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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

#291

Post by personjerry »

adrianmacneil wrote: post #123
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 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.

I thought Bitcoin transactions were supposed to be private or something? How would Coinbase know if your transaction was illegal?

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

#292

Post by kudu »

mbesto wrote: post #240
ewillbefull wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Does it matter? In what world is Coinbase a judge, jury and executioner who can determine if a Bitcoin transaction is 'legal' or 'illegal' with absolute certainty?

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

#293

Post by unclebucknasty »

gknoy wrote: post #243
mbesto wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> I have provided them with more than enough information to prove all of my income is legitimate That seems like a roundabout way of saying, "No, I did not conduct any illegal transactions".

No. It actually seems like a concise way of explaining how coinbase has been deficient in the commenter's experience.

That the transactions were believed to be legitimate was strongly implied in the same sentence, which just required a little deduction on your part.

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

#295

Post by beaner »

statoshi wrote: post #226
morgante wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You only truly own Bitcoins if you own the private key for the account Do I only own my dollars if I have them in cash?

Yes. Otherwise you are just holding onto IOUs for dollars.

The bank has a legal obligation to fulfill those IOUs, which in practical terms is essentially as good as "owning" the dollars.

There is always the risk of a Bernie Sanders kind of scam, but it's rare enough and regulation is heavy enough that for the common person it's not a real concern, or worth worrying about. Coinbase is regulated similarly, though obviously they are young and have to continue to prove themselves over the course of decades.

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

#296

Post by exadeci »

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.

https://www.coinjar.com/ does the job but only in Australia. It's weird there is NFC payments on banks and bitcoin credit card here for a while now but everywhere else it seems new.

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

#297

Post by mirimir »

ewillbefull wrote: post #259
tw04 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy drugs with legitimate income. The fact he didn't directly say no the first or second time says the answer is probably yes.

That's a dumb, deliberate misreading of my comment and a ridiculous jump to conclusions. I have done nothing illegal. I said clearly that I made _one_ transaction (a wire transfer) and I said clearly that they questioned me on my income. Their concern is "where did you get your money" to which I answered them thoroughly.

I had no idea that KYC now has such onerous proof of income requirements. It's mind boggling.

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

#298

Post by manymany »

vkou wrote: post #126
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, except for the 2% merchant fee of course (that's passed along to all of us in the price)

Which you won't get a discount on if you buy with BTC. Meanwhile, I get 1-3% cashback...

merchant fees are significantly lower given that we're talking of a debit card not a credit card

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

#299

Post by FooNull »

largehotcoffee wrote: post #285

I cannot recommend Coinbase at all. I operate an adult comic book publisher and they shutdown our account without notice and gave no real reason for their action. All support tickets took 3 - 5 days to get a reply and it was always unhelpful. For a company like ours the whole appeal of Bitcoin is the anonymity, so our readers don't have to worry about buying lewd comics and having it show up on their statements. Coin…

Can you recommend something better? Can anyone in this comment section recommend a better service?

I'm an artist who wants to use bitcoins for nearly an identical reason. However, there have been two big limiting factors, which have prevented my supporters and artist peers from using bitcoin.

1) It isn't clear how they get money into and out of the system. - The artists don't want a bunch of 'bitcoins' that they don't know what to do with - The supporters don't own any bitcoins, and don't know where to get them. 2) They are afraid that bitcoin will crash and they will lose all their money.

It's easy enough to dissuade the fears about the second point by 'cashing out' right away. But what are the best options out there to allow the average user to put their money into bitcoin, and to allow not-so-technical users to get money out of bitcoin and into their bank? Coinbase is the only service I've found to 'easily' do this, so far. Even at the cost of my anonymity. :(

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

#300

Post by egd »

adrianmacneil wrote: post #205
egd wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point me to some of the consensus protocol work? That's always seemed to be the more interesting aspect of BTC to me, but the other requirements of the currency have made that harder than just the smart contracts alone.

https://www.ethereum.org/ and https://www.stellar.org/ are two interesting ones to check out.

Thought ethereum was basically the BTC protocol under the hood?
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