Is it safe to hold considerable amount of US Dollars in Coinbase?

Are there users with more than $10,000 in Coinbase? I just want to know if Coinbase is safe to keep cash there until I decide to buy bitcoins with it. I don't need to withdraw the money,

Is there a limit to how much money is safely allowed in Coinbase?

Looking for actual users' experiences here

Quote from: colinistheman on November 24, 2013, 07:22:11 PM

I was under the impression that Coinbase does not hold fiat at all, and that when it is needed it comes straight out of a mainstream demand account (checking or credit card.)

If my understanding is correct, then it is still a valid question as to whether it is safe to hold significant fiat in an account that Coinbase has the ability to withdraw from. My own personal opinion is 'yes' because they (and by extension, their VC funders) would be subject to considerable grief if they stole from me, but it is easy and wise to set up an independent checking account for such work anyway. So I did this.

So far, the one questionable thing I have found about Coinbase is that they seem to offer the option for a user to give them the password to the user's on-line checking account. This seems like an absolutely terrible idea, and I'm surprised that it is even legal! The only way it would make any kind of sense is if the entire account structure (often multiple accounts) was dedicated to interacting with Coinbase, but in that case, the supposed benefit of 'instant gratification' would not apply since it would be considerable leg-work for a user to set up such an account in the first place.

Thank you, you helped me realize something.

Quote from: tvbcof on November 24, 2013, 07:37:45 PM

I was under the impression that Coinbase does not hold fiat at all, and that when it is needed it comes straight out of a mainstream demand account (checking or credit card.)

I knew that when buying bitcoin on Coinbase it was directly taken from your bank account.
What I didn't realize is that when selling bitcoin on Coinbase, it is deposited it directly into your bank account as well. Coinbase does not allow storing of USD on their service at all.

Now I see that I will have to use Campbx.

Thank you for helping me realize this.

Quote from: colinistheman on November 24, 2013, 07:41:06 PM

You are correct-- typically Coinbase is used to directly buy or order bitcoin, not to transfer money from your bank account into it.

But the way I would be getting USD into the account is by transferring BTC and then selling it for USD. At this point Coinbase would be holding a sizable amount of my USD fiat on their service. I just want to know if this is safe in a volume of $10,000 or more.

Previously, I have typically bought my bitcoins from exchanges and then quickly sent them to my personal offline btc wallet to get them out of exchanges fast so that no matter what I'm safe. But this time I want to wait to buy bitcoin until I feel the time is right.

Is this a safe idea? Or am I missing some risks here that I should be aware of due to the volume of USD involved sitting on their service?

Any personal bad experiences, or does this quantity seem safe enough?

I'm trying to tell you that unlike an exchange, you don't have a fiat balance at the vendor. The balance is in YOUR mainstream bank account. So the basis of your question about whether it is safe to have Coinbase sit on your fiat until you decide to buy is not valid. I just logged into my Coinbase account again to look around, and I see nothing which would indicate that I'm mistaken about this.

Of course Coinbase has some transient cashflow issues to deal with when you make a sale or purchase of BTC. How they deal with that and mitigate the risks is their own secret sauce.

As you've probably notice, many people here claim that Coinbase games the risk mitigation to skim profits when there is volatility, but it would be hard to prove, and most of the people making the assertions have little solid evidence to back it up. I would not rule it out, but I've never felt that I've been abused. But then I've only used them with me being in seller mode (around $25k in the last few weeks.)

Nobody has claimed that Coinbase flat out stole money. Only that they canceled transactions in instance when it worked against the user's favor. If there are cancellations when it worked in the user's favor we would probably hear less about them on this board. But if the price is generally going up, and most of the cancellations happen when the user is trying to buy, it is logical that most of those who have been effected have felt that they got screwed.