Can you imagine if society ran on the mentality of "blame the customer" for misunderstanding a single button and therefore they deserve to lose their life savings.

This is a financial services product by a name brand company planning to go public in the USA and rushing some shitty wallet design from an app they bought of Toshi that is dangerously designed.

I am not even new to crypto.  I have used several wallets with Seeds and they tell you explicitly that it is a wallet with very important Seed words.  They don't vaguely refer to the fact one single time (I was never prompted anything again). 

Coinbase was my crypto bank and that was the danger because I even linked my accounts seemingly.  I thought I was in good hands like if it was Chase or Citibank which now is a joke if you have any experience with their customer service. 

To be a public bank you should have that level of accountability and attention to customer care.  If you do not you should not be in the business of banking people's financial lives.

I also submit that if your entire product is a "secure vault" with "special magic words" that are the most important function preventing your customer from losing all of their money when your app crashes, you NEED to provide the customer the magic words.  You need to tell them the magic words.  You need to show them the words.  At the very least one single time.  You don't say afterward, "Hey the button was highlighted in blue.  Didn't you understand the highlight color or read the manual fine print?"

I didn't even know I was using a Seed based wallet and that is a major problem. 

My wife is an attorney for insurance companies and fine print means jack shit.  Nobody reads fine print and everyone knows that and they are mostly used to just scare laymen from lawsuits.

I believe Coinbase has a hefty class action lawsuit coming for them.

Hopefully it will be a wake up call that they cannot pretend to be a trusted bank on one hand, but also have the willy nilly attitude of some offshore tech company.

To answer your question...Should the app just go straight to the "Recovery Phrase" window and refuse to let the user use the app without completing the backup process at least once?

YES.  It is called providing the password.  If there is a magic word to a vault, you tell the customer the magic word.  Why would you not?  Is there someone out there who doesn't want to know the magic word to the vault?

I plan to file a lawsuit against Coinbase go through their Arbitration process.  Who knows how that will go down but I truly feel cheated of common sense.  And it also irks me that I chose to use Coinbase's wallet because they were my trusted crypto bank.  I wish I just used Trust Wallet now obviously.  Would have saved me a lot of money and headache.

Just tell the customer the magic word before you lose the keys to the vault.

My response is... No, not enough. 

I simply pressed "Later" not understanding what they were asking and then transferred money and then the app crashed and I lost what is now $20,000.

My massive error was not properly understanding what Backup meant.  Back what up?  My iPhone is already backing up through the cloud.  Why would I need their stupid backup?  I had to give an account name, a pin, it uses my biometrics... but none of it mattered.  None.   

Why not simply show the words/keys before letting someone transact.  Or why not say, "If you lose these Seed words, you lose all your money?"

One button/misunderstanding at the very beginning should not cost $20,000.  It coulda cost millions.  Would that be okay?

Coinbase needed to show me the Seed words before letting me transact.  They did not.  They never showed me any Seed Phrase and therefore never provided it.  Burying something in Settings is completely irresponsible.  Just show the words UP FRONT. 

Whatever they did failed me.  Did it not?  Am I just an idiot and deserve to lose all my money because I missed a button?  Are all the other people who it has happened to also just so stupid they deserve?  There should be 0% chance of someone never seeing the Seed words.

These are all great thoughts. 

I don't like forcing a user to do too much either.  I don't even necessarily like the idea of forcing someone to digitally backup the wallet.

BUT I DO think they need to have "shown" the words "on screen" at some point to consider it delivered.  (especially if they don't require the other stuff we talked about). 

I was NEVER ever shown a Seed phrase and therefore believe I was never provided it in my opinion. It is like selling a house without physically producing the keys and then blaming the buyer when he gets locked out five seconds later.  That is absurdly dangerous and not very hard to change.

Also I re-tested the acct opening process on my wife's phone and we both were in agreement that having it say "backup" to cloud without really knowing what they are talking about is kind of weird and confusing for some.  I didn't even know what that meant.  Back what up?  The application?  My iPhone is already backing up through the cloud.  Why do I need their backup?  That is not a completely irrational thought.  I have to give an account name, a pin, it uses my biometrics... but none of it mattered.  None. 

You can't sell expensive properties without providing the keys.  Coinbase failed to provide them.  They hid the Seed words as far as I am concerned in a backend menu.

As is, it is a very dangerous financial services application for general use to the public.  They need to know this and do better.

Thanks all for taking the time read this.  Sincerely.  And I appreciate the feedback and insight.

I have recently been able to get back into my Wallet and connect it to my Coinbase account, and scroll through coins, and see my values etc...but the Seed phrase still won't show.  It is unclickable.   And the Wallet times out with transactions (even to my Coinbase account which it lets me link to with 2FA) so something is still off.  And in the end, the Seed phrase has yet to have ever been provided to me.  And if that is the one and only fail safe for a product that seems like it knows ahead of time it will lose your private keys on your device, then it must be better executed.

Trust Wallet does a good job.  I checked that out.  It makes Coinbase look like a con job.  In fact, the more research I have done the more negligent and dangerous I find the Coinbase product to be.  I believe they even slapped their brand name on someone else's Toshi Wallet which is always a sign.

I too would like to make very shitty products and then blame the customer for his stupidity and ignorance, but this isn't a microwave.  This is potentially people's financial lives.  Why not just make absolutely sure you actually give the buyer the key and he has them in his hand before you ride off into the sunset.  Don't leave it in the grass and motion to it.  Don't mumble.  If he knew they were there and he was going to get locked out, don't you think he would take them???  Physically show it like other companies do.  Produce it in reality rather than wishful thinking.  Is that too much to ask?  It is common sense and required in every other industry.  And if you really want to get a gold star do what the other companies do and have them re-arrange the Seed or something just to be extra sure he saw it.  But to never ever show it.  To bury it in the backend and then have it grayed out?   It is not a question of the consumer being "too" eager to use a product.  Maybe I was but people aren't going to change.  The shitty app design is what needs to change.

In the end, I think Coinbase is the eager and careless party rushing a reckless product that lacks common sense and is below industry standards.  With any financial service product comes great responsibility and the "blame the customer" model is a poor business trajectory.  Especially when so solvable.

Coinbase never showed the Seed phrase and therefore never provided it before the app crashed.  That is a problem.

I have been a user of Coinbase and Coinbase Pro for years, so when I decided to try a Wallet with them I think my gravest error was perhaps being too comfortable with the brand and services -- and it cost me $15,000...and growing...

It began with excitement to try Uniswap.  I looked at the wallets that could link and there I saw one by Coinbase.  Great.  They have been my loyal crypto bank for years.  So I excitedly downloaded the App and created a wallet.  It asked me to create a user ID, a pin, plus another thing I could "Save for Later."  I plowed ahead and the wallet worked well.  It used my biometrics to open and close and transfers happened almost instantaneously between my CB acct and the Wallet, like Coinbase Pro does.  It seemed like another great product that linked my accts together and I was in good hands.  So I transferred more funds into it.  And then I transferred more funds...

Until one day after my iPhone auto-updated, when I tried to open my Wallet it asked me to create a new Wallet or use a back up.  Back up?  I touched my thumb to the pad again. Why isn't it opening like usual?  My stomach started to sink.  Is this Keys and Back Up thing they now want, could that possibly be, the seemingly random action that I was able to click past and "Save for Later" when first setting up my account?  I think you know where this is going.

I am not totally unfamiliar with Seed Keys.  I had a Nano Ledger in the day and that product made you very aware of your Seeds.  It was impossible to even begin to use the product without them.  I used Trust Wallet and it made me go through an entire process of re-arranging the Seed words before I could even proceed with the account, all helping me as a consumer understand the significance and importance of the process and making sure I did not proceed carelessly.

Upon realizing that Coinbase was not one of the aforementioned quality providers of Seeds, I started to have a panic attack and after convo with tech friend decided to restore my iPhone to before the update.  (Note: While restoring iPhone I had to "Save for Later" about a half dozen actions like Siri, Apple Wallet, other add-ons and extras like we often see).  Once updated, I waited for the apps to load.  Then I held my breath and first tried Coinbase main app.  It opened automatically with my fingerprint.  Bingo.  Then I tried Coinbase Pro.  It also opened with my fingerprint.  I was feeling hopeful!  So I confidently tried Coinbase Wallet... and it loaded..for a moment...before flashing an error message:  "Failed to retrieve keys, please sign in again (Error Code -25300).  Two buttons overlayed above my account that show values updating in real time: Sign Out or Retry.  I have "Retried" a hundred times but it just flashes the same message. 

I can't get past the error message yet I can see my coins in the wallet, the values updating in real time, as a reminder of how much I failed my family and myself, and about how much Coinbase failed me.  In trying to protect the sacred Keys from some villain in a virtual world, they failed to protect me, the long-standing customer, an average person prone to digital overload in the real world.

I wrote Coinbase promptly and they kindly told me they would transfer me to a Specialist.  After several days I got a copy and pasted email of the same canned fine print from the website about how the Seed Keys are my sole responsibility and essentially that my funds are gone.  What Seed Keys, I said?  You never showed them to me.  Literally.  I don't know where they resided in the app.  I submit that is a problem.  As I long time customer of Coinbase, I am very disappointed and believe that my trust in the company is partially what emboldened me to press "Save for Later."  It was like buying a trusted name brand.  It is why I chose their wallet in the first place.  I know we can point fingers and say, welcome to crypto, dummy!  Or...you are an idiot!  Trust me, I know!  But I can't help but think how easily Coinbase could have and should have protected people like me with better processes that are at least up to industry standard.

One problem is I sincerely don't believe Coinbase cares about me or my business.  If they did, they would have put more than five seconds into making sure this cannot happen so willy-nilly.  As an example, even when you delete an account from Google Authenticator it says it is holding onto it securely for 48 hr hours.  And I can't even proceed into some exchanges without setting up 2FA and authenticating all my credentials simultaneously.  Yet CB allowed me to unknowingly hand over the keys (excuse me, throw away the keys) by pressing "Save for Later" and an auto-Apple Update... while providing the illusion through a pin and biometrics that I was secure.

Long story short (too late)...Is there any possible way to retrieve the keys or do a workaround since my phone pretty much opens it up but just can't get past the error message?  Is there any action at all to take?

Moreover, I want Coinbase to make sure they fix this issue by adopting industry standards with protocols for Seed Key distribution so it never happens again to anyone else.

Any ideas toward any of these is very welcome!

"Save for Later"