
Coinbase is a hot mess - tim_sw
https://glennchan.wordpress.com/2018/02/28/coinbase-is-a-hot-mess-plus-mongodb-bank-of-nova-scotia-mcb-and-others/
======
united893
The author here is clearly biased, having publicly declared blockchain to be
useless [0] and having made bets against crypto [1][2]. It seems like his
motivation here is to smear Coinbase for issues incurred by their payment
processor.

[0] - [https://glennchan.wordpress.com/2018/02/20/blockchain-is-
a-u...](https://glennchan.wordpress.com/2018/02/20/blockchain-is-a-useless-
technology/)

[1] - [https://glennchan.wordpress.com/2018/02/09/betting-
against-t...](https://glennchan.wordpress.com/2018/02/09/betting-against-the-
cryptocurrency-bubble-via-and/)

[2] - [https://glennchan.wordpress.com/2018/02/02/some-ways-to-
shor...](https://glennchan.wordpress.com/2018/02/02/some-ways-to-short-
bitcoin/)

~~~
richmarr
Just to be clear, those are ad hominem attacks... it'd be more useful to
address the actual points made

~~~
lostmsu
He did mention payment processor issues.

~~~
richmarr
I'm not sure blaming a supplier after a stream of ad hominems qualifies as
addressing the actual issues.

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envy2
I'm not quite sure why this is trending, as it feels more than a bit like
conspiracy mongering: "one of the world’s most popular and reputable exchanges
is borrowing money from consumers (without their permission) to stave off a
liquidity crisis."

Really? Payment processor troubles and an increase in complaints, especially
amidst rapid growth and volatility combined with growing interest in
cryptocurrencies from largely uniformed consumers, doesn't obviously strike me
as a sign of malicious behaviour. Lots of weighty allegations, but no real
evidence. All legitimate signs I've seen point to Coinbase being one of the
only reputable and law-abiding exchanges in the business, with recent backing
from major VCs and banks who would not abide by the type of shadiness this
blogger suggests.

(I say this as someone with no skin in the game: I have no ties to any
cryptocurrency businesses, and possess a grand total of 0.073 BTC.)

------
asciimo
No one has mentioned it yet, so here it is. If you don't control your private
keys, you don't control your bitcoin (or other cryptocurrency). Hardware
wallets are easy to use. Of course you still have to physically secure
hardware wallets, but at least you're in complete control of screwing that up.

------
njarboe
I have been trying to get a low 4 figure amount of money transferred from my
Coinbase/GDAX account to some bank account I control since January 27th. The
first one failed because the first name on my 25 year old bank account was my
nickname and not my official legal name. Ok, fine. After 9-11 we all need to
make sure that our names are all the same everywhere and never change. But
this has never been a problem for me before.

Then the transfer to my other bank account also failed. I can't say for sure
why, as they never tell you what the problem is specifically, but I think it
is because my other bank account does not have my middle name. First and last
name match exactly. On further inspection, the Coinbase site has Legal Name
with only two boxes and my first and middle name are put in the first box.
Does this mean my first name has been incorrectly entered by Coinbase?

Also, giving my banking account name and password is not something I have done
for any other site online ever. If I knew that was required for transferring
funds to my checking account, I would have likely not have signed up.

Hopfully this gets cleared up at some point. Now that the price of bitcoin is
not skyrocketing, they should have some slowdown in new accounts and can catch
up a bit on the service side.

------
muzakthings
This guy needs to take a Stats 101 class. Taking a biased sample of Reddit
posts and claiming that it must equate a liquidity crisis at the world's
largest crypto exchange? Please.

80% of the problems Coinbase and every other exchange has are dealing with
"Finance 1.0" banks & payment processors who still move funds around by having
their employees manually type in numbers and sending transfer records via FTP.
Seriously.

In a sense, Coinbase and other exchanges are moving money out of the
traditional (fragmented) banking system and into a digital one. That takes
friction and dealing with fragmented systems.

And personally I'd trust Coinbase over any of the other ones any day of the
week. Have you dealt with Kraken/Poloniex/etc? Terrifying.

------
dirkdk
Integrating payment is one of the most complex work to be done and operate, so
yes this will fail every once in a while. In particular across different banks
in the world. Coinbase must have grown 10-50x times last year so yes keeping
your systems performant will be hard. Are you trying to go short on Coinbase?

~~~
tachyoff
> ...this sill fail every once in a while.

Nah, it rains in the desert once in a while. Coinbase seems to fail so much
you could set your watch by it. Day in and day out I see the publicity
nightmare unfolding and I ask myself: "Why on earth would someone still use
Coinbase?" I'm fiercely curious to see what happens to them in the next few
years because honestly, if they don't close up shop on their own, I kind of
hope the SEC does it for them. Incompetence is not an excuse to screw up this
badly.

~~~
hkmurakami
Their competitors need to up their marketing game and user onboarding.

It took me about 4 weeks to get approved on Gemini which is just unacceptably
long.

------
RyanShook
How likely is it that Coinbase has blown through their latest $100m funding
round in under a year?
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/coinbase#section-
fun...](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/coinbase#section-funding-
rounds)

~~~
dirkdk
They did a billion in revenue last year. Coinbase doesn't need VCs anymore

[https://www.recode.net/2018/1/22/16911692/cryptocurrency-
bit...](https://www.recode.net/2018/1/22/16911692/cryptocurrency-bitcoin-
trading-coinbase-revenue-secondary)

------
Groxx
> _... one of the world’s most popular and reputable exchanges ..._

Honest question: is it really? Every time I've peeked at Coinbase stuff over
the years I've steered _very_ clear. They seemed alright ~2+ years ago, but
not since, and oh _heck_ yeah does it look like amateur hour. It's far and
away the most well-known from what I've seen, but in the bitcoin world that
rarely equates to "works at all".

Anyone know of any alternatives that seem alright? Gemini is on my radar since
they seem to be doing things by the book, but I really haven't looked closely
enough yet.

~~~
goatsi
I wouldn't register at any of them at the moment. Every exchange is completely
overloaded with new customers from the recent price spike and the media
attention that came with it. If you want to sign up and get verified to the
point that you can send/withdraw a decent amount of money you are likely going
to be waiting for weeks. Wait a bit longer and see which ones can manage and
which keep having more problems.

~~~
Groxx
Yeah, waiting until the dust settles a bit is basically what I'm doing. Just
hoping someone knows if there are any decent-looking options I can look into
in the meantime, since the dust keeps getting disturbed.

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shams93
Yeah my phone number was forced to change after my phone bricked now its like
a season in hell trying to get them to let me back into my account. Authy 2
factor authentication is super painful why can't they hook into my google
account, google has sane and functional 2 factor authentication. Authy is so
painful to work with.

~~~
t0mbstone
Authy is painful to work with? It's one of the easiest 2-factor auth solutions
I've ever used! And the best part is that if you brick your phone, you don't
lose your 2-factor auth stuff (like you do with google auth and a lot of the
other solutions).

