Bitcoin Forum

Can one of you tech savvy guys tell me why ICO's don't use services like Coinbase to accept funds for their ICO's?

I see in my account where I could add a shopping cart to my website to take payments in many different coins (the same way I would add a Paypal cart) and that takes about 5 minutes.  Why don't these guys just use one of these services and they could accept just about any coin?

Does it have to do with the audit process? (i.e. wallet numbers are not the same with a service?)

I am new at this so please go easy on me  ;)

I guess main reason is loss of control over the currency and the account the currency is placed on.

I would assume that ICO startups use the currency to find investors by saying that we have this and that amount of virtual currency on our account valued at xxx millions of USD which can be used as a guarantee that the investor will receive a return of investment.

But of course allowing Coinbase or any regulated exchange to carry the money would certainly add more trust to the ICO campaings

Coinbase has some very small withdrawal limits.  It also takes a long time to get an account verified in order to increase your limits.  ICO's raises millions of dollars and it would take them forever to withdrawal the funds if they needed it immediately.  I think that is one of the main reasons why Coinbase isn't used. 

No one will ever use Coinbase or something similar to host ICO's, because ICO's have been working fine without them. Not to mention, Coinbase has the SEC right up their bums, and i doubt some of these shady motherfuckers in digital currencies would ever want anything to do with them.


Who remembers Moolah? good times

I think the vision and mission of the coinbase is just for the exchange. Coinbase comes from usa and if i am not mistaken the regulation of usa country also forbids its citizens to join in ico.

coinbase not support ico , because coinbase real company from USA, and USA with SEC not support ico project
exchanger support ico selling, sample livecoin and c-cex

Using Coinbase in this context would sacrifice all the financial power that ICOs provide. Their utility is sidestepping the legacy banking and investment sector, removing friction between investors and project developers.

Coinbase is tightly regulated. That means the money could be restricted (frozen, subject to withdrawal limits), since it is under control of a third party. They also might run afoul of the SEC if used to crowdfund for unregistered securities.

Why would ICOs even think about implementing something like that? Coinbase is known to be a pain in the ass in many ways and they show no intentions of changing anything. Firstly, getting your account verified is a tedious task by itself and requires lots of patience. Secondly, funds from gambling sites don't show up and they are 'confiscated' by Coinbase, not to mention some gambling sites have ICOs going on.

Thanks.  Got it  ;D  So it's just about regulations?  Are the wallets/addresses still shown the same as if I made a direct transfer?  For example, if you and I made a transfer I would see your address... if you sent to/from Coinbase do I still see your address?  I have never made a transaction yet so I don't really understand this stuff yet.

Coinbase is just what I have but what about others like Coinpayments or are they all the same?

Thanks again for the help  :)

ICO are projects which are based on the "Smart contracts" and ethereum is the easiest way to work with it. In addition to that they use only "ERC20 standard" supported wallets and fir which most of the wallets are not compliant with.

Only few which provide this kinda standard which is purely ethereum based are the only one gets selected. The transaction is easier and trackable for the fund raiser and they can send the tokens easily back to destination address because of that traceability.

Hello SurfnTurf! The issue is that Coinbase is designed for retail investors, convenience and ease of use. Coinbase holds the private keys of the tokens on their site rather than the investor. As Coinbase is currently set up investors may not receive ERC-20 tokens that are issued in ICOs.

In fact many ICOs will have a strong disclaimer not to send in funds for an ICO from Coinbase otherwise there is risk of capital loss. As a best practice professional investors should control the private keys of their ETH and BTC holdings. Ownership of the private keys gives an investor maximum flexibility in the event of blockchain forks or other events which may affect the value of the crypto currency.

For Ethereum, I can recommend the www.myetherwallet.com wallet if an investor wishes to transact in ICOs. Promoters of ICOs are well aware of Coinbase's limitations and for this reason will shy away from using Coinbase in their ICOs either for distribution or receipt of funds.  

Smart COntract eth dominate the ICO that;s why most ICOs accept eth payment. WIth eth smart contract, the developers can set the payment automatically. When the ICos don't meet the soft cap the fund will be return automatically too. Where as payment using bitcoin is usually for new coin with it's own blockchain like ATB coin. ATB coin receive BTC,ETH and LTC as the payment.

You are right with that. Coinbase has a small withdraw limit. ICOs is a lot of money. It's not about hundreds or thousands. It's millions. Also they are regulated. I don't think it's ideal for ICOs to use them or any web wallet. Besides, you are not fully in control with funds.  Unlike the traditional, no limit and it's instant. I saw some ICOs are using escrows which adds protection for investors against scamming which is a good thing. But right now, smart contract take place. Many ICOs are just popping out of nowhere. So better make deeper research first before jumping.

That would make my life so much easier. One of the main reasons I have hesitated to invest in an ICO (and have ended up not investing) is because of the "inconvenience" of opening a new wallet for a different type of currency or dealing with exchanges.
I guess if it was an ICO I was really interested in I would have just dealt with it, but it would be nice if it was simpler.

there's always an easy way if you really like to take the risk or you just can wait for the coin being listed inside any exchange before claiming your coin
from the dev, but your point also been consider by some people who are not willing to take sometime waiting for the results of an ico project.

besides that coinbase sucks. At the first place why would you want to use a service that you have no control over your money. Basically what's happening is you're asking coinbase's permission to move your funds over. It's kinda ironic.

It's cheaper to write smart-contract on ETH then use that services

This. Coinbase also has the IRS demanding to see all their member accounts (they've successfully resisted, but for how long?).

Lots of the ICO operators are shady and don't want teh scruitiny an account with coinbase would bring.

One word, dispute.
I sold some coins using Ebay/Paypal after they received my coins they file dispute, no tracking information in crypto.
This would also go the same as merchant/card proccessing payment, the moment they received the ICO coins they will call for charge back.
No card processing act as middle man accepting payment at this point for crypto. Coinbase is middle man exchange, slower, need to verify some information before one can make purchase/sell.

That is right. Also Coinbase as a regulated exchange, not allowed to do IPO or ICO.

Because coinbase doesn't allow it ?

You do know right coinbase is an centralised exchange ? They wouldn't consider ICO's as a legal way of (taxed) income.Moreover,why would an ICO trust coinbase with their funds ? What if the website goes down tomorrow ?

That helps.  I kept seeing that disclaimer you mention which is why I was wondering in the first place.  Thanks.

Once BannerCoin launches - ICO information here - BannerCoin.com (http://BannerCoin.com) companies will be able to use a payment acceptance app to accept payments for multiple types of digital currencies. The main difference between using a service like Coinbase's and what BannerCoin is proposing is that the end merchant (or ICO organization in this case) would have full control over where the funds are sent.

With that control, they could then use any exchange to convert the crypto into fiat to use for funding development. in addition, they can gather customer information, store it easily and reference it when it's time to actually distribute the ICO coins. All Coinbase and many other payment systems offer is a simple checkout button. There's no direct tie in with all the post order processing that goes into running a successful ecommerce website. Whether it's accepting funds for ICOs or tracking who ordered what from an online store, a simple payment button does little other than take a payment. It's what happens after the payment is accepted that makes the difference.