Bitcoin Forum

With their new funding of 31 million, will Coinbase become the United States Major exchange? Will this start a frenzy among Americans to join the bitcoin craze? How will it effect the speculated value of bitcoin? Will other exchanges emerge and compete? Will more day traders emerge and push up the trading volume? Can this benefit the legitimization of bitcoin? All these questions are swimming through my mind ::)

Looking at the current USA major exchanges , how it's that a hard task?

Well Coinbase is convient for small amounts but they put limits on the amount of btc you can buy/sell and doesn't really have a trading platform currently(maybe they'll make one). I think the small amount will attract many people who don't have extra cash to make investments but wish to take a gamble that the price of btc will appreciate over time. Also could aid in the expansion of the acceptance of btc in business around the US.

I can't think of much better to do with a fresh $25M injection than getting full money-transmission licenses in most US states, complete with the surety bond coverage. The regs on that stuff (ie, the time and expense to get proper licensing) is why there's no major US exchange so far.

Thats very true. I believe you have to be licensed in every state you do business in but I think some states are exempt(not many I wanna say 3)

Yeah, I think there are a few states that don't require licenses. And then for the rest, there's a whole lot of variety as to exactly what you need to get a license for, reporting requirements, bond coverage, etc. It's an expensive mess to navigate.

Do you think they will incorporate a trading platform? I would much rather do my trading within the US than to send wire transfers to foriegn lands.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=341188.msg3903735#msg3903735

coinbase is not an exchange.  They are a shady version of paypal in the bitcoin community.

They accept wire transfers from your bank then allow you to buy/sell, I thought that's what an exchange is. They also act as a "secure" wallet and a kind of "paypal" like you said for merchants.

I think that its a distinct possibility. It is true that they are not an exchange now, but there is no real strong competition in the United State in terms of other exchanges and with the $31 million they have a lot of funds with which to expand their current services. I would not put becoming a full fledged exchange by 2014 past them.

Agree.  There is so much bad rap about them out there that they would have a hard time clearing their name.

No.

Especially not when they're so fond of cancelling peoples orders, just when they happen to buy in at a good price.

Well I have no prior experience with Coinbase personally so its good to hear your guys opinion on it. I've only used Bitinstant(when it was available) and Bitstamp. Even though this time they are taking a long time to credit my deposit(7 business days) hopefully they are just slowed down due to more users making accounts and depositing.

It only works with US banks, so, mtgox should be bigger.

I have had good experiences with Coinbase and do not regard it as shady in any way. They have growing pains and need to hire more support staff. That is not the same as being shady.

Now they have access to your bank account.

i don't know much about the exchanges, but i like their design and style the most. the staff is public and the design on their site is much, much, much better than any other site i've seen. it's basic and to the point.

Yeah exactly I'm not too worried about them having my account number. I just don't want to become one of those people who scorns a certain exchange because they had a bad experience even though the majority have better experiences.

They arent an exchange per se

I wouldn't be surprised if they do.  I've seen a lot of people give them flack on this forum, but I had a good experience with personally.  Though I only bought once, so I don't have a ton of Coinbase experience.  But from what I've been able to tell, it's certainly the easiest way to buy bitcoins in the United States right now, though certainly not the quickest.

And I think accord01 is right - you can buy bitcoins from Coinbase, but they aren't really an exchange like btc-e or bitstamp.  I do like Coinbase, personally, but they're a fairly expensive way to buy bitcoins because of their 1% fees compared to the exchanges.  I didn't mind that back when the price was $100, but now that it's over $900, if I end up buying more, I'll probably be buying them from btc-e.

Answer to OP: Yes.

"First U.S. Bitcoin Exchange Set to Open":
http://www.wsj.com/articles/first-u-s-bitcoin-exchange-set-to-open-1422221641

"Coinbase’s founders say they have been working for five months to win licenses from state financial regulators. They have regulatory approval in half of U.S. states, including large population centers like New York and California"

I don't think they need licenses in states other then where they have their bank accounts located in.

Look at mt gox for example. They were based in Japan however they had their US bank account seized because they were operating in the US without a proper licence

interesting times ahead

Just saw this thread .Wasn't aware they had a 31 million funding before as well.
Doesn't this take their funding to a 100 million ?

http://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-secures-approval-launch-regulated-us-bitcoin-exchange/

Over 106 million. Venture capital has valued coinbase at over 400 million at the moment.

https://angel.co/coinbase
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/coinbase

http://fortune.com/2015/01/20/coinbase-raises-75-million-in-largest-ever-vc-round-for-bitcoin-company/

All Current Team
Funding Rounds (4) - $106.7M
Update

    $75M / Series C
    Jan 20, 2015
    Investors:
    BBVA Ventures
    New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)
    Ribbit Capital
    Union Square Ventures
    Andreessen Horowitz
    USAA
    See More (7)

   $25M / Series B
    Dec 12, 2013
    Investors:
    QueensBridge Venture Partners
    Anthony Saleh
    Nasir "Nas" Jones
    Andreessen Horowitz
    Union Square Ventures
    Ribbit Capital

   $6.1M / Series A
    May 7, 2013
    Investors:
    Bobby Goodlatte
    Ribbit Capital
    Union Square Ventures
    Red Swan Ventures
    SV Angel
    Interplay Ventures
    See More (7)

   $600k / Seed
    Sep 12, 2012
    Investors:
    Alexis Ohanian
    Y Combinator
    Greg Kidd
    FundersClub
    Garry Tan


P.s... notice how real companies like coinbase can disclose their 100+ million venture capital investments and scams like paybase/GAW have to hide behind supposed NDA's for their "100 million " in VC capital.

Passive Bitcoiners love giving flack.

CoinBase is great for those who have no issue with extensive KYC. for me, as a business owner, I have no issue doing Docs as they are just one of many players in my day to day that would ask.

If they added some level of exchange or at least a limited time wallet ( Load USD for 30 days -> use , return diff ) or something, that alone would be great, as I could then pay more staff with BTC with far more ease.

have you solved the problem with them?

Coinbase is good for Bitcoin. The greedy investors behind it, who demand high returns on their investments, are not really that good...

i have a question for the hard core BTC community.

 you fight/fought for freedom, no Federal Reserve, no Gov, no IRS, no regulations just freedom, no corporations.

many of you are excited that a company will be licensed in some States.

Licensed means that will require you a LOT of papers and you will reported to IRS for sure. YOU WILL HAVE TO PAY TAXES FOR YOUR INCOME FROM BTC TRADING ! :)

Coinbase will not be different than any other broker/forex from USA. You better use a normal broker or forex than using Coinbase for BTC trading.

Coinbase's shareholders are "sharks" (they are ex-bankers) that you hated a while ago and you blamed them. They will earn A LOT of money and you will pay taxes.

Also, many of you want/wanted DE-centralized exchanges. Why don't you use them? Why don't you create new ones?

A licensed exchange is surely a centralized one. :)

Why are you so excited about that? Where is your libertarian philosophy?  

The 439 million in VC money flowing into Bitcoin companies and their greedy investors will insure the following:

1) Bitcoin will be their priority and they will do everything in their power to make sure regulations don't hurt their profits and Bitcoin remains legal

Good for Bitcoin , Very bad for alts (Has their been any VC capital going into any alts besides a small amount to Ripple?)

2) Bitcoin will go mainstream and will likely start becoming a normal asset class like gold that investors dip into

Very good for bitcoin price.

3) Bitcoin may start to become more regulated and centralized

Good and bad for bitcoin ... but I don't think those regulators realize how difficult that may be when a bulk of the purseholders and developers are libertarian leaning to full on anarchists.

We continue to use and work on decentralized exchanges /wallets like openbazaar/darkwallet/lighthouse and welcome well regulated exchanges like coinbase which act as stepping stones for those that need to slowly start to transition into crypto-currencies.

Some of us are fine with pragmatic and a realistic evolution into a more peaceful society and don't have any delusions that it will happen overnight.
 

I think Coinbase is already America's major exchange. I have yet to find an exchange that is even close in design, usability, and security.

:D

Realistic and pragmatic, what difference  will be between Paypal and Coinbase? :)  same shit, same regulations. what I am trying to say is that BTC is/was based on the libertarian philosophy which is saying  " Economic liberalism, keep, and exchange their holdings , no gov interference, etc...

Let's get real. Bitcoin has around of 600K real users now, approx 150K of them are trading.
 
What are the chances for ALT coins? Only if the people will migrate from BTC to ALT coin.

I agree that alts don't have much of a chance... are you arguing with yourself?
https://www.coinbase.com/about

Coinbase has 2.2million wallets and 1.9million unique users(They follow KYC) and they just started to expand outside the US.
 This would indicate a very conservative estimate of 4-5 million BTC users worldwide because the chinese have invested
more than Americans.

Where are you getting your "facts" from?


Yes, and.... go ahead and finish your thought. You do realize that bitcoin is a decentralized open source protocol, and despite any anarchistic qualities it can have a "big umbrella" of various users with different interests, right? There are no gatekeeper telling Kim Jong un or Obama that they can't benefit from bitcoin. Bitcoin as a superior technology can compete regardless of how people feel about its origins.

Well, it isn't an exchange yet. That will happen tomorrow. It is important to understand the difference. At an exchange, buyers and sellers are competing for the best price. At Coinbase, they set the price to whatever they want and it won't be the best price for you. I'm glad that Circle appeared because the competition is forcing Coinbase to give its customers better prices.

These companies like Coinbase, Blockchain and other can report billions of wallets. Maybe it is true or maybe it is not. Let's not forget that most of the BTC users have more than one wallet.


FACTS :
https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions   -       around of 90K transactions per day

https://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses -  around of 150K unique address used

https://bitscan.com/bitnews/item/how-many-people-really-own-bitcoins-and-why-does-it-matter   - a nice analyze

First 2 links don't prove anything as unique addresses are always in flux and don't represent all the off the chain transactions.
Last link contradicts what you stated and is an article dated back in Feb 2014.

Coinbase follows KYC(2.2 million wallets and 1.9 million unique users) and users almost all exclusively in the US. This is why I didn't add up coinbase + circle+ blockchain+ ect....
My 4-5 million estimate is extremely conservative. Realistically, there are probably 7-8 unique million users now worldwide.

Are you suggesting Coinbase is lying about those unique users? Do you really think those 37 VC companies didn't do their due
 diligence before investing 106 million in coinbase?

I doubt that it's x 4 more BTC real users since a year ago. Remember that MTGox failed in 2014 and China banned Bitcoin and many BTC users gone.
around of 150K unique address used = it doesn't even mean real users. someone can send BTC to himself (from one account to another).

I am suggesting that  Coinbase has shareholders that 99% from the BTC community blamed a while ago. Also, I am suggesting that those "sharks" are not investing without thinking to profit.

Let's remember that many these "investors" own +80% from BTC. :)

They own Bitstamp, BTC China, Coinbase

Actually, it does mean that exactly , that is why they break down total wallets being 2.2 million and users 1.9 million to account for multiple wallets.
You realize coinbase forces KYC on clients, right? You realize that many btc users have gifted people with changtip and coinbase even if they aren't interested in bitcoin and many accept it(cannot hurt) and setup an account to hold onto it for the future, right?

Many of us "Bitcoin nuts" or early adopters have gifted 50-200 friend and family members each and we see how many setup the account and accept the gift because it gets returned to us otherwise. 80% of my coinbase gifts have been accepted and 20% of my changetip gifts get accepted.
Whether these people sit on BTC for a rainy day or immediately retip or spend it they are all users!

you over estimate the BTC market and that report is very clear.

https://bitscan.com/bitnews/item/how-many-people-really-own-bitcoins-and-why-does-it-matter 

and take a look again over the numbers : https://blockchain.info/charts

I love Coinbase and it's really awesome that they're now the first regulated Bitcoin exchange in the US. I think this announcement might have something to do with BTC price surge atm.
This is definitely a great to start 2015 :) Even though it'll probably be a while before they open up to the rest of the world.

a simple fact that would take coinbase has a major exchange in the usa, backed by the nyse with 106 million.

That's 150k unique addresses per day. Either way there is very little information about the number of users that you can infer from the number of addresses -- now that most wallets create a new address for every transaction.

Great news about the regulated exchange, it will give a lot of confidence for people (traders, ordinary folk, investors etc) to take the plunge and buy in. just what the market needs, some buying pressure to counter all the auto dumps by merchants
http://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-secures-approval-launch-regulated-us-bitcoin-exchange/

also lol on their lunar page

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8565/16369506821_5674f44294.jpg

Do not forget Circle. I think, the turnaround time is lower for them than coinbase.

lol i found that animation page kinda odd, price seems to have moved, do they have more news coming in 4 hours i wonder.

Hey is there any information on investing directly in coinbase INC. on this site? I know they haven't gone public but I'm just curious on their plans to be traded pubicly and if any options are currently available??

Is this exchange just for US people?

USD is FDIC insured , BTC is privately insured:
https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/1780543
supported states:


    Alabama (AL)
    Arkansas (AR)
    California (CA)
    Delaware (DE)
    Georgia (GA)
    Idaho (ID)
    Illinois (IL)
    Indiana (IN)

    Iowa (IA)
    Kansas (KS)
    Massachusetts (MA)
    Mississippi (MS)
    Missouri (MO)
    Montana (MT)
    New Hampshire (NH)
    New Jersey (NJ)

    New Mexico (NM)
    New York (NY)
    North Dakota (ND)
    Puerto Rico (PR)
    South Carolina (SC)
    Washington (WA)
    West Virginia (WV)
    Wisconsin (WI)


FAQ-
https://static.olark.com/jsclient-bucket3/follow.html

Just initially.  It will open up for other countries later.

Will Gemini open for Europe too? because I think Gemini will be the Americas major exchange for sure.

That's pretty awesome and great news. Just think- this opens up the possibility of Coinbase Debit cards, banking, etc.... They are really building a bank on bitcoin. It's great.

Not sure about that one.

I've never really understood the usefulness of a bitcoin debit card. Why would one need this if you can already pay straight from an app on your phone? And how would the debit card work if you still have to wait for the confirmations to go through?  I guess if you're ordering something online, it's not a big deal, but a local retailer isn't going to want to wait 30-60 minutes for the approval to go through.

As far as I know, you have BTC in your account, the merchants get paid in USD and the debit card company converts your BTC to USD.

Ah.....that makes sense. I guess the debit card company allows the transaction to go through immediately as long as they can verify you have the necessary Bitcoin balance to equal the amount in USD, correct?  I was thinking that the bitcoin debit card was just another way to pay merchants in Bitcoin.

I wounder how much volume they will have just by the BTC they got from the merchants. Is there any data about that?

Hi, new girl, long time lurker...had to join!

I'm going to second the Circle suggestion. I did have a few issues with their automated login set up when I tried to update my phone number...it would tell me to enter the new number then when I'd submit, it'd tell me it was incorrect. I never got it resolved and just opened a brand new account (had about 2 bucks in it originally that'd now be dust given the price drop) and they closed the other one out. That said, even though it was a month of nonsense, Circle was awesome about trying to help me resolve the problem.

I joined up with Coinbase originally but really hate the 4 day wait time back and forth. I like that Circle side steps that so your funds are available immediately while on the back end they deal with the bank transfer. Circle is, by far, the easiest way to get situated using bitcoin.

Since I'm not a trader I can't say how or if Circle would even work as a trading option.

As for the ones concerned about Coinbase and the regulation, I would like to point out that we remember there are 2 kinds of people in the world: the conditioned, brainwashed, weak spined lazy sorts who prefer and need and desire to live on their knees and let the government tell them how to breathe and what to think, and the free minded independent sorts who "get" what Bitcoin is and always was. The reality is we're not going to change the slave minded sorts no matter how nifty (or scary) the new magic internet money sounds but consider that regulation *for the time being* is a good thing, it'll let the slave minded sorts feel all comfy and protected and not scare the crap out of them or overwhelm them, which will make it easier for them to enter into the world of Bitcoin with a safety net.

Let that be okay...they're in. Let them hold the government's hand awhile til they get involved in the bitcoin reality enough to learn more about it and once they "get it" they'll easily recognize the simple solution to ejecting the government intrusion and take it offline, local exchanges, p2p trades, offline wallets, etc.

Let's focus on getting people from both camps into this camp and then wean them off the nanny state. Coinbase will make it really easy for the newcomers. It's a good thing!

And maybe Gemini (the Winklevoss exchange). I see Coinbase winning out tho.

Coinbase has certainly established itself as a major brand in the Bitcoin community.
Being well known is clearly the most important thing.

It certainly will be the biggest. 

Is the current biggest exchange bitstamp or some other exchange ?

Depends upon trading pair and currency-

1    Bitfinex   BTC/USD    $ 57,277,500   $ 278.30    53.34 %    Recently
2    Bitstamp   BTC/USD    $ 15,295,900   $ 274.88    14.24 %    Recently
3    BTC-E   BTC/USD    $ 13,516,200   $ 264.81    12.59 %    Recently
4    OkCoin Intl.   BTC/USD    $ 8,998,640   $ 274.55    8.38 %    Recently
5    Kraken   BTC/EUR    $ 2,730,310   $ 275.36    2.54 %    Recently
6    LakeBTC   BTC/USD    $ 2,685,880   $ 270.90    2.50 %    Recentl


Coinbase, technically just introduced an exchange so isn't even in the top 10.

It will be interesting to see how the addition of an exchange effects Coinbase's traditional bitcoin trading business.  Gemini I expect will only be an exchange, Coinbase has moved first and has an existing customer base, so I would give it the advantage.

People who want to remain private will, I expect, avoid Coinbase as I expect it will have the strictest ATML regulations.

coinbase is defendly on the eye of portafolio investors, just today i had a few ppl talk to me about coinbase and bitcoin, how coinbase brings a legit exchange trading to bitcoin, since most of the none btc user fear btc trading b/c of none regulated issues.

coinbase is on a great road for more adoption and trading of btc.

Your funds are not FDIC insured, coinbase's fiat funds are FDIC insured. There is a big difference. If the bank they hold their deposits at fails then coinbase will recover the FDIC insurance limit (at least), however if coinbase fails then the FDIC will not step in to protect people who are holding fiat at coinbase

Re the list of states, what if anything does it say for those of us banking with branchless entities like USAA?

It is based on where you live. So if you have an address in one of the states referenced then you can use their exchange services. If you do not then you cannot use their exchange

This is a bit of a double edged sword. Bitcoin could certainly use more notoriety, but needs to be careful about over regulation.

I'm a USAA member and a Coinbase user.  Right now I doubt we will see any integration, but when the time comes (maybe in a year or so) then USAA will be one of the first banks to get integration. 

Yeah it will take time..but im sure that the will grow into the top 10.

It's not legal in my state, but as soon as it is, I'll move all my coins there.

Coinbase allows you to buy some btc every month automatically. You send an automatic bank wire every month to coinbase and you don't have to deal with it anymore.

Setting some limit orders will allow users to buy on the dips rather than merely at a predefined schedule which will help stabilize the volatility with volume.

I used to use coinbases api to do this but the app was buggy and sometimes not place the order.

SIP in bitcoin.
Some people really treat it like an investment.  ;D

CB could become N America's number 1 exchange, without any doubt
$75mn to help them get there, let's not forget

Yes, absolutely. But think they will face fierce competition from Circle and ETF's.

Coinbase monitors who you send your BTC to, and if they don't like them, they block you permanently from using their system.

So they're not tainting coins, they're tainting customers. Nice.

(etiquette: no requirement to use /sarc off when it's completely obvious)

This is very similar to how sharebuilder works. Sharebuilder is targeted towards smaller investors and they let them buy fixed dollar amounts of stocks on a preset schedule every tuesday. Over time they have added additional features and have appeared to have grown their market share

coinbase is a joke of an exchange .. plugged into the IRS and FINCEN, reporting all your transactions to the government so they can fuck you up the ass on a tax audit

good luck with that!

The same can be said with any other reputable exchange. If they do not provide certain information to the government then they will likely have their assets seized which means any money you have on deposit with them will not be available to you

Is it not funny that many BTC users were SO happy when Coinbase announced that they took licenses? BTC is about DE-centralization, no regulations and so on, right?. :)

Thanks to you guys for the USAA info.

For you guys who aren't pro coinbase do you think you'll be using Gemini when it launches? I mentioned elsewhere but will here, I'm not a trader and don't really understand all these charts or what the traders do to the value or price if anything but I have a question about the exchanges if anyone can answer. Is there a minimum amount to use to trade or a high amount, or can you trade with 1 or 2 bitcoins? Thanks.

It may remain as one of the largest exchanges in the future
That said it will also have to take the brunt of all the problems to establish itself
While newer entrants will need to acquire market share from the leader without those costs