Bitcoin Forum

That's right kids. I'm posting a scam accusation against the single biggest bitcoin company out there. It's sad to see this company turning into a classic ripoff scam, but I'm sure this isn't an issue and is in fact very intentional. Perhaps it's still there and you could still see what I'll be talking about if you were to go to Coinbase now and try to place a sell order.


https://zippy.gfycat.com/SadConsiderateAtlanticspadefish.gif source (https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/3voitj/this_is_what_the_biggest_bitcoin_company_looks/)

You might say that this is a standard practice for Coinbase. They claim that prices shown in their webpages are cached up until the moment users try to put an order. But what is it that could be causing a 5% difference between a live price and a price quote cached seconds ago? Nothing more than Greed. Coinbase are settling orders with customers funds that they don't own and still give themselves a ±5% bonus over their supposed 1% fee on buy/sell orders.

To me, Coinbase looked suspicious from the start. "Wallet service" with no fees, including buying/selling but with their own rates, no mention of money handling practices from their part in the user agreement and ToS, BTC leaves deposit address seconds after confirmation... It all seems like they're trying to attract funds so they can do their best to take advantage of being in control of money just like a bank would. Fractional reserve, funding of own projects with funds of others, made up buy/sell rates in order to profit... Even their "wallet service" isn't a real wallet as there are no private keys handled by users and transactions aren't broadcasted before being filtered by their system.

I wouldn't expect that they'd go that far though. As you see in the image above, the price whenever an attempt to make a sell order is made, changes by 5%; going far below their own advertised rate and well below the average market rate. If you've used Coinbase to Buy or sell bitcoin you've been a victim of their false advertising and various other possibly fraudulent practices.

OP how often did that happen? if this is real then that confirms my fears about boinbase, they want to control the currency like a bank does to fiat, control is not good for bitcoin

The occurrence in the gif? I tested myself several times at different hours today and it happened every time. The rate at which the use would lose money centers around 5%. Prior to today, I got something similar (meaning that the price changed at the moment I was imputing an amount) but never close to 5% from their advertised rate.

Well... I emptied my coinbase wallet.

holy crap,i just went and tried it and as soon as you put an amount to sell,it lowers the price.... and when you try to buy,the price increases... wtf???

Don't they have an exchange where you can set your price?

They price orders on coinbase.com (not exchange.coinbase.com) on the orderbook on the coinbase exchange. If you want to place an order for $500 worth of bitcoin then the quote they will give you will be whatever the price would be on the coinbase exchange if you were to place a market order for $500 worth of bitcoin.

The best bid (and offer) on the coinbase exchange often only has orders that is 0.01BTC in size, and has several orders of this size at penny increments. I would imagine that the euro order book be even less liquid then the US dollar order book. If you can, then I would suggest buying bitcoin directly on the coinbase exchange

There are a number of things that are shady about coinbase, but I do not think this is one of them.

I've never had any issues with Coinbase. I've sold well over 50 btc on there and you state they have no fees is purely not true. They charge a fee on every sell around 1%. But its the price I pay everytime to get the money into my bank safely and securely on most instances the very next morning and not have to go through shenanigans to try and sell btc. elsewhere. This thread is dumb as Coinbase are NOT scammers.

Are there better alternatives anyone know of? I'm using Coinbase too as it is the only I came across that can buy/sell to Singapore bank accounts.

probably for a quantity like 0.10 btc price go to 360 ...
even did you try to buy a small quantity? (like wise 0.01? probably in such case due the different buying option price remain stable)....

They have no fees on their wallet service for bitcoin transfers.
No, same for any amount. From minimum all the way up to my full balance.

Any exchanger has 2 prices: bid and ask. you sell at the bid and buy at the ask and of course bid < ask.
If you don't like this go to an exchange and sell / buy at the ask / bid by placing a limit order.

I think you're missing the point here, Coinbase changes the price as an order gets ready to be placed.

I think you missed my post above for an explanation as to what most likely caused that :)

Not really, you're just wrong, hence why I ignored your post. As seen in the gif, the price is in euros and it's taken from coinbase.com. Coinbase wallet has nothing to do with the US only exchange. The price in the wallet is for the wallet and the price in the exchange is for the US only exchange, the wallet doesn't quote the exchange as no one outside of the USA can use it while the wallet is more widely available.

Coinbase altering the exchange rate just as an order gets ready to be placed for their advantage is the problem I posted about and your clueless response didn't address that.

Shit I left coinbase after they stated that I was do currency exchange with people.

I was like wtf?

I was buying shit that I needed. Damn coinbase bunch of ass grabbing monkeys

Coinbase sometimes charge additional fee when making a transaction without notifying you, but this in exchange maybe should be the difference between Sell orders and buy orders.