20 ms·
Please invest responsibly – an important message from the Coinbase team
- dpiers 9y ago"Please invest responsibly" - coming from the company that lets people buy cryptocurrency with credit cards. This blog post reads like an attempt to preempt a lawsuit after the price of BTC crashes and people are stuck with rapidly depreciating coins because Coinbase's servers were too overloaded to process a sell order.
- ISL 9y agoThat is exactly what it is. It is informing Coinbase's customers that their resources are finite and that they cannot be relied upon to execute trades nor provide support in a heartbeat. It is important that they say this, as it appears to be true. PSA: If you're a Coinbase customer, and you have never made a withdrawal, are you aware that there are weekly sell limits, priced in USD, not BTC? It was a surprise to me. If you're sitting on a little BTC kitty at Coinbase that has grown large, do know that you may not be able to convert it all to USD on a single trade even if Coinbase has liquidity and buyers.
- maxerickson 9y agoDo they not lay out those limits in a clear way somewhere or had you not looked for the info?
- hobofan 9y agoI transferred my BTC to Coinbase a few years ago (because I didn't trust myself to keep my wallet safe), and this is the first time I have heard of this. To be fair my account isn't set up for withdrawal (no bank account connected), so you might be notified about this there.
- g09980 9y agoDeposit/withdrawal limits can be increased if you ask them (if you are a high net worth individual.)
- maxerickson 9y agoI meant something like https://support.coinbase.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2108820-coinbase-account-limits https://support.coinbase.com/customer/en/portal/articles/210... Which is a top result searching Google for "coinbase transaction limits".
- ISL 9y agoIt is a surprise if you expect Coinbase to operate like traditional trading platforms/banks. Those tend to have lots of KYC friction to make deposits, little friction to make withdrawals. I continue to be surprised that Coinbase doesn't allow instantaneous execution, if they really do have buyers/liquidity, and then allow the USD to sit in a cash account and trickle out slowly if necessary. I was similarly surprised that I'd have to set up a GDAX account just to place a limit order. Making what is essentially a forex exchange with market orders alone is fraught with uncertainty.
- ryanmerket 9y agoMy weekly withdraw limit is $50k... I have zero problems with that.
- mmsmatt 9y agoCounterparty risk is through the roof. I tried moving some prediction market contracts on US Election Day, couldn’t trade anything due to traffic volume. This feels familiar. Decades of technical and legal work went into our stock exchanges, the bitcoin bucket shops are a few generations behind. It doesn’t matter until suddenly it does.
- brianwawok 9y agoThis will help when CME and CBOE get their contracts launched, right? They can handle the real life traffic for such thing as crude oil. I do not think the bitcoin volume would phase them very much...
- readhn 9y agoBit coin is a tiny market compared to real markets.
- brianwawok 9y agoExactly why it will work much better when the real boys come in to town :)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- darepublic 9y agoKinda clever to reply to the downtime this way - shifting the focus for accountability from the Coinbase team to their userbase.
- vinchuco 9y agoWould it be better not to say it, rather than acknowledge the likeness to gambling of the btc speculation train?
- skybrian 9y agoSeems like the responsible thing to do would be to stop accepting new customers until the infrastructure catches up?
- matt_wulfeck 9y agoThat’s not how you make money.
- keyboardhitter 9y agoBut it may be a good way to not lose money.
- abricot 9y agoThat is kind of what they're doing right now. It's impossible to get verified for an account.
- Random_Person 9y agoI've seen this pop up a few times now... what verification? Coinbase hasn't asked me for any proof of who I am at all.
- grandmczeb 9y agoHave you actually bought bitcoin? When I signed up I needed to upload a picture of me holding my state ID to buy and sell.
- Random_Person 9y agoI bought a few ETH this morning. I linked a bank account, is that the difference?
- grandmczeb 9y agoWhat state/country are you in?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ericb 9y agoSo what does one do when you tried to verify, but coinbase shows this: Driver's License + Photo Verification Reason:Unknown response status: Every time I take a photo, I see "we're verifying your ID." Then nothing happens... Edit: Even worse. Their status page implies things are working now, but they don't. I found that I can retry the upload, but now it says "You have reached the maximum attempts for identity verification, please try again in 24 hours." Wow.
- Random_Person 9y agoI signed up earlier today and bought some ETH. Coinbase hasn't asked me for any sort of verification, ID, or photo. It says my transaction will take 8 days, but that's the only waiting I've experienced.
- thephyber 9y agoMonitor this page: https://status.coinbase.com/ https://status.coinbase.com/ Also, they've had verification problems on and off for months. Back when I did it, the app didn't work, but the website did.
- cgb223 9y agoDespite the sizable and ongoing increases in our technical infrastructure and engineering staff, we wanted to remind customers that access to Coinbase services may become degraded or unavailable during times of significant volatility or volume. This could result in the inability to buy or sell for periods of time. Despite ongoing increases in our support capacity, our customer support response times may be delayed, especially for requests that do not involve immediate risks to customer account security. You can read more in our Coinbase User Agreement. This is the problem they should be solving, not avoiding with blog posts
- linkregister 9y agoI agree they should solve the problem. It's pretty embarrassing. Do you think it might be reasonable that they do both? The time to publish a blog post is probably about 4 employee-hours, including management review. Getting more servers, provisioning them, adding them to pools, rebalancing, and deploying code takes more time and engineers.
- otp124 9y agoWell, interviewing competent, trustworthy people who provide valuable services to your business takes more time than server provisioning. I haven’t done the math, but I’d estimate I spend 20-25 hours of reading resumes, interviewing, and follow-ups per successful hire. And that’s multiplied by the 6-8 other people involved. Edit: Elsewhere I read coinbase said they would hire 400 support folks — so 25 hours x7 involved staff, x400=70,000 hours
- Cakez0r 9y agoI'm sure they're doing everything in their power to increase their availability. I like that they're giving a heads up to their users in the interim.
- xadhominemx 9y agoJust a wild guess but I'd imagine they're probably doing both
- 9y ago
- sillysaurus3 9y agoBy the way, you really think Coinbase's BTC is insured even after the massive gains in BTC's price? What do you think will happen if Coinbase's cold storage gets emptied? If you're storing your coins on Coinbase, you're doing it wrong. Get your coins under your control.
- blibble 9y agoseems unlikely imagine the premiums
- tedunangst 9y agoSome of it is insured (but unclear whether that includes cold or just hot funds). My real question is how the insurance is denominated. Does it pay out in dollars or bitcoins? Did their insurance premium just go up 10x?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- babaganoosh89 9y agoAll digital currency that Coinbase holds *online* is fully insured. The way they word it, only their hot wallet is insured which is ~<2% of holdings. They definitely like to make it confusing. https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/1662379-how-is-coinbase-insured https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/166237...
- thesehands 9y agoIndeed, no mention of insurance on the offline storage page: https://www.coinbase.com/security?locale=en https://www.coinbase.com/security?locale=en
- mattchristen 9y agoFWIW this applies to any coins you don't personally hold the private key for not just BTC on Coinbase.
- FLUX-YOU 9y ago"'Please invest responsibly' because we can't guarantee you'll be able to cash out. We may also say something is fixed when it isn't." https://twitter.com/briankrebs/status/939202667993272320 https://twitter.com/briankrebs/status/939202667993272320
- readhn 9y agoCorrection, should read -"please speculate responsibly". It's all speculation. Most retail speculators go bust.
- etr-strike 9y agoIf it’s all speculation, where do you suggest I store my wealth? The underlying characteristics of bitcoin lead me to believe it’s the safest asset in existence. It’s volatility is a result of people slowly discovering this.
- readhn 9y agoUmmm stocks, bonds, cash, real estate? Yes Bitcoin just like all other assets before that went parabolic will not end good. Storing your life savings in Bitcoin right now is a suicidal idea.
- etr-strike 9y agoCash is guaranteed to depreciate at least 2% per year. Real estate is incredibly expensive and only supported by the cheap debt that has flooded our economy. Bonds are just barely above 0%... they have no place to go but down unless you think negative rates are possible. Stocks are incredibly expensive using every metric available. The rules of bitcoin are well understood and no one can manipulate them. I’ll take my chances, thanks.
- readhn 9y agoPull up long term BTC chart. Step aside and ask your self this : is this a good time to buy this asset or sell it? I think most people are late to the party and will simply get burnt by the market like so many times before. It's going to be a good show for sure. I'm watching this develop with my pop corn ready.
- etr-strike 9y agoIf I sold my bitcoin, I wouldn’t feel any better storing it in any of the asset classes you mentioned. Everytime I honestly evaluate what central banks have done around the world, I always arrive back at bitcoin. It’s my safehaven asset. I wish you well with wherever you’ve chosen to store your wealth.
- peterbraden 9y agoThey take credit card for bitcoin purchases. Hard to believe that they are sincere in their desire for responsibility, like a booze company telling you to drink responsibly.
- vinchuco 9y agoDevils advocate: why not a casino blackjack dealer asking you how sane you feel about your bets?
- ythn 9y ago"Please keep buying our product but don't say we didn't warn you"
- unobtaniumstool 9y agoI think they have exactly zero obligation to keep people from doing stupid things with their money. Making a blog post about it is nice of them, but probably not necessary.
- willstrafach 9y agoIt would be insane to take credit cards, as people could just file a chargeback if things do not go their way. Are you sure about that?
- moonka 9y agoThey do. I signed up a couple days ago and moved a few bucks worth of bitcoin into a wallet, and it was showing a weekly limit of $400 to buy via credit card. Now I'm up to $750.
- overcast 9y agoThat guy that bought in at $19340 last night, is only down $4000 twelve hours later.
- jameskegel 9y agoAnd he'll by fine again next week. There are a lot of people who bought at $5000 a few weeks ago only to panic sell at 2900, and here we are less than a month later quibbling over the difference between 19k and 15k. Either switch your charts to LOG or zoom out until you feel better.
- overcast 9y agoThat's what people said when it went from $1100 to $200 for the next three years. No one has any idea where bitcoin is going to go, saying otherwise is nonsense. Only people with a glimpse, are the manipulators holding onto the majority of it.
- jameskegel 9y agoBTC may dip temporarily, but with the entry of institutional money, we won't be seeing near the dips you're expecting. I have been watching and participating in this ecosystem from the beginning, take it from me, it's not going anywhere. The only way to lose money operating in this market is to be reckless with leverage, or knowingly sell while you're under, and the same could happen for any asset.
- overcast 9y agoOh, ok. I'll take it from you.
- jameskegel 9y agoSo given how recent events have unfolded, how is your friend doing?
- paulcole 9y ago"Please invest responsibly" Pretty similar to the warnings lottery agencies and alcohol makers put on their products. I wonder if it's intentional? Kind of a wink-wink thing where just like lotteries and alcohol the unsaid next line is, "but it'll be more fun if you don't..."
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kristofferR 9y agoSlight sidenote, but this recent interview of Brian Armstrong (Coinbase CEO) on Bloomberg TV left a really good impression. He managed to appear both humble, smart and confident at the same time. Things a lot of people could learn from. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqF43uD3kKQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqF43uD3kKQ
- snake_plissken 9y agoTangential: on the way to work today I was pondering the economy after hearing about the recent unemployment numbers on NPR. These days I tend to think about what's going to be the downturn catalyst. Which got me thinking about the recent surge in crypto prices, and how much of it has been fueled by purchases using credit cards, home equity loans, etc. I hope it's not too disastrous in the end but I have my doubts.
- patsmith 9y agoTake your best guess when Bitcoin will fall of the cliff: https://twitter.com/BitcoinPlunge https://twitter.com/BitcoinPlunge
- 659087 9y ago"You may not be able to trade while we're down, but we certainly can"
- exabrial 9y agoIt would be nice if they supported u2f token
- 659087 9y agoMeanwhile, reddit is full of people talking about the loans they're taking out to buy Bitcoin because it's a "sure thing" that it's going to $100k.