Coinbase Blog - Buy And Sell Bitcoin By Connecting Any U.S. Bank Account

[BCB]

This instant bank verification is becoming more common in the US. In addition they even ask for your security phrases. I'm not sure about PayPal and amazon but I do know the smaller startups send you to a third party for this authorization. I don't know if they  save the credential or tokenise for return visits. It would be interesting to hear from some with more knowledge of this process. I alway chose the instant verification process when available. I've done so for a number of years with multiple accounts any have yet to hear of a compromise. Besides any loss from that kind of compromise is already build into the banks operating cost and the customer is rarely if ever responsible for the loss. Nothing is totally secure but coin base is a top tier start up and I'm sure they are using a top notch verification service. And if you want to talk about trust and judgment by members of this board I'd trust coin base with a few grand and my bAnk credentials before I would have trusted bitcoinica or pirate with a few hundred. EAsy to say in hindsight but I'm just saying...

[1714861294]

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[BoardGameCoin]

If you want instant access you give up private info,

So has anyone completed this process?  

I looked at it with one of my accounts, for a small credit union, and they didn't recognize the ABA number, so that now requires the Challenge Deposit method.   I won't use Instant for my other account, but I'm curious to know it others have finished the steps successfully and are just waiting on coins now?

I do see that the price is fantastic.  Like right now there was a little dip, and I would have been able to lock in coins at just 1% over Mt. Gox Last (which is what Coinbase appears to be using).  That's less than most methods for moving USD funds between exchanges (e..g, using Liberty Reserve, or a redeemable code and paying the fee).   So this service will likely come in handy for those doing arbitrage as well.

I have done the instant verification on two different accounts, both major US banks, and am waiting on about $400 worth of coins. The exchange rate isn't MtGox last, but its a decent one.

A random oddity is one of my later orders claims to be arriving earlier than one of my earlier orders (Monday vs. Tuesday). Not really sure why that would be, but whatever.

I'm definitely apprehensive about this being a fraud target, so I plan to buy and remove coins to cold storage quickly for the time being. If it seems to stay up for awhile I'll point friends here for acquiring coins easily.

-bgc

[rexcoin]

If you want instant access you give up private info,

So has anyone completed this process?  

I looked at it with one of my accounts, for a small credit union, and they didn't recognize the ABA number, so that now requires the Challenge Deposit method.   I won't use Instant for my other account, but I'm curious to know it others have finished the steps successfully and are just waiting on coins now?

I do see that the price is fantastic.  Like right now there was a little dip, and I would have been able to lock in coins at just 1% over Mt. Gox Last (which is what Coinbase appears to be using).  That's less than most methods for moving USD funds between exchanges (e..g, using Liberty Reserve, or a redeemable code and paying the fee).   So this service will likely come in handy for those doing arbitrage as well.

Verified Successfully here with my bank - using instant verification

[matonis]

This is a bad idea. Coinbase is asking for your password when it want to access your bank account. Do not use!

Agreed. Coinbase is a bad idea on many levels (bank integration, wallet security, governing jurisdiction). I don't want to buy bitcoin from my bank or my bank's partner. Additionally, I am concerned about the coins that are stored at the Coinbase Wallet. It seems to me that Coinbase thinks of BTC as something like Linden Dollars or Facebook Credits (just another non-convertible virtual currency) and that they are missing the larger picture of Bitcoin (because they just wanted to raise some startup capital without realizing that they are playing with fire).

If they think I am wrong about all of this, I would love to hear back from one of the Coinbase VC investors.

[CaptChadd]

The fact that this website is still around and has not been taken down or anything like that, shows me that they are here to stay.

With Bitcoin you can make loads of money and we are talking hundreds of thousands of dollars if you create a BTC withdrawl and purchase system that works and is simple, unlike having to go through 3 or 4 different website each which take there cut.

If a website scams people, it will last for, at the most a month and then it gets shut down and that's it, the idea and the great business plan is gone.

Scamming is for a quick buck here and there but developing a system that works over the long time is in theory priceless.

[justusranvier]

I successfully connected a checking account, bought $100 worth of bitcoins, and withdrew them to my local wallet.

The service works well, other than the unavoidable delay in waiting for the ACH transfer to clear. I initiated the purchase at 9:00 am  on the 7th, and did not have access to the bitcoins until the today (13th) at 6:30 pm. I assume that's the banking system's fault and something Coinbase can't reasonably do anything about.

[BoardGameCoin]

I successfully connected a checking account, bought $100 worth of bitcoins, and withdrew them to my local wallet.

I had similar success with $400 worth. The withdraw seemed to take awhile (about an hour for the transaction to hit the network), though the wishful thinking part of me believes that's because they had to get some out of cold storage to service the request. (Moar bitcoin businesses with responsible cold storage practices... I'm looking at you bitfloor, you owe me 36 BTC)

[annette786]

Yea!

I did my first Coinbase transaction.  It was quite easy. 

I opted to verify my bank via two small deposits (the way paypal does it) and it took one banking day to receive the deposits.  Once I did, it took about a minute to login and verify my account.

The price was the same as the offer on mtgox.  There were 700 BTC offered on Mtgox at the time.  I didn't see the buy go through Mtgox.

I won't get access to the BTC until after they debit my account (I assume because of Thanksgiving and weekend), but that's fine with me-- as long as I know the price I paid.

If they can raise the $100 limit, this service will be quite valuable.  I like to buy BTC when the price drops, but Mtgox takes forever to get cash into (I don't like to keep funds in an non-US company) and I ended up paying about 9% both times I used Bitinstant. 

[DigitalHermit]

Coinbase appears to be offline within the last hour or so.

Coinbase Error

Whoops! It looks like we encountered a problem.

We've been notificed about the problem and are working on it. Please try again in a few minutes or you can return to the homepage.

We'll post updates on Twitter if the problem persists.

No updates on twitter yet though.

[Stephen Gornick]

Coinbase appears to be offline within the last hour or so.

The main page is still responding, but when attempting to login is when I see the error.

This reminds me ...

Feature request: Show the exchange rate that I would pay to buy through Coinbase (and the exchange rate I would receive when selling through Coinbase) without having to login.

I check a few sources before I buy or sell and not having to login to see the rate offered would save a few seconds.  I'm sure I'm not the only one that does this.

[DigitalHermit]

Coinbase appears to be offline within the last hour or so.

And they're back! From twitter:

Coinbase ‏@coinbase And we're back re-syncing. Sorry about that! Looks like a bad node on the network. Should be all fixed.

[Stephen Gornick]

I've been getting an error that I cannot sell any BTC because it would exceed my 100 BTC daily limit.

The limit is $100 USD per-day not 100 BTC.  [Edit: Oops, I read that wrong.  100 BTC per-day when selling.   The $100 USD is the limit when buying.]

[Stephen Gornick]

And now I cannot even get into my account...

Coinbase Error
Whoops! It looks like we encountered a problem.

We've been notificed about the problem and are working on it. Please try again in a few minutes or you can return to the homepage.

Anyone else having issues with the site?

I was just able to login successfully.

[Third Way]

I don't want to detract but I have to because I can't find a proper thread, but, I live in a U.S. territory, where could I check if my bank works with the people of CB?

[jbis1]

Coinbase uses ACH (Automated Clearing House) to transfer the funds from your bank account to theirs. According to the following site ACH works with U.S. territories.

http://www.achnetwork.com/introtoach.html

You need to have a checking account. You need to provide Coinbase with the routing number of the bank and with your account number. You can find that information on the bottom of your checks or on a statement from your bank.

You can also try contacting Coinbase support or ask your bank.

[bitpop]

I like this site

[justusranvier]

I like this site

I did too until they suddenly decided to cancel my most recent purchase because it "appears to be high risk".

[BradZimdack]

I like this site

I did too until they suddenly decided to cancel my most recent purchase because it "appears to be high risk".

They pulled the same thing on me despite completing about a half dozen 10 BTC purchases over the course of the last month.  They waited a week to cancel my supposedly "high risk" transaction, but they have not yet canceled my other pending transactions or closed my account.  It seems like an immediate account freeze would be the first course of action if any sort of fraud was truly suspected.

Overall, this is a big disappointment because it seemed like Coinbase was finally the first professional service for buying and selling coins.  Unfortunately, it looks like it's still amateur hour in Bitcoin land -- as usual.

[justusranvier]

Overall, this is a big disappointment because it seemed like Coinbase was finally the first professional service for buying and selling coins.  Unfortunately, it looks like it's still amateur hour in Bitcoin land -- as usual.

More than one person has noted that transactions have a much higher probability of being classified as "high risk" if the exchange rate has gone up significantly between the time it was started and the time they credit your account with bitcoins. One would think they allocate the bitcoins immediately at the time they lock in the price, but if they aren't doing that it would make sense for them to cancel the order if the price has moved too far.

[Walter Rothbard]

I like this site

I did too until they suddenly decided to cancel my most recent purchase because it "appears to be high risk".

It appears they may be using unconfirmed outputs in the transactions they generate to send you your bitcoins. That's just too much risk for me to be allowing them to pull money from my bank account. Until they resolve this issue, I wouldn't trust them enough to receive any transactions from them.  By the time they've sent you the bad transaction, they've already got the money from your bank account.  How do you straighten that out?

EDIT: Apparently coinbase is fixing the bug.  If I get confirmation that the bug is fixed, I'll delete this message.

They say it's now fixed, and they are offering a 5BTC bounty to get the messed up transactions mined.