurance backing it) that when you want to draw your balance that you can. It's no different when you have bitcoin in Coinbase.

I just can't see a scenario where buying bitcoin with USD on Coinbase and then using a debit card to spend it in USD is better than spending USD in the first place. Unless you buy into the pyramid-scheme "it'll be $10000 any day now" nonsense, in which case you have no incentive to spend bitcoin anyways.

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#237

Post by r00fus »

lquist wrote: post #224
ewillbefull wrote: post #19

You can now use Bitcoin anywhere VISA is accepted, so long as coinbase doesn't close your account, ignore you and close all the tickets you open. Even if you painstakingly collect and compile sensitive documents for them to review, which was a gigantic waste of my time, thanks! I have for months encouraged everyone I know not to use coinbase and will continue to do so.

This aligns with what I would expect. I met the Coinbase founders and they were basically jerks.

In what way?

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#238

Post by Symbiote »

caskance wrote: post #158
kuschku wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? It means you need access to the online account, to the 2FA device, and to both letters to abuse the card. If the attacker already has access to the online banking account, then he/she can do much worse things anyway.

Different axis aka not security. The security is much better. But it's slow and inconvenient.

I opened an account at Metro Bank (in London), in a branch. They verified my id, then printed a debit card — this took about 10 minutes — and let me set its initial PIN in the bank.

I don't know if this is now normal in the UK. The previous time I opened an account in-branch was 2004, when the chip card arrived by post a few days later, with the PIN in a separate letter.

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#239

Post by joosters »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #221
adrianmacneil wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you conduct transactions on their platform, then they know the source/destination, notes, amount etc. AML laws require them to detect and prevent illegal activity on their platform (just the same as Square, Stripe, Venmo/PayPal, your bank etc).

Based on that information it would seem the only illegal transactions there could be (that coinbase could detect) would be transactions over a certain amount (illegal, where?) or transactions with banned destinations (I believe HSBC used to [alledgedly they don't, now?] process transactions for Iran, as well as other banned destinations.). Is there a comprehensive list of banned destinations?

Bitcoin addresses for darknet marketplaces are easily available - e.g. https://www.walletexplorer.com/

Perhaps Coinbase will turn you away if they see you depositing money on a drugs market?

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#240

Post by mbesto »

ewillbefull wrote: post #151
adrianmacneil wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be a silly question, but did you use your Coinbase account to conduct any illegal transactions? The team there really cares about customer experience, so generally if they are ignoring you it's because your account has some connection to illegal/banned activity, which they can't disclose due to ridiculous financial laws.

They only appear to care about the customer experience when someone complains on social media, until then they have a history of being jerks to their users. They closed my account after I made a (relatively small) wire transfer after not using their service for a while. The year before I made much larger transfers that didn't seem to concern them. Suddenly I needed to provide them with lots of financial information.…

But....did you use your Coinbase account to conduct any illegal transactions? You didn't answer a very straight forward question.
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