

The Coinbase Android App Has Launched - barmstrong
http://blog.coinbase.com/post/44730207780/the-coinbase-android-app-has-launched

======
cft
I sent Coinbase the following email:

I paid for bitcoins on Feb 27, 2013. My natural assumption was that bitcoins
will be deposited into my account in the next couple of days. It did not
happen: the transaction was marked "pending". After a week, I suddenly hot an
email saying: "Unfortunately, we have decided to cancel this order because it
appears to be high risk." I must say that this response is quite
disappointing. Accusing an honest new customer excited about your new product
of potential fraud as the first communication from coinbase.com is probably
the worst thing a company can do for its PR. This has been a valuable lesson
for me that accusing customers of fraud before they actually commit it is not
a great way of promoting a new service. I saw posts to this end on
news.ycombinator.com (i.e. do not use Coinbase to purchase bitcoins), but I
ignored them and tried anyway...

The result was: "we have white listed your account", so now I am _free_ to buy
bitcoins at 30% more than what I wanted to. I cannot explain to them that the
attitude "guilty until proven innocent" will cost them more in good will of
new users long term than the actual money lost on fraud otherwise, had they
relaxed their insane risk controls.

~~~
makomk
I know there's some justified suspicion on the Bitcoin forums that Coinbase
are cancelling orders if the value of Bitcoins rises between you paying and
them actually delivering the coins, meaning that they get to profit from any
rise in the Bitcoin price whilst dumping any loss if it falls on the
purchaser.

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conesus
Score one for open-source apps for a for-profit company. I did something
similar with my company's Android and iOS apps. They're both open-source and I
have a number of users who have improved the app experience for everybody
because they were both technical and inclined to improve their own experience.
And it's so unlikely that a competitor will do better than you by using [a
mangled form of] your app that you get to weigh the benefits as winning out
over the drawbacks of open-source.

~~~
throw2910
Interesting idea. I could potentially make this happen at a for-profit
university, but would need to sell the idea to some executives.

Where could I read more about the risks and challenges that a company
attempting to do this would face (open sourcing a customer facing app)?

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redthrowaway
Just signed up and downloaded the Android app. I saw this in your EULA:

 _When buying or selling bitcoin, you are buying or selling from Coinbase
directly. Coinbase does not act as an intermediary or marketplace between
other buyers and sellers of bitcoin._

What's the effective exchange rate for customers? You already say you take 1%
of each transaction; is the exchange rate tied to the current trading price of
one of the major exchanges, or are you setting that yourself (like retailers
do for foreign currency)?

I imagine you're doing some of your own arbitrage, here. That's fine as long
as prices keep going up. What happens if prices crash and a bunch of people
put in buy orders? I assume this is where the 48hr window you give yourself to
"retrieve offline funds" comes in. In that event, what price do your customers
pay? The market rate when they put in the buy order, or the rate 48 hrs later
when you deliver the bitcoins?

It's an intriguing and exciting service, but I fear you're either leaving
yourself open to massive liability, or are going to be forced to screw over
your customers in the event of rapid swings in the value of BtC.

~~~
coopdog
Someone on another HN thread said that they bought some bitcoins at a certain
price, price jumped by a couple of dollars and five days later Coinbase
cancelled the transaction due to 'lack of supply'.

One can only assume that in the reverse case they'd have pocketed the
difference. So it seems like it might be the latter.

~~~
redthrowaway
That's unfortunate. It'd be nice to be able to buy and sell BtC with the same
app I use to transfer them, but I'm not letting them use me for arbitrage just
for the sake of convenience.

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StavrosK
Didn't they already have an Android app? I'm pretty sure they had one that
didn't do much, so I was using blockchain.info instead. Their app (and site)
is fantastic.

EDIT: Actually, can someone tell me the advantage of Coinbase over the
Blockchain wallet? The latter syncs to my Dropbox, the app is ridiculously
more featureful (even has push notifications on payment receipt), and it's
been around longer. I don't understand why we keep hearing about Coinbase but
not Blockchain.

------
twodayslate
The iPhone app is lacking. You can only view past/current transactions. The
web version of the site is way more useful as it has all of coinbase's
features.

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seanponeil
Major props on open sourcing the app! My only complaint so far is having to
build with Ant, but that's pretty minor in the grand scheme of things.

------
base698
I have to wonder how hilarious it would be to get paid in only bitcoin with
the amount of volatility. Your contract starts at 10K BTC/year worth $30000 at
the start, and after a year of 14000% increases you are being paid $440000 in
BTC. Seems like a huge hedge would have to be built in.

~~~
edward
The contract would be priced using paper money like USD. At least until the
BTC volatility calms down.

------
adrinavarro
FWIW, I've found Coinbase to be pretty decent and reliable. And definitely the
open source app is a quite surprising (in best terms!) decision. I haven't
seen many (good) open source Android apps out there built on the latest design
specs and API…

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eric_bullington
Looks nice! Open source and with NFC, too. I could see this as being the de
facto Bitcoin wallet in the (near) future.

Does anyone know if Coinbase did this in-house or if they contracted out? Just
curious...

~~~
hugopeixoto
The blog post describes this at the end:

    
    
      In particular, Isaac (a Coinbase user in Canada and previous Google intern)
      sent us a nearly completed Android app totally unprompted,
      and was kind enough to open source it.

~~~
bjcubsfan
Also relevant:

"and brought him on board to continue working on it."

------
sturmeh
Not a single mention of the BTC market crash today on HN, interesting.

~~~
w1ntermute
What market crash? I don't see it[0].

0: <http://blockchain.info/charts/market-price>

~~~
dangrossman
There was an intraday drop from $49 to $33. It later went back up to about
$40. That chart isn't granular enough.

~~~
Devilboy
Well it's about $44 now. Not really a crash in my view.

~~~
dangrossman
When the stock market plunges more than a few percentage points during a
single day, every publication on the planet calls it a crash. During the last
"flash crash" the market recovered within minutes; it was still a crash,
covered internationally and garnering its own Wikipedia page. The bitcoin
market losing 33% of its value in an hour is a crash.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Flash_Crash>

~~~
px1999
Call me naive and oldschool, but this is my biggest issue with bitcoin -
essentially all of the coverage comes from people/groups of people with (what
are now) large investments / conflicts of interest in bitcoin, so any negative
(or objective) coverage is glossed over.

There don't seem to be (m)any experts looking at bitcoin either (maybe I just
haven't looked) and so broader problems with the whole system aren't being
raised or addressed, all of the writing and analysis that is out there seems
amateurish. It's no surprise to me that aside from some minor trolling,
there's no-one writing about the crash.

------
redthrowaway
Cool beans. Are you monetized yet? Or, more pointedly, are you grabbing any
fees from me for using this app?

~~~
glomph
You pay 1% in and out don't you? Says that on their website.

~~~
redthrowaway
Just saw the FAQ, thanks.

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bahman2000
Why is the camera icon blinking (GN4)?

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noagendamarket
They shouldnt allow you to buy the coins untill your funds have cleared.

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marikachen
Great job!

------
reaclmbs
If I buy bitcoins now but it takes 10 days to be approved/settle, what price
will I be locked into?

~~~
ok_craig
If you purchase at $30/bitcoin, and by the time the bank transaction goes
through the price has risen to $32/bitcoin, you still get them for $30.

Similarly, if the price drops to $28, you still pay $30/bitcoin.

So you're locked in at the exchange rate at the time you place the order.

