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Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

nytimes.com

61–70 of 355 posts

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#61
post #46
post #24

I used to use coinbase but some godawful KYC/AML thing kicked in and asked me to send them a "selfie" of myself, which creeped me the hell out. I'm a US citizen, am not on any sort of list of prohibited people, and had already given them a photo of my driver's licence and my SSN -- and have had no issues with opening other bank/bitcoin-exchange accounts online previously. I thus switched to Gemini because I do not wa…

Wait what? Did they really ask for your bank login credentials? If so, approximately what date was that?

It asked me, yesterday.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#62
post #44

With the frenzy out there, Coinbase makes crypto currencies trading/investing/purchasing as robust and seemingly as safe as possible. This could be a signal, now that we have some reputable market players that crypto currencies are really just starting and there is a very high ceiling. Getting in before coinbase you had to mine your own (that party ended quickly - Butterfly Labs, cex.io for cloud mining etc) or be pa…

"As as safe as possible" - are you out of your mind?!

Going out on a limb but I think OP probably meant that:

1) They take account verification seriously and leverage best practices around 2-factor auth etc even going so far as suggesting you NOT use simplified solutions like authy.

2) Your "hot wallet" balance is insured from internal breach / external hacking / etc. Good to note it's not insured from somebody stealing your account credentials from you directly.

3) They store 98% of their total crypto balance offline with a physical system designed to minimize losses or attack vectors.

EG their insurance - https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/166237...

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#64
post #24

I used to use coinbase but some godawful KYC/AML thing kicked in and asked me to send them a "selfie" of myself, which creeped me the hell out. I'm a US citizen, am not on any sort of list of prohibited people, and had already given them a photo of my driver's licence and my SSN -- and have had no issues with opening other bank/bitcoin-exchange accounts online previously. I thus switched to Gemini because I do not wa…

It seems that this was in response to the people trying to game the system - fake ids, fake accounts etc.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#65
post #46
post #24

I used to use coinbase but some godawful KYC/AML thing kicked in and asked me to send them a "selfie" of myself, which creeped me the hell out. I'm a US citizen, am not on any sort of list of prohibited people, and had already given them a photo of my driver's licence and my SSN -- and have had no issues with opening other bank/bitcoin-exchange accounts online previously. I thus switched to Gemini because I do not wa…

Wait what? Did they really ask for your bank login credentials? If so, approximately what date was that?

At least for my bank, it used the same login popup many other sites (including Gemini) use.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#66
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what? Did they really ask for your bank login credentials? If so, approximately what date was that?

They use Plaid[1] to verify bank accounts using bank login credentials instead of micro deposits -- which reduces abandoned applications since you don't have to wait a couple days to complete verification. This is a very common thing for fintech companies to do. [1] https://plaid.com/

It's so bizarre to me that there isn't proper auth delegation in online banking. You should never have to put credentials for one domain into a form on another domain. Let alone banking credentials!

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use GDAX and a limit order and you can purchase for free. Easy to transfer between gdax and Coinbase.

If GDAX is better why use Coinbase?

Not better, just different. On Coinbase you can buy in one step and lock in a price before your bank transfer clears. You can't do that on GDAX. It's a multi step process where you have to deposit money first before you can think about buying. You also don't have to worry about slippage or different order types on Coinbase. It's all abstracted away for you and very simple.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#70

With the frenzy out there, Coinbase makes crypto currencies trading/investing/purchasing as robust and seemingly as safe as possible. This could be a signal, now that we have some reputable market players that crypto currencies are really just starting and there is a very high ceiling. Getting in before coinbase you had to mine your own (that party ended quickly - Butterfly Labs, cex.io for cloud mining etc) or be pa…

I've run into all sorts of bugs which made the site annoying to use.

1. My bank account has a 5000$ limit and my credit card has a 750$ limit. After spending 1000$ from the bank (which takes a week), I wanted a quick 50$ from my CC, but it said I was already past the 750$ limit.

2. When trying to recover an older account, the recovery keeps asking for my phone number but isn't sending me texts properly. If you say you lost your phone, you can submit id+selfie, but to get to that step, you need your phone??

3. If you reset Authy, it removes your Coinbase token, and tells you to contact their support. They're very slow as responding, and after a week, I was just told to use my phone number (which again, goes back to #2)...

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