Bitcoin Forum

Sorry if this is a dumb question but I purchased some Bitcoin a couple weeks ago on Coinbase and received an email yesterday saying my money is now available to withdraw or send. When I go to send money the available balance is way off from what I purchased. Is there a delay before I can send those funds even though the email said they are available? Thanks very much for any insight you can provide.

Which country are you paying from and what account type too, was it a debit card or bank transfer or something?

Waiting weeks for a response is new for me, I'd worry if I don't receive one after 5 minutes normally. I think if the balance is way off you should also send an email from the email address you registered with and ask them why your balance is way off...

are you looking at your bitcoin balance in bitcoin or in USD?
this is a common mistake that i have seen some newcomers make that confuses them. they buy bitcoin then look at the values in USD term. for example if you bought $1000 worth of bitcoin 2 weeks ago it is now worth $904.3 because price moved. similarly if you had bought $1000 worth of bitcoin 3 weeks ago it is now worth $1093.
the balance in bitcoin should be fixed though.

Are you checking the USD balance and comparing it with the amount you had sent to Coinbase?

If you are then a week back Bitcoin's JSD value was more than what it is right now and therefore there might be a difference in it. When you purchased Bitcoin, what was the Satoshi amount the offered check that and match it with the Satoshi balance on Coinbase.

You can check it on transaction history.

I am assuming OP is looking into USD balance on coinbase and that's why become confuse. If you bought bitcoin via debit/credit card then they calculate in USD or you submit USD rates, but truly you have bought equal bitcoin. So if bitcoin price increase your balance will be increase, on the other hand if bitcoin price decrease then your USD balance will be decrease as well. Anyway this isn't dump question for newbies bitcoin users. But I will suggest before use bitcoin learn as much as possible.

Anyway, since you have bought bitcoin you should know about bitcoin wallet as well to store your coins. Coinbase is an exchange and custodial wallet. Storing huge amount of funds isn't safe there, you should move your fund to bitcoin wallet. If you are able to download Bitcoin Core (https://bitcoin.org/en/download) (you have to download whole blockchain which is need huge amount of space and time). Or you may buy hardware wallet to store safe your bitcoin then you may choose Ledger Nano (https://shop.ledger.com/pages/hardware-wallets-comparison). If you can't afford Ledger then you may choose Electrum wallet (http://www.electrum.org), don't forget to verify Signature to be sure you have downloaded original software. Most important is write your seed and keep it safe on multiple places. If you lost your seed phrase means you lost your bitcoin incase if your software got delete from your device. Don't save your seed any online machine to avoid hack.

I think "OP" is looking for the exact answer that you gave him already. Most probably due to bitcoin price fluctuation  his USD balance get lower and he is trying to match the live USD amount with the purchased amount. Bitcoin price wasn’t enough stable on last couple weeks and he purchased his BTC during that time. So i think its the thing which actually happened with him.  

Yeap,,,, exactly.

After seeing his topic it seems to me that he is a beginner on crypto world. Coinbase have features of purchasing bitcoin through visa card or bank which is quite popular among many users. Basically for them who are living in the country which is supported by coinbase. As an example Australian people love to purchase bitcoin from coinbase by using their bank accounts or cards. So coinbase is a trusted platform for their daily BTC trade. Its true that hardware wallets are much better than custodial wallets but when its a established platform then i see nothing wrong there.
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Thanks so much for the responses, you guys are great! I understand the price fluctuations, let’s say I bought $100 a few weeks ago I understand it can worth only $95 now. My issue is let’s say I bought $100 through Coinbase and I wanted to transfer to my Ledger nano. I had to wait several days for the 100 to clear in Coinbase, they then sent me an email saying my purchase cleared and I should have access to my funds. When I then try to transfer to my Ledger it says my available balance is only 20 that I can send, instead of my 100. I understand with the fees and price fluctuations it would be a little less but not 80% less. I don’t know since this is the first time buying bitcoin through Coinbase if there is another delay to send coins. Again thanks so much for everyone who replied!

Unless it's a support chat, I really can't imagine it's realistic to expect a response within 5 minutes from any of big crypto exchanges. Do you have VIP status as a user since you usually get a response within 5 minutes?

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Kcollins321, there is definitely something wrong here, it is impossible that you have lost as much as 80% of what you bought. Coinbase withdraw fee can not be more than few %, and if you transfer coins to Coinbase Pro (for free), withdraw fee is 0%.

Can you go to history page on your Coinbase account and check what exactly did you buy, for how much money, and what is the current amount of Bitcoin in your account? I’m pretty sure this is some misunderstanding of how things work, Coinbase isn’t exactly a charity, but they don’t take 80% on fees.

The maximum trading fee of coinbase is 3.99% as I can see here- https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/trading-and-funding/pricing-and-fees/fees.html
Now, if you account both the fee and the price fluactuations, it may be okay. How much in BTC did you purchase?
According to coinbase, using ACH Bank transfer system, it may take 3-5 business days to complete a purchase- https://help.coinbase.com/en/coinbase/trading-and-funding/sending-or-receiving-cryptocurrency/when-will-my-digital-currency-purchase-or-local-currency-deposit-arrive

There must be something wrong here! It's really weird that it took a couple of weeks to receive the confirmation email . This shouldn't take more than 7-10 days at max. Even if you payed via a bank transfer, it shouldn't take more than 5 days.
Also 80% doesn't make sense unless you bought a small amount like 10$ then most of it would be consumed by fees.