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Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month
- ukd1 14y agoThis is awesome! Any idea what size of the market this is?
- mtgx 14y agoAbout 0.5% I think. Plenty of room to grow. And Bitcoin should grow a lot more, too.
- johnmurch 14y agoCrazy to think BTC have doubled in price since August. I wonder how many people are just buying up BTC and waiting
- jonknee 14y agoIt's not that crazy, BTC will continue to have wild swings like any small market with a fixed supply. BTC was worth more for a short time in June 2011 and then crashed. Another crash wouldn't be surprising at all. http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/chart.png?width=940&m=mtgoxUSD&SubmitButton=Draw&r=&i=Daily&c=0&s=&e=&Prev=&Next=&t=C&b=&a1=&m1=10&a2=&m2=25&x=0&i1=&i2=&i3=&i4=&v=0&cv=0&ps=0&l=0&p=0& http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/chart.png?width=940&m=mt...;
- sliverstorm 14y agoIt isn't that surprising to me, considering the payout for miners was halved a month or two ago.
- Dylan16807 14y agoDo you really think the price would change very much if the miner payout was raised or dropped by a factor of ten? Over half the bitcoins have already been mined; expecting the price to be based on the trickle of new ones is unrealistic.
- sliverstorm 14y agoIt may change eventually, and the exchange rate does fluctuate dramatically sometimes, but it has been shown in the past that the market value of bitcoins tends to stabilize around the electricity cost of mining.
- conroe64 14y agoSince the amount of mining is going fluctuate based on the potential profit, I'd say the electricity cost of mining is stabilizing to a factor around the price of bitcoins rather than the other way around.
- jzwinck 14y agoDoes this mean the total value of all bitcoins is similar to the cost of the electricity used for mining them? If so, isn't it worrying that so much electricity has been used because of bitcoin? I have often wondered if a currency could be constructed such that the mining would solve real computational problems, thereby doubling the value produced per energy consumed.
- sliverstorm 14y agoisn't it worrying that so much electricity has been used because of bitcoin I don't like it either, but you can't control what people do with their resources.
- vessenes 14y agoCongrats!
- Grovara123 14y agoI think Bit Coin is a fad... it will be replaced. Canada's 'Mint Chip' is catching up quickly and it is a superior product/currency.
- macavity23 14y agoIn what way is MintChip superior? As far as I can see, it is a system for cryptographically signing transactions denominated in existing real-world currencies (eg CAD or USD), i.e. it's not really a currency at all. Seems terribly inferior to me.
- gamegoblin 14y agoHow is MintChip a replacement for bitcoin? It isn't as anonympous and it isn't decentralized. It seems like they go for two entirely different goals.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- MacsHeadroom 14y agoI'm rooting for Bitcoin. But FYI MintChip transactions are anonymous. It is a digital form of cash.
- jontaylor 14y agoI feel the opposite. A friend and I put a submission together for the MintChip Challenge, mintchipy.com. My bigest concern then and now is that no one can use mint chip because it's not public. Coincidently I am working on another project now that uses BitCoin... Fad or not Bitcoin serves a very strong need for me an many others.
- cookiecaper 14y agofwiw I agree that Bitcoin is a useful prototype but I seriously question its long-term viability outside of a niche. That niche, however, may be sufficient to continue to sustain high values for a while to come. Bitcoin shows us some cool stuff, but it's not sufficient for real-world everyday use. It will be an ancestor to a truly disruptive online currency imo. The network has too many fundamental inaccessibilities to make it plausible outside the elite nerd and/or money laundering sector.
- nthitz 14y agoWonder how much of that is being spent on the Silk Road?
- pdog 14y agoOr the other vice, SatoshiDice[1]. [1]: http://satoshidice.com/ http://satoshidice.com/
- Djehngo 14y agoFor those curious about the SFW-ness of the link it's the homepage for an online casino site accepting bitcoin.
- px43 14y agoI never understood why people put money into satoshi dice. In my opinion, betsofbitco.in is way more fun, though admittedly slower paced. Similar to intrade.
- stcredzero 14y agoDrugs, gambling...get hookers in there, and you'll have a legit currency. ;) No, seriously, once a currency gets to the point hookers accept it, it's indisputable that it's real.
- gojomo 14y agoIf you wanted to make the 'Uber of prostitution', you'd probably find Bitcoin helpful.
- stcredzero 14y agoIf someone did make an "Uber of prostitution," and avoided being shut down/eaten by the law/established interests, they'd probably become rich.
- SageRaven 14y agoWe're close. Online cam performers are taking bitcoins for sessions/requests. There's at least one subreddit for this, though I can't recall the name, having stumbled across it with the /r/random page. It wouldn't surprise me if bitcoins were already being exchanged for escort service or some kind of "hookup" business via side channels already.
- robotmay 14y agoAny word on when they'll support purchasing from a UK bank account? Most of the other options are a bit more convoluted than the straight-forward system Coinbase seems to use.
- DanBC 14y agoI hate to "me too", but "me too". I'd love to be able to use coinbase but I'm UK only. I'm unlikely to get involved with Bitcoin until something like Coinbase allows UK bank accounts. (having said all that I'm going to be buying very small quantities of Bicoin.)
- jerguismi 14y agoYou might want to check out localbitcoins.com - our online buying process is pretty fluid, and we have lots of sellers selling for UK bank transfer. https://localbitcoins.com/location/GB/London/ https://localbitcoins.com/location/GB/London/
- devonbarrett 14y agoSecond these guys, managed to find a seller and complete the transaction in under ten mins! Although was only a small amount.
- zby 14y agoWhy Coinabase and not for example intersango? It used to be britcoin and has been around for quite some time.
- mtgx 14y agoThat's a good question. I'm waiting for Bitcoin-Central.net to support IBAN accounts before I intend to buy some Bitcoin myself, but it would be nice if Coinbase could do what they did so they can sell Bitcoin in Europe, and also though IBAN accounts.
- wcoenen 14y ago
- unix-dude 14y agoI think bitcoin is an extremely interesting concept, and the economics around it are equally interesting. I bought a tiny amount when the prices were around the $11 mark, and its insane to think of the price-shift. I made a couple bucks off the price shift, but now I'm honestly thinking that the price will fall back down. Despite serving the needs of many SR/SatoshiDice people, I dont think they're quite at the point of being honestly valued at $21 each. I think the fact that the price jump happened in (basically) a 12 hour period, coupled with the fact that bitcoin is traded as an investment very often makes me believe this is an artificial price jump. I'm no economics guru, but it just seems like common sense to me. Tons of people see a short burst and panic buy, this allows the sellers to ask consistently higher prices as many people panic buy (Lets face it, many, maybe the majority, including myself, in the bitcoin game, are amateurs when it comes to currency trading). Anyway, it'll be interesting to see where this goes, and I'll almost definetly be buying when/if the price falls to ~$12/$15, which really seems much more appropriate in my opinion.
- Jd 14y agoThe problem with all fiat currencies is they have no inherent value; it is all in the eye of the beholder. So what is an "appropriate" price is quite difficult to determine. Most currencies are driven by being effective monopolies wherever they are issued, so the market price remains somewhat stable. Even so, many professional economists have opined that the exchange rates even between major currencies are way too volatile. This is, among other things, because there is a whole lot of loose money floating around that can easily jump between currencies. We are probably going to see a lot more of this in the Bitcoin world, which I expect has a lot more volatility ahead of it -- somewhat ironically in this case, as the increased liquidity promotes volatility, since it becomes an instrument of pure speculation that was previously too difficult for professional traders to deal in. In any case, I also had the intuition around the $11-12 mark that bitcoin was a good investment, since the major hurdles around the security issues were probably ironed out, but didn't invest anything -- probably because deep down I'm a value investor and don't see a lot of value in driving speculation in something that doesn't have inherent value (despite the many interesting technical aspects to Bitcoin).
- 14y ago
- eeek 14y agoCongrats! Do you have any idea how this connected to the general BTC trends / versus specific to Coinbase?
- zokier 14y agoBut where are the bitcoins going? Are people actually spending over $1M of bitcoins on something else than buying back dollars?
- jswinghammer 14y agoWell for those people holding bitcoins might be worthwhile to them. The bitcoins never go anywhere in the same way that physical money never goes anywhere unless you bury it.
- nate_martin 14y agosilk road
- MacsHeadroom 14y agoNegative. Silk Road only accounts for about 3.4% of Bitcoin's total monthly transactions. (about $6mil right now) Bitcoinstore.com, BitPay's 3000 business clients, the dozens of casino/gambling sites processing millions of USD equivalent every month, etc.
- cointrust 14y agoBe careful with coinbase When they were trying to raise money as part of the founders club, they broke a few regulations: they originally were supposed to raise their set limit within 8 weeks and when they missed it they extended the time by 2 weeks and when they missed THAT they extended the timeline by 4 more weeks. At the end they only made their target by a last minute injection from may have been an insider. On top of that, they have NO policy on refunds for acts of god, hacking, or the government .
- cointrust 14y agoI just realize that my comment came across wrong. I am very interested in Bitcoin - I just want coinbase to come clean before I put my money and trust in them
- dmix 14y agoHopefully it's just growing pains. But transparency is critical for running a Bitcoin operation these days.
- toomim 14y agoWhat limit are you talking about?
- cj 14y agoI'm curious about the wording. Is "bought or sold $1M" equivalent to saying $500k changed hands?
- shazow 14y agoYou don't need to buy or sell from just other Coinbase users. It can be anyone. Coinbase doesn't have a huge market share yet, so it's even less likely. I think a fair way to read it is that $1M worth of transactions occurred of which Coinbase made some money.
- tcgv 14y agoNot necessarily. I while ago I ventured myself in the stock market and in less than a month I traded over US$ 150k in call options. How much money did I have? about US$ 2k, but I made over 100 buy-sell transactions that summed up to that amount. Unfortunately for me the strategy I was using wasn't profitable enough to outcome the transaction fees :(
- tocomment 14y agoSo I just bought 2 bitcoins on Coinbase (my first purchase congrats to me!) but it's been pending for 5 days and says it will clear today. My question, is how can they lock in the price 5 days ago for me. Are they selling me the coins 5 days ago and buying it on the market today? It seems like there would be a lot of risk in doing that.
- ramidarigaz 14y agoThey lock in the price. I bought 3 bitcoins for $48.48, and shortly thereafter the price jumped up by a couple dollars. 5 days later, there was a charge in my bank account for a total of $48.48.
- nbashaw 14y agoThey buy your bitcoins immediately with their own funds, then when your money clears 5 days later they get reimbursed by you.
- omh 14y agoThat means they have a net exposure to the bitcoin price (possibly quite a large one). From their point of view that's not all that desirable.
- toomim 14y agoExcept that, with the price rising, they're making money from that "exposure" on average. And they obviously believe the price will keep going up, because they're a bitcoin business, and believe in bitcoin. If the price stops going up, their company will fail anyway. And finally, perhaps you noticed that coinbase is processing thousands of bitcoin purchases now. So I'd say, with all that data, it's not actually that risky for them. If the price starts going down, they'll know it first, because they'll be the ones making the purchases. :P
- wmf 14y agoThe exchange rate has no effect on Silk Road. People will still want to buy BTC.
- jacoblyles 14y agoDo they have any plans to lift the 10 bitcoin per day purchase limit?
- nym 14y agoThey already did! You just need to buy a bitcoin, and wait 30 days. Coinbase does this to limit fraud.
- centro 14y agoNotice how their success is measured in USD.
- nym 14y agoInstead of what, gold?
- betterunix 14y agoInstead of BTC. You know, when US banks talk about how much business they are doing, they speak in terms of dollars. When Japanese banks talk about how they are doing, they speak in terms of Yen. The funny think about Bitcoin is that its success is measured in terms of other currencies, although that should not be too surprising since its utility is absolutely dependent on the existence of other currencies and on the existence of exchanges. Why might that be, you ask? Simple: everyone still lives in the real world, where taxes and other debts have to be repaid, and nobody can use Bitcoin for that. So any business that accepts a Bitcoin payment, even if it is an illegal business, does so with the intention of trading Bitcoin for another currency later.
- uwe_dushan 14y agoThat's because it's the unit of value that the article's reader is most likely familiar with. When you go on vacation you're most likely constantly converting prices in the local currency to the currency you're familiar with - that doesn't mean the local currency is worthless (if that's what you were implying). After I moved from UK to US, it was months before I stopped doing the mental arithmetic from USD to GBP.
- dasil003 14y agoWhen you move from the US to the UK you have to stop doing it immediately or you'll drive yourself insane.
- eitland 14y agoFor everyone out there who wants to pay bitcoins using PayPal I found a hack that worked (be aware: this might take sevwral hours the first time.) Buy Linden Dollars - Take them out in bitcoins. Simple but takes hours of waiting the first time to get verified etc the first time.
- nym 14y agoPaypal is always super expensive... I really recommend using cash at an ATM with Bitme: http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/from/bitme/ http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/from/bitme/
- nym 14y agoIf you have used coinbase, please write a review of it for us! http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/from/coinbase/ http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/from/coinbase/ If you want to deposit cash at a Chase ATM, you can do so with BitMe: http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/from/bitme/ http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/from/bitme/ ..and if you don't live in the united states, we have guides for you too: http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/in/ http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/in/
- nextstep 14y agoCan you explain how the BitMe Chase ATM deposit method works? Their website doesn't say a lot (just to make a deposit in their Chase account and save the receipt.)
- nym 14y agoYou go to their website, and say how much you want to deposit (lets say $100). They will give you a final deposit amount that is pretty similar, but different (e.g. $99.86), which allows them to identify your deposit. Once the deposit is made, they verify it, and if there are any problems, they will request your receipt.
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- nazgulnarsil 14y agoIn 2012 the bitcoin supply increased 33% In 2013 the supply will increase roughly 13% In another 4 years when the reward halves again it will decrease to 4% inflation. At this point it will be harder than most government currencies. (Gold inflates about 1.5% per year)
- tlrobinson 14y agoBut not to me :( "Unfortunately, we have decided to cancel this order because it appears to be high risk. We do not send out any bitcoins on high risk transactions, and your bank account will not be charged." I have no idea why I was flagged as "high risk", I'd be interested to know.
- MacsHeadroom 14y ago>I have no idea why I was flagged as "high risk", I'd be interested to know. Email their customer service and they'll whitelist your account. Of course they won't tell you why their automatic risk algorithm flagged you. But they will be helpful and make sure that you aren't flagged again. Their customer service is seriously top notch.
- slosh 14y agoHeck yea brian! killing it
- artificialidiot 14y agoI think it would be better to call bitcoin for what it is: entertainment for grown ups. Whether you use it get drugs, gamble, bet or speculate on some other place doesn't matter. It has become a game on its own right just like UO, WoW or EVE ... You can view it as game of a currency instead of currency of a game. It has intrinsic entertainment value, thus a commodity that can be priced in real currency. Nobody bats an eye when a mmorpg makes millions in revenues, nobody bats an eye when a gamer builds a four grands rig. Why should we care about bitcoin replacing real money now or ever? It is not like governments will readily hand over monetary control to its citizens anyway.