Bitcoin Forum

The massive crypto exchange will enable its U.S. customers to deposit all or part of their paychecks in crypto or dollars without a fee.

VP of Product Max Branzburg quoted:

“Our goal is to enable everyone to get more out of their money with the power of crypto – from getting your paycheck in crypto, to generating yield on your assets, to spending your crypto and beyond – all from a single account.”


Source : https://www.coindesk.com/business/2021/09/27/coinbase-to-enable-direct-paycheck-deposit-emb-1700-utc-927/

Just what I want to do, direct deposit my paycheck into a company known for horrible customer service.

It's really not that much more work to put my check into a bank and then ACH it to coinbase.

If they had a good support department, that would be a different story. But even if the issue is with the payroll processor and not them, not being able to call someone to figure it out. I'll pass.

Good idea in theory, if it was Gemini I would think about it.

-Dave

It's not so much about what you (or I) want to do. The average Coinbase user is not as knowledgeable or as concerned about privacy as the average user on this forum.

I think it's good news, just like when Paypal announced it would offer Bitcoin to its customers. Neither you nor I would buy it through paypal custodial service, but it popularizes Bitcoin and helps normalization and mass adoption (another thing is that Paypal later announced that it would allow withdraw Bitcoin but that was later).

As for depositing (even part) of the paycheck in Coinbase, this kind of thing increases turnover. It's a known fact that people spend to the extent you make things easy for them. One of the reasons for Amazon's success is that people spend with a click, they can even finance with a click.

So, yes, it's not ideal, but it's good news.

To enable this, won't coinbase need its own check-collection and clearing system? Is it allowed to do this in the USA as a non-banking corporation? Also, What does "paycheck" mean here? Who gets salaries as checks in 21st century?

I think one of the important use-cases that Coinbase is trying to capture is people trying to invest in Alt-coins listed on Coinbase. A lot of people don't want to go through converting USD from banks to BTC and then pay the fee for further bridging to Alts or other chains. Once the funds are directly on coinbase, they can easily change to Alts or Bitcoin as they desire. IMO, This is just a smart additional step to make it easier to onboard customers.   

If you think about it, it really isn't that much work to use a non-custodial wallet and write down the 12-24 words on a piece of paper too. But yet people still hold funds on exchanges. The power of convenience is something we frequently underestimate.

It's not the power of convenience that'll make those users deposit cryptocurrencies in Coinbase. It's unawareness. Sure, Coinbase may make them feel really convenient with those stylish buttons and cozy layouts, but if they choose that way, then it's a matter of their ignorance. I bet most of the Coinbase users have no idea why Bitcoin was created or they're in the field just for quick profit.

Needless to say, that the majority hasn't read the whitepaper. (Not proved, but definitely obvious)

Another wise business decision to stay ahead of the curve! No offense but Coinbase is proposing a very risky business. Due to the volatility of crypto prices, it is indeed a very risky proposition to keep a part of your salary in cryptos. Possibly it will go well for the millenials who don't have much liabilities nad can take riaks. But not for someone who has liabilities. But anyway, it's the choice of the consumers and business of coinbase. Nothing is unfair!

I'm with Poker Player, I think its good news. Its an extra avenue for people to get
exposed to crypto. OK using an exchange for anything other than...exchanging
is risky but hopefully a portion on the people who avail of this service will know
what the right thing to do with their paycheck is.

Exchange part or all to Bitcoin and transfer to secure wallet and transfer the
remaining FIAT to wherever.

It isnt that difficult to do the reverse either but I suppose Coinbase is opening a door
for whoever wants to walk through.

Let's assume for a second that there's no issue with their support or you're just dealing with Gemini, how much ^{[or a rough percentage]} a US-based customer could save by opting for the Coinbase route?

What happened to those services that supposedly allowed you to get your paycheck converted to Bitcoin regularly and links with your salary? I know this seems like it's great because of no fees, but usually it means the rate is bad anyway.

Coinbase already got in trouble for yield staking though, maybe this incurs more wrath from SEC.

Unpopular opinion: while it helps, a person doesn't necessarily need to read the whitepaper to decently understand Bitcoin. There's just so much content to learn about Bitcoin out there already in 2021, and we really can't expect the masses to read a science paper.

I think thats a good added service for Coinbase users because it enables them to interact with cryptocurrency directly and use them for their Paycheck, But the question is how they will maintain the value/amount of those Paychecks when it was converted into crypto' Its an interesting question because cryptocurrency prices are always changing. 

The main point of view was here that they are trying to connect more people with crypto currency and offering them a fair return.

Its still not announced that how will they complete the full process, they did some partnership for working with crypto payment and will announce more about it once they will find out how it would facilitate these types of payments by companies.

The real question is if anyone’s going to be doing this. All of this is reported to the IRS directly

What a joke lol. I still can’t even access my coinbase account because of their customer service

A lot of payroll services just ACH your pay into your checking/ savings account on payday. There is no physical check. The process for them to put it into your account at your bank or your cash account at Coinbase is the same. All I am saying is that Coinbase is known to have bad customer service, if you are supposed to get paid on Friday and there is no money in your Coinbase account and your payroll company says "we sent it, check with your bank" it's just going to be a miserable time.

 
Nothing as far as I can tell, from my checking account to coinbase is a free transfer. No place did they say that by doing this are you going to get a better rate, or if they did say it I missed it.

-Dave

Lol, what a joke. Why would anyone want to do that? You get your paychecks ACHed to your accounts directly. Based on how shit coinbase service is and having a huge chance of getting your funds locked and not being able to get any help from their almost non-existential support, why would anyone want to deposit their paychecks in coinbase? Get your payments in your bank. Get your own wallet where you control the private keys and go to an exchange. Buy crypto and keep it safe. It's that simple.

The only one that I could recall off the top of my head is "BitWage (https://www.bitwage.com/)" and judging by most of the recent comments that it has received, it appears that it no longer offers a good/reliable service ^{[e.g. delays and etc...]}!

On their "blog posts (https://blog.coinbase.com/now-get-your-paycheck-deposited-into-coinbase-116fe1d073ce)", they emphasized it by including it as one of the main headings ^{["zero-fee access to crypto (https://archive.fo/ZNtkh#selection-489.13-489.38)"]} and since the US is among the top 5 in regards to having the highest average monthly wages, then I automatically assumed there has to be a significant difference between the two.
^{- Thank you for clearing that up.}

If I'm not mistaken, Coinbase rates are always a bit lower than a regular (or maybe I should say unregulated) exchange. So maybe there's no fee for the "buy" but the actual exchange rate is not as good.

I actually don't know any Coinbase users to confirm though, as it's only for US people (although a few years back they allowed me to open an account and then had it deleted).


That's very sad to learn but yes now you mention it this was the one I heard a lot about before. If everyone could implement this easily, even better and that's direct to your wallet rather than to an exchange. But if that's problematic now maybe in the end it needs a professional exchange to handle this directly.

Plus it’s bad, because most of the people, especially newbies, will be going into Bitcoin and shitcoins with a “get rich/greed” motive, before having all the proper education about Bitcoin and why it’s not a “scheme” for getting rich quick.

This is good news but it sort of amuses me to see how different countries take on a polar opposite approach on crypto.

China for instance is on the other side of the spectrum, and interestingly it is the only country with such a negative approach.

On the other hand, you have the US and European counties as well as Central America and Africa where you may see some negativity but still quite open-minded about crypto. Not even going to emphasise which country/ies are closer to the truth but hope that it is becoming obvious.

But it actually is not good news. I believe many of these people will just lose their salaries because more than 80% of them do NOT have the right education about Bitcoin, about cryptocurrencies, about investing/trading, and most of them would just be gambling everything away.

the ability to deposit for free is awesome but this service is currently available to u.s for now  .
 if this became a success ( or even if it isnt ? ) other countries would follow later on  .

they can only get more if the prices of their chose crypto grow but if it goes down thats a loss although they can do more once they transfer their paycheck into crypto because in crypto we have lots of marketplaces , amusements , services and other stuffs that cant be experienced else where .

This is good news. However, some time ago I heard that the American prisiden will limit and even ban the circulation of bitcoin in their country. That's just like something that doesn't seem to be affecting bitcoin's growth. Should we attract prisiden's attention?

It's FUD. If there was to be any ban on bitcoin payment/trading in the US, it would've been done several years ago, not when some crypto company is launching an obscure feature such as paycheck direct deposit.

First I thought it’s amazing idea and peeps will love it. But as I went on reading the posts above it seems it’s far more complicated than I thought. I think it’s best if everyone choose their way with this. And yes this will surely need big infrastructure to be built so that peeps can deposit the pay check. Above all I am wondering how coin base will manage those pay check verification in manual context? Someone will be needed right? I think this is more or less setting up a bank. Lolz.  ::)
I think coinbase is into winning the hearts of peeps and crypto lovers will be pulled in no time. Hopefully this will bring actual utility to the market.

Coinbase made a good business decision, and I think there will be people who are interested in this option. After all, you guys are angry with Coinbase due to privacy concerns (and I get it), but is holding money in a bank account any better? Doesn't a bank have as much (or even more) control over the money of its users? And yet most of us use banks for fiat anyway because we can't help it. In my country, you cannot receive your salary (if you're officially employed) in any other way but directly onto your bank account. You don't even get to say which bank because it's chosen by your employer. Now, I don't understand the US context here, but doesn't this Coinbase offer mean that the person can avoid the bank and instead use Coinbase? As an alternative to a personal Bitcoin wallet, it's a bad option. But is that so as an alternative to a bank account?

If the purpose is profit from capital, Coinbase has good services and they can help you to invest, and get profit. If you don't care of privacy, you won't have problems with Coinbase. If you don't care about it, Coinbase is certainly so much better than central banks.

Complains is when people have other options to choose. If in the future, all governments approve laws and enforce all crypto exchanges to do KYC, they will accept it. We won't have choices and won't complain about it if there is no true decentralized exchange exists for us.

You shouldn't have problems

.. except the fact that exchanges get hacked all the time and Coinbase is definitely not invulnerable despite them doing a good job with security. Coinbase is just one of the big exchanges with a huge bounty on their head that hackers are trying to crack. And, the chances of them cracking Coinbase's cold storage security is non-zero.