Bitcoin Forum

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But have not yet submitted any KYC documents or my bank info, nor tried to make any trades, etc.  Just my email validation and cell number (for 2FA).  I have never used an exchange before

• My main intention (at least for now) is to prepare to sell BTC for cash bit by bit as BTC rises more in price.  Later I may trade (probably not, except for maybe buying BTC upon substantial price declines).   Most of my BTC is thoroughly mixed/tumbled/CoinJoined.  I do not have LARGE amounts of BTC, but not trivial either.  Am I likely to have problems "cashing in", say, 0.2 BTC (wire transfer to my bank account once in a while) with mixed BTC?  I read about many people having problems with exchanges giving them a hard time about "issues" (most seem to be related to KYC issues, but perhaps some re "tainted" BTC).  I am OK (sort-of OK, don't like it, but I'll do it) with going through the whole KYC rigamarole, I have done that elsewhere, but what might I expect from Gemini?
• Do they have humans to talk to?  I am likely to have various questions...  I could not find any easy emails, for example, when examining Gemini's website nor Coinbase's.  I went with Gemini (for now) because it was easier to figure out how to set up the account.
• What is this business of "Source of Funds" all about?  Is it an issue if I want to sell BTC?  I have bought BTC pretty regularly in small amount since 2013 (and keeping track of Cost Basis and Selling Prices for taxation records.  But, the money I have used all these years has been mine, what sorts of issues might concern Gemini about this?

THANK YOU for any observations or suggestions you might have.

you're in the states, right? before you do anything else---do you have a REAL ID? if not, don't bother. they won't verify you.


gemini does mention mixing/tumbling in their terms. it probably depends how your coins were mixed. there have been multiple public instances where coinjoins got peoples' accounts flagged at other exchanges---not so much for centralized mixers.

gemini doesn't tell people why their accounts are being closed, they just close them, so it's hard to say with any certainty how they approach the issue.


i'm not sure but according to their "contact us" page, you can open a ticket, call them, or DM on twitter for support. https://support.gemini.com/hc/en-us/articles/204732835-Contact-us


it has to do with this: https://www.gemini.com/legal/user-agreement#section-source-of-funds

basically, they wanna cover their ass and make sure you aren't using illegally obtained funds or funds that aren't yours. they don't wanna be used as a money laundering instrument, or facilitate money transmission on behalf of anyone else but you.

if they don't like your answers or you exhibit some account activity they deem risky, i reckon they will close your account.

You will be suspected in two cases: If you withdraw in amounts greater than the volumes that you normally did during the previous period.
If it was sent and the last sent address from coinjoin Tx.

Most of these processes are automatic, so the more you try to avoid them, the less risk. I suggest you start with small trades and increase them gradually and use a mixing service or send money from an address that was not sent to coinjoin.

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figment, huge

Thank you, gentlemen, I will see what info I can get from them today.  The more I know about their policies, the more I will feel confidence in dealing with them.

Yes, I am an American here in the states with proper ID.

And I also now (and will have an even better idea later) on how mixed/coinjoined BTC are treated.  I will try to keep from doing sudden and large transactions, mine will not be LARGE anyway.


EDIT:  If they wind up closing my account, well that's life as long as they don't steal my BTC...

I think the best approach regarding this problem is  to send a small amount of your mixed funds to Gemini. Cash out and try to withdrawal the usd. If everything is ok,  sell again a small amount and so on. If someday they decide to freeze your account,  which can happen at any time because their terms and regulations could change, you will not lose a lot

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bitmover, yes I will try something like that.  Slowly build up my BTC sales.  "Slowly" being the operative word, as I believe that BTC's future is great.

My mindset is to sell bit by bit almost any intangible asset if it goes up a lot.

I have NO intention of selling all of my BTC though...

:)

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It took a few days, for "reasons", but I am now an official member of Gemini.  In fact I executed my first BTC transfer to them as well as selling some for CA$H (wire transfer to my bank account).  For small money as an experiment.

Gemini said it would take one business day to do the wire transfer.  I made the sale Thursday evening, I hope that wire goes out by close of business tomorrow, else it will be Monday (groan).  Looks pretty good so far.

Customer service has been very slow though.  I still have one matter unaddressed by then, but that may get answered automatically (whether they accept mixed/CoinJoined BTC) once they see my sale so far.

My initial assessment of Gemini is that they are very security-conscious and that the dashboard and links to actions (transfers of funds & cryptos in and out, sales, trading) seem straightforward.  Despite my "Legendary" status BS, if it's something new re Bitcoin that I have not done myself, I always act slowly.  If I can figure out how to do this, almost anyone else here at bitcointalk can too.

At this point I am only selling BTC for FIAT$, taking profits from the huge run-up since mid-December (last time I bought).  Price goes down enough, or if I'm feeling lucky, I now can buy for cheaper than at the BTC ATMs.  I am NOT trading for s**tcoins, no interest.  Gemini offers such trades with about 15 alts, did not count, but that's about right.

Try this next time. Move the coins you intend to cash out to one of your own addresses first. So the immediate transaction before it was the CoinJoin one. Wait for a few blocks or confirmations, then move it again to another address. Then, move that to the exchange.

Yes, you will lose the transaction fees twice or as many times as you moved it. Use native segwit addresses (the ones starting with bc1q.)

A lot of centralized exchanges do not look back very far in the coin's history, as an automatic process anyway.

However, if the first sell worked and you get your wire to your bank account, I guess this is not needed. You might want to do it anyway in preparation for future transactions.

Thanks for that observation.  So far I have now sold three "schnitzels" of BTC with them. 

I did what you suggested kind of inadvertently, sending BTC to my Wasabi wallet first to stage them, yep, "bc1q".

I did alert their Support that I had mixed BTC.  I'll report back once I have better clarity.

Most exchanges would prefer that you have some sort of "normal" income. If you are employed or have a business, use that as your excuse. Don't say you mined it or gambled it and doubled your corns from satoshidice or any "weird" sources of income.

And remember that they hate facebook.. Or at least the owners do. hehe.

By happy coincidence, they just emailed me that they did not see any issues with me telling them that I had mixed BTC!  'Course I am not a whale, and there were a couple of hops between mix/joins.  I also told them I would be selling some BTC slowly over the next weeks.

Maybe they looked into me or my bank, these guys may be able to investigate "out the wazoo".

Retired!  No gambling, no income.  Wait......

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I have now sold a few pieces of my BTC hoard, and just today received a wire transfer that I requested to my bank account.

So, Gemini works as well as I had hoped!

I have not worked with any other exchange.  But, I had read reviews and comments here at BTCtalk about many of them.  So, I chose a solid, security-oriented US firm knowing that I would go ahead and do the full KYC process.  I also alerted them in advance that much of my BTC had been mixed in the past, but so far no problems.

Bro, I am being sincere when I tell you that I'm very happy for you--I read an article yesterday mention in this thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5308327.msg56076252#msg56076252) about how a journalist was finding it really hard to buy bitcoin, and one of the exchanges he mentioned was Gemini.  And ever since Circle stopped selling bitcoin I've been having a problem buying bitcoin on exchanges as well, so I created an account with Gemini.  Right now it's in the process of being verified, and I haven't tried to buy anything yet.

I have no doubt that they're like Coinbase in so far as they kind of have to look into where your bitcoin is coming from and going to, but that doesn't have me all that concerned.  I'm not gambling or buying anything illegal with any bitcoin I buy from them, and I don't plan on selling or otherwise depositing any bitcoin onto Gemini. 

Should be interesting to see whether I'm actually going to be able to make a purchase and withdraw it to my own wallet.  Wish me luck.

Well, good luck!

You might want to drop their Support people a line with any questions if you have doubts.  You seem pretty sober-minded.  Might invite them to check out your trust rating here, very high!  I never mentioned bitcointalk though.

It is possible that if you have had your bank account a long time, that might help.

EDIT: Gemini looked a little easier to get into vs. Coinbase (at least it seemed that way to me).  I have no complaints about Gemini, but I was not in a big hurry.

The Winklevoss brothers are backing another Canadian Bitcoin ETF, so they are very much pro-bitcoin, and they are the bitcoin billionaires. If you can't directly own bitcoin for whatever reasons (such as you want them in your government registered retirement accounts) then you can use these ETFs as proxies since they do track bitcoin.

Gemini shouldn't give most people too much problems. If you're selling, bounce it around a few times. If you're buying, bounce it once or twice if you intend to send it to anything questionable, otherwise just use it as normal.

OK, so here's a followup:

I was able to easily add my debit card as a method of "instant funding" (or whatever they called it), and then after going through the KYC process they said the next step was to send a wire deposit to them(!). 

I've never sent money via wire before, and I really don't want to.  Therefore I figured if that was the only option to continue on Gemini, I would close my account.  Which I did.  I couldn't even buy bitcoin with the debit card that I'd entered.

Did I do something wrong here or what?

I would have tried sending a small amount through wire and see if that opened up the other funding possibilities.

aren't you in the USA? are you sure you looked at all the deposit options? they definitely support ACH transfers.
https://www.gemini.com/blog/gemini-introduces-debit-card-support
https://support.gemini.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032219551-How-do-I-send-in-a-Bank-Transfer-ACH-deposit-

maybe they were just temporarily unavailable?

you did KYC already---it seems like a waste to just have them close your account now. they won't be deleting your account data.

i would probably email them to reopen your account, and then inquire about the availability of (free) ACH deposits if you don't see them listed on your deposit page. https://exchange.gemini.com/transfer/deposit

i had to send a same day wire transfer to activate my gemini account too. just need to send a token amount from the account youve linked gemini to. after that its ACH all the way,

so, just something they do, and you just need to do it once.

Yeah, I can't get past this:

https://i.imgur.com/K97NPMp.png

And if vapourminer is correct and you need to wire money to them, I'm not doing it.  Today I had to get a refund from Bitpay for an invoice that they fucked up and they made me go through full KYC procedures in order to get that refund (which still hasn't arrived).  Shit is no joke these days--I even had a much harder time renewing my driver's license this year.

George Orwell's vision is coming true, man.  Big Brother is glaring at us from everywhere.

I did the same as vapourminer did.  I sent in $200 by wire, but it had to be a "same day wire" (I mentioned to my banker).  That did the trick.

Linking my bank account with Gemini was the part that too me the longest too.

All in all, it took me about five days to get my account open, but I was doing other things in my life to...

It's odd because they already use Plaid to verify bank accounts. Apparently, they require a bank wire as a second level of verification (https://support.gemini.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005752603-How-do-I-add-my-Bank-Account-) to make sure your bank account is really yours. After that, ACH transfers will be made available to you.

They are more paranoid about deposit fraud than any exchange I've ever seen.


Was the amount over $1,000 or have they lowered the KYC threshold?

No, it was much lower than $1000.  They're a bunch of cocksuckers as far as I'm concerned--and I still haven't gotten either of my refunds yet.  I'm having a shitty day and I'm glad it's almost bedtime.

Thanks for the info. I'll have to update this thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5173083.msg52083770#msg52083770). This is a worrisome development since the threshold was definitely $1,000 when they first implemented KYC.

Their support documentation (https://support.bitpay.com/hc/en-us/articles/360037486651-How-do-I-complete-the-BitPay-ID-process-) still suggests that hasn't changed, but I now notice a phrase -- "verification requirements may differ by region and/or amount" -- which wasn't always there. It's rather dubious that they don't specify by region. I'm guessing this is US-specific.

yeah that wire transfer bit for gemini was the cause of the three year gap between me signing up several years ago and finally activating it "for real" with a wire xfer last month. as im lazy af and never got around to it as that banks is 40 minutes away.

its a token amount as i said, i sent $100 USD (and paying the banks $30 wire xfer fee) but it could of been less/more (i asked in a support email.. they just want an actual wire xfer in any amount for whatever reason but it HAS to be from the linked account on your gemini profile.).

im not sure why the wire xfer bit bugs you, after all they have your linked bank account info for ACH in and out once the wire clears (took a day iirc). after the wire cleared i did small ACH test transfers of cash (and some corn) in and out to test it all. no issues. its now my main exchange (coinbase being relegated to a backup exchange now), and ive sent decent amount through no prob.

btw they just informed me ill get a 1099k for 2020 lol. thanks, but ive always paid me taxes on corn so that form is expected, and the number it shows isnt what you pay taxes on anyway (for those wondering or who never got one before).

is there something a wire xfer gives away that a linked bank account doesnt? or are you guys just linking debit cards?

I've never sent funds via wire and I don't feel like paying the fee--that's one reason why I'm not proceeding with the Gemini registration.  The other reason is that I don't like my bank, and right now it's the only one I've got.  A couple of years ago, the bank manager pulled me aside when I went in to make a deposit, and she asked me what "all those charges to Circle are".  I told her I was buying bitcoin, and I have a feeling I've been under suspicion ever since.

Thus I don't want to wire money from my bank to a crypto exchange.  And yeah, I probably should look for a different bank, but there aren't many available in my immediate area and it's just a fucking hassle jumping through hoops these days.  Banks and everything else have put up so many hoops it almost looks like that fuckin' awful Nintendo 64 Superman game when you try to create a new account with a bank or any other financial institution. 

Yep, the banks, and for that matter almost everything else, are making things so complicated it's difficult just to get things done.  Routine things.

The noose is getting tighter, guys...

ZeroHedge had a headline article on the COVID Passport that the Rockefeller Foundation and Creepy Bill Gates are pushing.  That digital passport BS is moving along very fast.  Kind of suspicious even.

The New Jacobins are going All Inn.

I found this video:

How To Buy Bitcoin SAFELY | Step By Step Guide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAmdC64KKdM

And he uses Gemini and Coinbase.

lemme guess, you bank at some rinky-dink local bank who is stuck in the year 1999? they make you physically come in to wire money, right?

for all the shit people talk about big banks like bank of america, at least you can do wire transfers 100% online in ~5 minutes. and they don't hassle you over transacting with crypto services---as long as you are using a personal, not business, account. i hate to sound like a banking sales rep (lol) but they give account opening bonuses that would more than pay for the $30 outgoing wire fee. i'm just throwing this out there because it seems like it would make your life a lot easier.

surprisingly, the branch manager i spoke to for the wire knew about coinbase in particular - when i mentioned i was getting sick of their server going down during heavy activity she mentioned "yeah server overload" like she experienced it too.. we actually got into a brief talk on coinbase, its chainanaylsis division, how it shares info with any 3 letter agency that asks, etc.  and she also knew gemini (she knew the winklevoss bros owned it when i brought it up).



i had a coinbase account linked to this bank since 2013. so that probably helped in my case.

Is there a way to use gemini without having to have a US sms phone number?  Im American but abroad almost all year.  I put my google voice number to set my account up but got message they don't allow voip phone number for verification.  Is there a way to get by this?


Coinbase doesn't seem to have this issue and did allow me to use my google voice number for verification.


Also after that one time SMS with gemini... do you still need to have that phone number in order to continue to use gemini?  For example could i use someone else phone number for verification and once I do that... then any two factor authorization I use would be google authenticator or authy?  Again im abroad almost all year and a US citizen and do have a google voice US number... but it didn't seem to accept it as verification.

Anyone can answer the above question?  Im abroad but would like to use gemini but dont have a us sms number. 

gemini uses authy for 2fa, but that is linked to a phone number. but its not sms, its an app. but im in the usa and havent tried it ouside of the usa. gemini also can supposedly use a yubikey but my experience with the yubikey is hit and miss. havent looked into it with gemini yet. for comparison yubikey works perfect with coinbase (not that im recommending coinbase, just saying coinbase has yubikeys working 100% fine, so its not the yubikey thats the problem).

not sure if any of this info will help but no one else answered so..

I'm not sure how you can get around that if accessing your account requires 2FA with an SMS text.  If that's not the case and you only need to receive texts for trades and such, you might work out a deal with someone who's trusted on the forum who's got a US phone number.  I've seen people pay money to receive texts for them in the past (for activating Google accounts and so forth).  That's probably not an ideal solution, but I'm just thinking out loud.

And jerry0, if I know you, you probably won't trust anyone to receive texts for you just based on your posts in the HW wallets section.  Lol.

Oh, by the way--is it possible for you to buy a burner phone that has a US phone number?  I have no idea if that's possible, but I do know you can buy disposable phones pretty much anywhere.  That might be an option.

So here is my issue.  A while back when I was abroad, i signed up for gemini while abroad.  Then during this process, it ask for my us number which i did give it... a google voice number which i use to call/text people in the US while abroad.  But gemini notices its a voip number and doesn't allow it.  So because of that, it doesn't work.


The thing is while I was in the US, I didn't bother to set this up.  Thus i could have just bought like one of those cheap US sim cards and use it for a few weeks or a month and pay for that... then use it as the sms number to set up my account right?  Thing is i am rarely in the US that long but i dont mind buying a sim card for this process.  So wouldnt a burner phone be not needed?  More like just buy any US sim card and use it for this one type activation?  The thing though... is do i need this phone number though?  Because i just plan to buy a sim card for the US number... activate it... then when im back abroad... do i still need this number for verification or not?  Or can i use authy afterwards?  Again i dont need a us mobile monthly plan because im abroad and already use that abroad non us mobileplan.  So when im back in the US, i actually still use my abroad non us plan when in the US because they allow roaming.  So i havent used a us sim card in many years.


But if i buy a us sim card just to do this activation... is that all that is needed with gemini?  Thus after that verification, that number is no longer needed right?  Yea i had thought about using someone elses phone number in the US to do this activation.  But is that even allowed though?  Like have someone use their phone number as my verification... have them send me the code afterwards... then after that... its not needed anymore?  I dont want to message that person each time like ... i need the code each time like i have to log in.  Can anyone who use gemini verify and confirm this?  Such as do you need that sms phone number all the time even after verification?  Well at the moment, im abroad so i can't buy a burner phone and I am pretty sure I cannot get a US number here while abroad.  Because i want to be able to use gemini now since im abroad.  So looking at what options i have right now being abroad.

What country are you in? There may be other exchanges where you are.

So that's something you need to keep in mind, maybe next time you visit or go back into the US. There should be a "real" phone number you can keep for a really low fee or something. MagicJack is technically also voip, but maybe it might be "real" ? I have not tried. They have their own little hardware that you plug into a USB port.

Im outside the US.  But I know i could use gemini here because i had logged into my account a while back before.  Again the issue is not having a us sms number.


What i want to know is when im back in the US and get a real US phone number, do I still need that number afterwards?  Because im planning to get a US number just for activation of my gemini account... then use it for that month only and not use it again because i would be outside the US after that.  So i could then use google authenticator or authy each time to log into my gemini account right?  I want to know... if i need that phone number.  Someone said its only for verification.



If that is the case, couldn't i have someone close use their phone number for gemini verification?  Thus have the sms code sent to them, they tell me what it is... then i get verified?  By that i mean doing that abroad as i will call them to their US number and say... i want you to get a sms message so i could use that for my verification?  But the big thing is make sure they dont have a gemini account right?  Then after that, activate google authenticator or authy and then use gemini while abroad?

Yeah, you could do that, with someone you trust that is based in the US. I don't know if there are "number forwarding" services there, it is quite possible.

The alternative is to get a "real" US voice/sms phone number at the cheapest plan, or maybe even prepaid just so you can keep it alive, something like $5 a month maybe?

I come from the Philippines and I maintain a prepaid mobile phone number for my PH based bank accounts and for receiving SMS is completely free. I can pay a minimum of 10 Pesos a year to keep the number alive. (That's $1 USD every 5 years, if all I use it for is to receive text messages by SMS.)

That's not going to help you as you are based in the US and need a US number though. I'm just saying, there might be some provider in the US that isn't the big 3 (is it still AT&T, MCI, Sprint, or have the others taken over now, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc.) ...

oh, MCI bought out Sprint, LOL.

After some 5 minute search engine looking, I found: mint, visible, verizon, t-mobile, .. t-mobile has $15/month plan, and they have a discount brand called Metro. AT&T still alive. xfinity.

Google Fi works if you have a Pixel, and their parent network is T-Mobile.

There's probably one that works that is also cheap, and will receive SMS when abroad.