CoinBase

 
Coinbase logo

CoinBase is a digital currency exchange headquartered in San Francisco, California. They broker exchanges of Bitcoin (₿), Ethereum (Ξ), Litecoin (Ł) and other digital assets with fiat currencies in 32 countries, and bitcoin transactions and storage in 190 countries worldwide.[1]

Contents

Coinbase Review

Coinbase is based in San Francisco and is not only a convenient platform for the exchange of cryptocurrencies, but also an electronic wallet. The company also owns Coinbase exchange professional traders GDAX.

At the beginning of autumn 2017, the number of users of the exchange reached a record level — 10 million people. Moreover, in recent years the client base increased by an average of 1 million monthly. Cryptocurrency wallets on the platform registered more than 30 million.

The platform interface is available in 9 languages, including:

  • English;
  • German;
  • Spanish;
  • French;
  • Italian.

More recently, the company introduced a new service — customer support over the phone. On the phone, the exchange employees will assist in such issues as verification, blocking access to the personal account, if there are suspicions that it is hacked, as well as increasing the limits. To solve all other problems there is a system of tickets.

The popularity of Coinbase market is evidenced by the tireless interest in the exchange from all kinds of intruders. So in September it became known that the banking Trojan program TrickBot included among its potential victims and customers Coinbase. It puts on top of the original login page in a fake account and, having acquired the data, removes funds from the user’s wallets.

Coinbase has attracted investments in several rounds. In may 2013, it has invested $ 5 million venture capital company Union Square Ventures. In December, 25 million came from Andreessen Horowitz and Ribbit Capital. In January 2015, the exchange attracted a record 75 million at that time. The most interesting thing is that at that time the New York stock Exchange, DFJ Growth, as well as major financial institutions BBVA and USAA invested money in the site.

In 2016, major Japanese investors Sozo Ventures and Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ are investing in the platform. The last round of series D funding of $ 100 million has already passed this year. After that, the investment cost of the site exceeded 1 billion and the exchange in the bitcoin industry became the first “unicorn”.

Coinbase History

Coinbase was founded in July 2011 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. It enrolled in the Summer 2012 Y Combinator startup incubator program. In October 2012, the company launched the services to buy and sell bitcoin through bank transfers.[2]

In May 2013, the company received a US$5 million Series A investment led by Fred Wilson from the venture capital firm Union Square Ventures. In December 2013, the company received a US$25 million investment, from the venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures (USV) and Ribbit Capital.[3]

Coinbase Internal Hackathon V1

In 2014, the company grew to one million users, acquired the blockchain explorer service Blockr and the web bookmarking company Kippt, secured insurance covering the value of bitcoin stored on their servers, and launched the vault system for secure bitcoin storage. Throughout 2014, the company also formed partnerships with Overstock, Dell, Expedia, Dish Network, Time Inc. to power accepting bitcoin payments. The company also added bitcoin payment processing capabilities to the traditional payment companies Stripe, Braintree, and PayPal.

In January 2015, the company received a US$75 million investment, led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, the New York Stock Exchange, USAA, and several banks, “apparently the first time any traditional financial institutions have taken direct stakes in a bitcoin enterprise”. Later in January, the company launched a U.S.-based bitcoin exchange for professional traders called Coinbase Exchange.[4]

In May 2015 there was controversy around reports on Reddit that Coinbase had asked a user to describe how they were spending their bitcoin; the Daily Dot reported on the matter, and received a statement from CoinDesk stating: “We don’t comment on specific cases, however, Coinbase is required to monitor activity on its platform in accordance with the Bank Secrecy Act and other regulation governing all money services business (MSB).”; the Daily Dot noted that CoinDesk is obligated to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act, which prevents money laundering, in order to operate as an exchange.

Coinbase began to offer services in Canada in 2015, but in July 2016, Coinbase announced it would halt services in August after the closure of their Canadian online payments service provider Vogogo. As of August 1, Coinbase’s Canadian payments provider, Vogogo, will be shutting down its payment processing business. When this occurs, Coinbase will no longer be able to support Canadian EFT transfers, Interac transfers, or the storage of customer CAD on Coinbase.

On 29 March 2016, Coinbase was listed by UK-based company Richtopia at number 2 in the list of The 100 Most Influential Blockchain Organisations.

In May 2016, the company rebranded the Coinbase Exchange, changing the name to Global Digital Asset Exchange (GDAX) and offering Ether, the value token of Ethereum, for trade on its professional trading exchange service.

In July 2016, they extended the support to their “Coinbase” retail exchange by adding Ether as only the second digital currency offered to retail customers.[5]

On January 17, 2017, Coinbase obtained the BitLicense from the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), which authorizes the company continuing virtual currency business operations in New York.

On March 2017, Coinbase received from the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) the approval to offer trading of Ethereum and Litecoin currencies in New York.

On October 12, 2017, Coinbase announced instant Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin purchases for users using a U.S. bank account. Previously, users purchasing through a bank account had to wait several days before receiving digital funds.

One November 29, 2017, Coinbase was “ordered to report 14,355 users to the IRS… all users who have bought, sold, sent, or received more than $20,000 through their accounts in a single year”.

On December 09, 2017 the coinbase app became the #1 app in the Apple App Store (iOS).

Deposit and Withdrawal Coinbase

After verification, the exchange makes it easy to convert the local currency into a digital asset. For residents of the United States of America and Europe are the available Deposit and withdrawal of money using credit cards. Before you can make money to the site, you need to link a Bank account to your account on the stock exchange. You can do this on the payment Methods page.

Here again, another verification of Bank data will be required. Once this happens, you can start buying coins. Later, you can withdraw money to your PayPal account — you will also need to link It to your trading account.

Exchange and trading

The exchange only works with three major currencies: Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum. They can be both bought and sold. To buy cryptocurrency, go to the trading page and enter the desired amount. Specify the wallet where the coins will be credited and confirm the operation by clicking on “buy Bitcoin”, for example, if we are talking about bitcoin. The sale process is similar to the purchase and takes place on the page “Sells”. To send the cryptocurrency to another address, press the “Send” button in the wallet, fill in the fields and confirm with the help of “Continue”.

Before buying or selling currency here on the website you can check with the online charts of the cost of bitcoin, Ether or Litecoin to see how profitable it is now to carry out such an operation. The price change is shown at different time intervals: both for one hour, day, week, and for the entire period of existence of the crypto-token.

Coinbase Fees

Coinbase charge fees ranging from roughly 1.49% to 3.99%, depending on your payment method, with credit card transactions resulting in fees at the higher end of the scale. Coinbase fees are generally lower than other competitors who operate a similar business model, such as Coinmama or CEX.

Currently, Coinbase only allows users to buy Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin, although it does have plans to add more currencies to the platform. In respect of ‘hard forks’ of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold, Coinbase have stated that they will only offer trading in these once there is guarantees in respect of security. Coinbase have stated that it will support Bitcoin Cash from 1 January 2018, although there are no current plans in place in respect of Bitcoin Gold[6].

In addition, Coinbase operates the GDAX exchange, which is intended to focus on professional traders.

Update: In February 2018, Coinbase starting supporting Segwit enabled Bitcoin wallets which enabled them to bring down the fees for withdrawals on the site.

Coinbase Pro Fees

Moving on to the Coinbase Pro fees, they are far more less than on Coinbase. Coinbase Pro fees range from 0% to 0.50% for taker trades, which is very pleasing in comparison with trading on Coinbase. However, Coinbase Pro fees are still quite high compared to the fees that most competing cryptocurrency exchanges have.

While Coinbase is a great trading platform for people who only start trading cryptocurrency, trading on Coinbase Pro is better for those who want to actively trade with lower fees and more advanced features.[7]

Products

Coinbase has two core products: a Global Digital Asset Exchange (GDAX) for trading a variety of digital assets on its professional asset trading platform, and a user-facing retail broker of Bitcoin, Ether, and Litecoin for fiat currency. It also offers an API for developers and merchants to build applications and accept payments in both digital currencies. The company offered buy/sell trading functionality in 25 countries, while the cryptocurrency wallet was available in 190 countries worldwide.[8]

Team

Founded the exchange Brian Armstrong (Brian Armstrong). In 2017, this 34-year-old entrepreneur entered the top ten most influential people in the world of business, who are less than 40 years old, according to Fortune magazine. Co-founder is also Arsam Fred (Fred Ehrsam).

In addition, the team at different times included such well-known in the bitcoin industry personalities as:

  • Dan Romero;
  • Adam Wyatt;
  • Olaf Carlson;
  • Daniel Hoffmann and others.

Took an active part in the development of the site and the Creator of the cryptocurrency Litecoin Charlie Lee (Charlie Lee). He held the post of technical Director for the company.

Is Coinbase Safe?

One of the perceptions of cryptocurrency among newcomers to the platform is that it is still risky to invest in. And although it is correct that there have been issues around cryptocurrency exchanges in the past (such as Mt. Gox),

How safe is Coinbase?
Coinbase is considered to be one of the most secure platforms currently available. First of all, Coinbase is US based and is therefore required to comply with US State and Federal law. This can be contrasted with some of their competitors that operate in countries that may have lighter regulations when it comes to such platforms. Coinbase has actively pursued discussions with regulators in order to ensure that they were providing an open and innovative financial system and the regulation of Coinbase is considered by some to have restored confidence in cryptocurrencies following the Mt. Gox collapsed (although other commentators have complained that Coinbase operates more like a bank, which, within the community, is against the fundamental nature of a decentralised cryptocurrency). In addition, Coinbase has received investment from a number of high-profile backers, including the Bank of Tokyo and BBVA, which boosts its legitimacy

When it comes to storage of funds, Coinbase is transparent about its methods. Coinbase segregates customer funds from company operational funds, with Coinbase stating on their website that any funds held on behalf of customers are stored in custodial bank accounts and, in the event of insolvency, neither Coinbase nor its creditors would have any rights or entitlements to such customer funds. In terms of its cryptocurrency storage, Coinbase states that 98% of customers’ cryptocurrency funds and stored offline, through hardware wallets and paper wallets that are stored in vaults and safety deposit boxes worldwide. In addition, Coinbase states that the remaining portion of cryptocurrency that is stored online is insured, and that in the event of a hack, customers will be entitled to receive any funds lost through this insurance policy.

Coinbase Down

Recently, Bitcoin price has been surging to new heights, seemingly on a daily basis. During these periods of extremely high usage, there has been some downtime for the site and the app which has been causing people to be unable to trade or purchase on the system. Unfortunately these are part of the growing pains of the service which is adding customers at an unprecedented rate.

Coinbase has assured it’s customers that they are working on the scaling problem – it is not a huge deal at the moment and has only seen a few hours downtime in total but we thought we’d mention it. This seems to be a common problem across a few exchanges which are all straining under the weight of soaring usage and new people looking to get involved in Cryptocurrencies.

See Also on BitcoinWiki

External links

References

  1. ↑ Coinbase Extends Bitcoin Access to International Customers
  2. ↑ Y Combinator-backed Coinbase now selling over $1M Bitcoins per month
  3. ↑ Coinbase Raises $25M Led By Andreessen Horowitz To Build Its Bitcoin Wallet And Merchant Services
  4. ↑ First U.S. Bitcoin Exchange Set to Open
  5. ↑ Coinbase is adding support for Ethereum
  6. ↑ https://blockonomi.com/coinbase-review/ – Blockonomi – Beginner’s Guide to Coinbase: Complete Review
  7. ↑ https://tradesanta.com/blog/trading-on-coinbase-exchange – Trading On Coinbase Platform 2021
  8. ↑ Bitcoin platform Coinbase expands to 13 European countries