6 ms·

Coinbase grew 15x in the past 3 months

96 points by barmstrong 13y ago

timmm 13y ago
And I still can't make a bit coin acquisition on the site...
blissofbeing 13y ago
Does anyone know the type of charting / dashboard software they are using there to display those graphs. There is also the "Add to dashboard" option which makes me think this is a SaaS product they are using in their backend.
- blissofbeing 13y ago
  Some quick investigation and I'm pretty certain its: http://www.statsmix.com/ http://www.statsmix.com/
  - tmarkiewicz 13y ago
    Yes, it's definitely StatsMix (I'm the founder and former CEO - we recently sold the business).
aneth4 13y ago
Coinbase has been a serious slug in the bitcoin space. "Most days we’ve been reaching our maximum amount of buys within an hour or two. Some fixes for that are in the works." Yeah, customers have noticed and moved elsewhere. The giddy "oh we're growing so fast we can't keep up" worked for the first month. Now it just seems incompetent. Top that off with all the complaints about execution-time pricing, where execution time is some undetermined time up to a few days out, transactions being endlessly stuck in the system, and delays in moving bitcoins and funds, and you've got a dog of a Bitcoin player. Sorry, these guys need to get it together fast and stop with the juvenile dismissive language for their very serious technical underperformance.
- Psyonic 13y ago
  Where else is there for US customers to move?
  - aneth4 13y ago
    Pretty much any exchange... I use Dwolla to MtGox. Not ideal, but beats the hell out of Coinbase.
    - baddox 13y ago
      Getting approved on MtGox is a major source of friction.
      - avree 13y ago
        You only need to get approved if you're going over $10,000 USD monthly. If you were doing that much in BTC trading each month, I doubt you'd use an unreliable platform like Coinbase to start with.
        baddox 13y ago
        Is that so? I signed up for an account a few months ago, and from what I could tell I was unable to do anything other than link my Dwolla account and read the instructions on how to submit photo ID to get approved. edit: I just checked. It's still the case. I cannot transfer money (USD) from Dwolla to MtGox without sending MtGox my photo id.
        deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
  - chime 13y ago
    If you just want bitcoins: Dwolla to CampBX. If you want altcoins: Dwolla to CampBX to BTC-E
    - 13y ago
barmstrong 13y ago
Just want to mention this is mostly due to increasing awareness about bitcoin generally (as opposed to anything specific we are doing). People are getting really excited about bitcoin, which has been great for us and the community generally.
- cyphersanctus 13y ago
  Do you have ways of augmenting your daily buy limits as a company? Or will your transactional capacity be capped at the rate you've been managing during the past three months?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  Well the lack of ability to actually buy coins via Coinbase is certainly something specific you're doing. I know personally a few thousand dollars were not sent to Coinbase because Coinbase simply cannot accept transactions most of the time. I'm shocked that months of running the service, and it's still very difficult to buy, and the only remedy is to try at specific times. It seems terrifically incompetent, despite the continual "we know and we're working on it!" line. At the very minimum, you'd think you'd email customers that attempted a purchase to tell them you have capacity open. Or let them reserve. Or really, anything but what you're doing.
  - barmstrong 13y ago
    Every time we add capacity, we max out again in a week or so. We are 3 people total, servicing 120,000 customers. We could start wait listing new users into the service, but there are many of them who get value out of the product as it is, so it doesn't feel like the right solution.
    - MichaelGG 13y ago
      I think the problem people have (including myself) is that the messaging around the problem is horrible. We see this error, over and over, with no solution, and a "we know" response. An update on the blog and emailed to customers, explaining how tens of thousands of people sign up per week, how you've upped your purchasing by 100% a week -- that'd go a long way. A note on solutions you've considered but can't implement would also be helpful in getting your customers on your side. People will be far more understanding if they're given a reason. Most of them want to see Coinbase succeed. I still don't see why someone shouldn't be able to reserve a purchase, even if for a 15-minute time period. Or change the limit per-account so that more people can get a piece.
pbreit 13y ago
Uh, is this extrapolating off of a one day peak? Given how inconsistent the whole bit coin market is, I'd want to see more than one data point.
- GigabyteCoin 13y ago
  The trend in that graph is incredibly promising either way.
  - avree 13y ago
    Promising in what way? It shows that Bitcoin is gaining more popular attention, which is translating into increased sales for Coinbase. The issue is that Coinbase has some serious flaws that make it immensely unappealing to any serious Bitcoin enthusiast. If you go to some Bitcoin communities and search Coinbase, you'll just see an endless stream of negative opinion. (Reddit search for Coinbase, first 5 results are complaints: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/search?q=coinbase&restrict_sr=on http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/search?q=coinbase&restri... The same search on bitcointalk.org shows similar results ) It'd be more promising if they showed returning buyer stats; i.e., those who bought a BTC and then returned the next month, let's say, to buy more. I'm kind of disappointed in Coinbase. I really hoped they would be a serious competitor to Mt. Gox, which would be a great thing for Bitcoin.
  - pbreit 13y ago
    Not to my eyes. After the early April surge, you could easily make a case that it's shrinking. At the very least, the peaks camouflage much slower than 15x growth.
noff 13y ago
but given that price of bitcoins has skyrocketed over the past 3 months, what's your actual growth in bitcoins being processed, not just dollar amount?
- TylerE 13y ago
  Largely meaningless. BTC, as currently used, is essentially a USD proxy, because just about every BTC retailer prices in USD, and then just charges however much BTC at the current(ish) exchange rate.
lethrowaway 13y ago
Gratz, guys. Big fan of coinbase and its ease of use. The only problem is, I feel like there is a limited lifetime value on any coinbase user, because as soon as you want to do more complicated trades, you need Mt. Gox or another trading platform.
aresant 13y ago
I'd love to see this data plotted vs the average Exchange Trade Volume over past 180 days: http://blockchain.info/charts/trade-volume?timespan=180days&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address= http://blockchain.info/charts/trade-volume?timespan=180days&... If you correct for that HUGE spike to 1250k in the CB graph it looks like CB is almost trending exactly w/the other exchanges.
bifrost 13y ago
Coinbase has really impressed me with what they've done and how they've managed growth. Its a tricky market, especially with the exploding popularity.
stcredzero 13y ago
Are they being DDOSed?
bredren 13y ago
I'm bullish on Brian, his team and Coinbase as a product. Given the recent high-profile flameouts, I'd rather see people disappointed they can't use all aspects of the service today than none of them down the road. Bitcoin is still early and I don't think that the market of products and services is outpacing the company.
Thiz 13y ago
The strong points of Coinbase are the ease of use and the merchant APIs. Keep polishing the trading part and you'll be in this for the long run and the biggest share of a billion dollar market.
slosh 13y ago
Oh I bet they did lol

96 points by barmstrong 13y ago

timmm 13y ago

And I still can't make a bit coin acquisition on the site...

Does anyone know the type of charting / dashboard software they are using there to display those graphs. There is also the "Add to dashboard" option which makes me think this is a SaaS product they are using in their backend.

blissofbeing 13y ago
Some quick investigation and I'm pretty certain its: http://www.statsmix.com/ http://www.statsmix.com/
- tmarkiewicz 13y ago
  Yes, it's definitely StatsMix (I'm the founder and former CEO - we recently sold the business).

aneth4 13y ago

Coinbase has been a serious slug in the bitcoin space. "Most days we’ve been reaching our maximum amount of buys within an hour or two. Some fixes for that are in the works." Yeah, customers have noticed and moved elsewhere. The giddy "oh we're growing so fast we can't keep up" worked for the first month. Now it just seems incompetent. Top that off with all the complaints about execution-time pricing, where execution time is some undetermined time up to a few days out, transactions being endlessly stuck in the system, and delays in moving bitcoins and funds, and you've got a dog of a Bitcoin player. Sorry, these guys need to get it together fast and stop with the juvenile dismissive language for their very serious technical underperformance.

Psyonic 13y ago
Where else is there for US customers to move?
- aneth4 13y ago
  Pretty much any exchange... I use Dwolla to MtGox. Not ideal, but beats the hell out of Coinbase.
  - baddox 13y ago
    Getting approved on MtGox is a major source of friction.
    - avree 13y ago
      You only need to get approved if you're going over $10,000 USD monthly. If you were doing that much in BTC trading each month, I doubt you'd use an unreliable platform like Coinbase to start with.
      - baddox 13y ago
        Is that so? I signed up for an account a few months ago, and from what I could tell I was unable to do anything other than link my Dwolla account and read the instructions on how to submit photo ID to get approved. edit: I just checked. It's still the case. I cannot transfer money (USD) from Dwolla to MtGox without sending MtGox my photo id.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
- chime 13y ago
  If you just want bitcoins: Dwolla to CampBX. If you want altcoins: Dwolla to CampBX to BTC-E
  - 13y ago

barmstrong 13y ago

Just want to mention this is mostly due to increasing awareness about bitcoin generally (as opposed to anything specific we are doing). People are getting really excited about bitcoin, which has been great for us and the community generally.

cyphersanctus 13y ago
Do you have ways of augmenting your daily buy limits as a company? Or will your transactional capacity be capped at the rate you've been managing during the past three months?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
MichaelGG 13y ago
Well the lack of ability to actually buy coins via Coinbase is certainly something specific you're doing. I know personally a few thousand dollars were not sent to Coinbase because Coinbase simply cannot accept transactions most of the time. I'm shocked that months of running the service, and it's still very difficult to buy, and the only remedy is to try at specific times. It seems terrifically incompetent, despite the continual "we know and we're working on it!" line. At the very minimum, you'd think you'd email customers that attempted a purchase to tell them you have capacity open. Or let them reserve. Or really, anything but what you're doing.
- barmstrong 13y ago
  Every time we add capacity, we max out again in a week or so. We are 3 people total, servicing 120,000 customers. We could start wait listing new users into the service, but there are many of them who get value out of the product as it is, so it doesn't feel like the right solution.
  - MichaelGG 13y ago
    I think the problem people have (including myself) is that the messaging around the problem is horrible. We see this error, over and over, with no solution, and a "we know" response. An update on the blog and emailed to customers, explaining how tens of thousands of people sign up per week, how you've upped your purchasing by 100% a week -- that'd go a long way. A note on solutions you've considered but can't implement would also be helpful in getting your customers on your side. People will be far more understanding if they're given a reason. Most of them want to see Coinbase succeed. I still don't see why someone shouldn't be able to reserve a purchase, even if for a 15-minute time period. Or change the limit per-account so that more people can get a piece.

pbreit 13y ago

Uh, is this extrapolating off of a one day peak? Given how inconsistent the whole bit coin market is, I'd want to see more than one data point.

GigabyteCoin 13y ago
The trend in that graph is incredibly promising either way.
- avree 13y ago
  Promising in what way? It shows that Bitcoin is gaining more popular attention, which is translating into increased sales for Coinbase. The issue is that Coinbase has some serious flaws that make it immensely unappealing to any serious Bitcoin enthusiast. If you go to some Bitcoin communities and search Coinbase, you'll just see an endless stream of negative opinion. (Reddit search for Coinbase, first 5 results are complaints: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/search?q=coinbase&restrict_sr=on http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/search?q=coinbase&restri... The same search on bitcointalk.org shows similar results ) It'd be more promising if they showed returning buyer stats; i.e., those who bought a BTC and then returned the next month, let's say, to buy more. I'm kind of disappointed in Coinbase. I really hoped they would be a serious competitor to Mt. Gox, which would be a great thing for Bitcoin.
- pbreit 13y ago
  Not to my eyes. After the early April surge, you could easily make a case that it's shrinking. At the very least, the peaks camouflage much slower than 15x growth.

noff 13y ago

but given that price of bitcoins has skyrocketed over the past 3 months, what's your actual growth in bitcoins being processed, not just dollar amount?

TylerE 13y ago
Largely meaningless. BTC, as currently used, is essentially a USD proxy, because just about every BTC retailer prices in USD, and then just charges however much BTC at the current(ish) exchange rate.

lethrowaway 13y ago

Gratz, guys. Big fan of coinbase and its ease of use. The only problem is, I feel like there is a limited lifetime value on any coinbase user, because as soon as you want to do more complicated trades, you need Mt. Gox or another trading platform.

aresant 13y ago

I'd love to see this data plotted vs the average Exchange Trade Volume over past 180 days: http://blockchain.info/charts/trade-volume?timespan=180days&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address= http://blockchain.info/charts/trade-volume?timespan=180days&... If you correct for that HUGE spike to 1250k in the CB graph it looks like CB is almost trending exactly w/the other exchanges.

bifrost 13y ago

Coinbase has really impressed me with what they've done and how they've managed growth. Its a tricky market, especially with the exploding popularity.

stcredzero 13y ago

Are they being DDOSed?

bredren 13y ago

I'm bullish on Brian, his team and Coinbase as a product. Given the recent high-profile flameouts, I'd rather see people disappointed they can't use all aspects of the service today than none of them down the road. Bitcoin is still early and I don't think that the market of products and services is outpacing the company.

Thiz 13y ago

The strong points of Coinbase are the ease of use and the merchant APIs. Keep polishing the trading part and you'll be in this for the long run and the biggest share of a billion dollar market.

slosh 13y ago

Oh I bet they did lol