Is Coinbase a safe exchange to work with?

[scottmazzy]

I think Bitcoin is going to be a roller coaster ride for a while.  I am mid process transferring my Bitcoin from Poloniex to Coinbase (it is taking me 2 days because of the $2000 per day limit).  Once there I plan on waiting until Bitcoin pumps back up in value and then sell it and put the $ into my Coinbase USD Wallet.  And then ride out the roller coaster for a while until Bitcoin stabilizes.

I was also thinking about using Coinbase to sell high and buy low, back and forth, back and forth, storing my fiat in my USD Wallet after selling.

Is this a good idea?  Is Coinbase a good exchange to do it in?

Mazzy

[1713408574]

1713408574

[1713408574]

1713408574

[mindrust]

I think Bitcoin is going to be a roller coaster ride for a while.  I am mid process transferring my Bitcoin from Poloniex to Coinbase (it is taking me 2 days because of the $2000 per day limit).  Once there I plan on waiting until Bitcoin pumps back up in value and then sell it and put the $ into my Coinbase USD Wallet.  And then ride out the roller coaster for a while until Bitcoin stabilizes.

I was also thinking about using Coinbase to sell high and buy low, back and forth, back and forth, storing my fiat in my USD Wallet after selling.

Is this a good idea?  Is Coinbase a good exchange to do it in?

Mazzy

I don't recommend coinbase a bit. Coinbase shuts down their services when the prices become volatile. They are also heavily being regulated by the paranoiac US government and you may find yourself in the middle of a federal investigation.

Avoid.

[scottmazzy]

Wow...makes sense.  What exchange do you recommend as for the type of trading I want to do?  I would want one that has a secure USD Wallet system.

By the way...I had been trading using Poloniex exchange and, over a 3 week period, increased my Bitcoin holdings from 1 Bitcoin to 1.08 Bitcoins.  I learned a lot.

The reason I'm transferring out of Poloniex is they don't have a Fiat Wallet system that is not tied into Bitcoin.  I want an exchange wallet system that is a safe haven and my fiat won't fluctuate with the roller coaster Bitcoin value.

Thanks,
Mazzy

[mindrust]

Wow...makes sense.  What exchange do you recommend as for the type of trading I want to do?  I would want one that has a secure USD Wallet system.

By the way...I had been trading using Poloniex exchange and, over a 3 week period, increased my Bitcoin holdings from 1 Bitcoin to 1.08 Bitcoins.  I learned a lot.

The reason I'm transferring out of Poloniex is they don't have a Fiat Wallet system that is not tied into Bitcoin.  I want an exchange wallet system that is a safe haven and my fiat won't fluctuate with the roller coaster Bitcoin value.

Thanks,
Mazzy

Actually there isn't much to recommend right now. Every exchange has its positives/negatives. There are people who are satisfied/not satisfied/ got scammed with every exchange there is.

Polo has many withdrawal problems lately. They withhold funds of many people without a valid reason.

Btc-e locks inactive people's accounts (if it is more than a year inactive) and ask them to confirm their identity.

Bitfinex got hacked and banks stopped working with them long ago.

Yobit is buggy/laggy as hell and not reliable.

see? I really can't recommend any of them.

I personally use btc-e but as soon as i make my trade, i always withdraw my coins. Never ever hold them in any exchange for a long time.

[brobbel]

I don't think Coinbase willingly stop their site while there is high volatility, I think they have problems handling the enormous growth. The same with Poloniex, they grew too fast.

Pro for coinbase: they are insured in case of a hack.

For other exchanges you can look at:
Kraken.com -> I don't like to work with their site - Coinbase/GDAX works easier
Bitstamp.net (Europe based, also in $) -> this one I have no experience with
Bl3p.eu (Europe based, so not in $ but in Euro) -> works fine, only very small

And for every exchange: only hold the coins which you need to trade with. It's not safe to use it as a wallet.

[RodeoX]

If your concern is about an exchange working with the government by insisting on KYC/AML rules, then I suggest you consider what it would be like to work with criminals. Any exchange that does not follow the law is a criminal operation and you will be sending your bitcoin to criminals. Maybe they are good, honest criminals with a heart of gold.  More likely they are going to just keep your money and leave you with absolutely no legal recourse. The police are not going to help you, the courts are not going to help you, you are done.
And for what? You could have made out with your free and clear profits.

[mindrust]

If your concern is about an exchange working with the government by insisting on KYC/AML rules, then I suggest you consider what it would be like to work with criminals. Any exchange that does not follow the law is a criminal operation and you will be sending your bitcoin to criminals. Maybe they are good, honest criminals with a heart of gold.   More likely they are going to just keep your money and leave you with absolutely no legal recourse. The police are not going to help you, the courts are not going to help you, you are done.
And for what? You could have made out with your free and clear profits.

Wtf dude...

Bitcoin is there to stand against the government regulations because the governments are the biggest criminal organisations there are.

You have no idea what you are trading and what you are buying and what you are even talking about.

If you want to be regulated so badly just stay with FIAT. Governments and Banks will take care of you so well 

I don't like to be regulated but that doesn't mean I am stupid as I already told above that I don't trust any exchanges at all.

[SyGambler]

personally after my last experience with poloniex I can't trust any exchange now , but that's only my personal experience
coinbase is doing fine but no site is perfect , so you should know that there is a risk if you want to keep your funds and do trades
if you just want to use them to buy/sell and then withdraw you should be fine
hope that we will have popular smart contract exchange thing in the future where the odds of scamming is zero

[RodeoX]

If your concern is about an exchange working with the government by insisting on KYC/AML rules, then I suggest you consider what it would be like to work with criminals. Any exchange that does not follow the law is a criminal operation and you will be sending your bitcoin to criminals. Maybe they are good, honest criminals with a heart of gold.   More likely they are going to just keep your money and leave you with absolutely no legal recourse. The police are not going to help you, the courts are not going to help you, you are done.
And for what? You could have made out with your free and clear profits.

Wtf dude...

Bitcoin is there to stand against the government regulations because the governments are the biggest criminal organisations there are.

You have no idea what you are trading and what you are buying and what you are even talking about.

If you want to be regulated so badly just stay with FIAT. Governments and Banks will take care of you so well 

I don't like to be regulated but that doesn't mean I am stupid as I already told above that I don't trust any exchanges at all.

Well, suit yourself. I have been here since 2010 and done quite well with bitcoin. Bitcoin is fair money, not magical money. I know for a fact that EVERY bitcoin Tx in the US is now monitored. One day soon you and others are going to find out the hard way. You risk going from financial freedom to prisoner status. Failure to pay the measly 0-15% tax that you owe can result in a bill for the tax + the interest + penalties + jail time. An exchange that is not doing AML/KYC may have all their your bitcoin seized.
If you don't like paying taxes, join the club. But you are delusional to think it's a good idea to try hiding your coin using unregulated exchanges. That is sooo 2013.  

[Iranus]

If your concern is about an exchange working with the government by insisting on KYC/AML rules, then I suggest you consider what it would be like to work with criminals. Any exchange that does not follow the law is a criminal operation and you will be sending your bitcoin to criminals. Maybe they are good, honest criminals with a heart of gold.   More likely they are going to just keep your money and leave you with absolutely no legal recourse. The police are not going to help you, the courts are not going to help you, you are done.
And for what? You could have made out with your free and clear profits.

Wtf dude...

Bitcoin is there to stand against the government regulations because the governments are the biggest criminal organisations there are.

You have no idea what you are trading and what you are buying and what you are even talking about.

If you want to be regulated so badly just stay with FIAT. Governments and Banks will take care of you so well 

I don't like to be regulated but that doesn't mean I am stupid as I already told above that I don't trust any exchanges at all.

You don't have to turn everything into a pointless political debate.

Governments don't just do absolutely everything wrong because they feel like it.  Even the most corrupt governments have a lot of regulations that make sense as well.

You'll find that almost all exchanges for more regulated markets (e.g. Forex), are dramatically safer than the less regulated cryptocurrency exchanges.  Ideally, P2P trading would be what we use, but there aren't any simple online P2P exchanges with decent liquidity and you often have to rely on escrow.  I would just use Bitstamp, personally.

More likely they are going to just keep your money and leave you with absolutely no legal recourse.

When you trade on other exchanges, you don't have to deal with criminals directly.  You use escrows such as the LocalBitcoins escrow.  This is not entirely safe, but for the short time you require to do the trade it's pretty safe.

[mindrust]

Well, suit yourself. I have been here since 2010 and done quite well with bitcoin. Bitcoin is fair money, not magical money. I know for a fact that EVERY bitcoin Tx in the US is now monitored. One day soon you and others are going to find out the hard way. You risk going from financial freedom to prisoner status. Failure to pay the measly 0-15% tax that you owe can result in a bill for the tax + the interest + penalties + jail time. An exchange that is not doing AML/KYC may have all their your bitcoin seized.
If you don't like paying taxes, join the club. But you are delusional to think it's a good idea to try hiding your coin using unregulated exchanges. That is sooo 2013.  

1- Nobody can monitor every bitcoin transaction there is. It is impossible. There are many online exchanges where you can use them as mixers. Nobody will be able to track you down.

2- You can convert your bitcoins into monero in the decentralized exchanges. If you feel insecure with the first way and the amount is too big to use on the exchanges, you can completely wash your coins with this way.

Good luck trying to track down monero transactions.

[agustina2]

I think Bitcoin is going to be a roller coaster ride for a while.  I am mid process transferring my Bitcoin from Poloniex to Coinbase (it is taking me 2 days because of the $2000 per day limit).  Once there I plan on waiting until Bitcoin pumps back up in value and then sell it and put the $ into my Coinbase USD Wallet.  And then ride out the roller coaster for a while until Bitcoin stabilizes.

I was also thinking about using Coinbase to sell high and buy low, back and forth, back and forth, storing my fiat in my USD Wallet after selling.

Is this a good idea?  Is Coinbase a good exchange to do it in?

Mazzy

I don't have any problems using Coinbase for years now eventhough there are numbers of complaints about an account being freeze. I might agree that they can't handled so much volumes at the same time like Poloniex because every time the price goes crazy, their site will be unavailable but they are giving reasons why and which one of them is due to volume of transaction. Because you that you will be late selling your coins. The time it will be fixed, it's already too late.

I just can't accept that this legitimate company can't run an operation smoothly and can't handled heavy traffic at the same time. In terms of legitimacy, Coinbase and CoinsBank are my preferred exchanges in terms of web wallet.

[Weatherby]

Good luck trying to track down monero transactions.

I just want to say one thing,good luck converting your Monero to fiat,if you are not converting your digital assets then it is not a big issue,always play by the rules if not you will get into trouble at a later time,you can learn the easy way or the hard way.No government will be able to track any users asset in digital currencies but they will know about your asset once you convert them to fiat and hope RodeoX is telling that.

[Iranus]

Well, suit yourself. I have been here since 2010 and done quite well with bitcoin. Bitcoin is fair money, not magical money. I know for a fact that EVERY bitcoin Tx in the US is now monitored. One day soon you and others are going to find out the hard way. You risk going from financial freedom to prisoner status. Failure to pay the measly 0-15% tax that you owe can result in a bill for the tax + the interest + penalties + jail time. An exchange that is not doing AML/KYC may have all their your bitcoin seized.
If you don't like paying taxes, join the club. But you are delusional to think it's a good idea to try hiding your coin using unregulated exchanges. That is sooo 2013.  

1- Nobody can monitor every bitcoin transaction there is. It is impossible. There are many online exchanges where you can use them as mixers. Nobody will be able to track you down.

No, but they can try pretty damn hard and succeed a lot of the time.  It's hard to underestimate how much power the US government and security services have with these things.

2- You can convert your bitcoins into monero in the decentralized exchanges. If you feel insecure with the first way and the amount is too big to use the exchanges, you can completely wash your coins with this way.

True.  You could even convert to Monero through Shapeshift using mixed coins, and use a variety of other systems.  If you really know what you're doing, anonymous transactions are basically possible.  Anyway, we're going a bit off track here.
For the OP, tl;dr:  yes, Coinbase is safe, but they have a bad record for suspending accounts and their coins if they find any kind of suspicious activity (and they're good at finding it).  Don't do anything shady from there and move out to a personal wallet when possible.
 
Their customer service is also shit, so if you have a problem you need to ask here or find another way to sort it out.  Plus, decentralisation blah blah blah ethics etc.

[Hagane]

A few months ago I did not care much about how coinbase managed its policies, but lately they are exaggerating with it, and losing the trust of many users.

[aTriz]

I think Bitcoin is going to be a roller coaster ride for a while.  I am mid process transferring my Bitcoin from Poloniex to Coinbase (it is taking me 2 days because of the $2000 per day limit).  Once there I plan on waiting until Bitcoin pumps back up in value and then sell it and put the $ into my Coinbase USD Wallet.  And then ride out the roller coaster for a while until Bitcoin stabilizes.

I was also thinking about using Coinbase to sell high and buy low, back and forth, back and forth, storing my fiat in my USD Wallet after selling.

Is this a good idea?  Is Coinbase a good exchange to do it in?

Mazzy

First of all, poloniex is an extremely unsafe exchange to deal with at the moment because there are simply so many complaints about them having fake lag, delayed withdrawals and deposits(sometimes still unresolved till now), and unresponsive support. anything goes wrong with your account, you are essentially in an endless hole of contacting the support every single day with no response from them.

What you want to do seems to be day trading. Now, from my experience, coinbase is a reliable exchange. However, first, make sure that the source of your fund is legit. Otherwise, your account may become suspended. If you want to day trade, then you'd be hit by high fees charged by coinbase. They've got to make money, so they have pretty high spreads when compared to other exchanges and higher fees. I'd say, either try Kraken, or BTC-e if you want to trade short term. But don't hold too much in any exchange.

[brobbel]

First of all, poloniex is an extremely unsafe exchange to deal with at the moment because there are simply so many complaints about them having fake lag, delayed withdrawals and deposits(sometimes still unresolved till now), and unresponsive support. anything goes wrong with your account, you are essentially in an endless hole of contacting the support every single day with no response from them.

What you want to do seems to be day trading. Now, from my experience, coinbase is a reliable exchange. However, first, make sure that the source of your fund is legit. Otherwise, your account may become suspended. If you want to day trade, then you'd be hit by high fees charged by coinbase. They've got to make money, so they have pretty high spreads when compared to other exchanges and higher fees. I'd say, either try Kraken, or BTC-e if you want to trade short term. But don't hold too much in any exchange.

High fees?

For small amounts (<500 BTC approx.):

GDAX: maker fee 0% / taker fee 0,25%
Kraken: maker fee 0.16%  / taker fee 0.26%
BTC-e: maker fee 0.2% / taker fee 0.2%

So as maker GDAX (Coinbase) is free of charge - so much cheaper then Kraken or BTC-e.

Deposit/withdrawal fees: just look around, there is no big difference there either AFAIK.


And to add: the source of your coins has nothing to do with gambling? Because otherwise you have a problem with Coinbase - they don't allow it.

[RodeoX]

1- Nobody can monitor every bitcoin transaction there is. It is impossible. There are many online exchanges where you can use them as mixers. Nobody will be able to track you down.

Here is a record of all bitcoin transactions. https://blockchain.info/

2- You can convert your bitcoins into monero in the decentralized exchanges. If you feel insecure with the first way and the amount is too big to use on the exchanges, you can completely wash your coins with this way.

Good luck trying to track down monero transactions.

There will always be a way to circumvent the system and some will be able to get away with it. However the focus will be on any attempt to spend or exchange for fiat. Monitoring alt-coins is just not cost effective. But monitoring every blockchain entry that ends in a cash settlement or purchase is. Evasion will get harder and harder and more risky as time goes on. And again, for what? Why risk jail when you are profitable?

[scottmazzy]

Thanks for the information.  Lots of data to think with.  My concept of a perfect exchange would be, in order of my priorities:

1.  Has an insured fiat wallet system that is not tied into the fluctuations of Bitcoin.
2.  Has a good reputation as far as safety.
3.  Has a large choice of coins to trade.

I have had good experiences with Poloniex.  They have a large choice of coins to trade and all my transactions have been smooth.  But they don't have fiat wallet.
I like Coinbase as far as fiat wallet but they only have 3 coins to purchase with only buy/sell options...no normal trading platform with stop/loss, etc.

Anybody have recommendations of an exchange that could more closely fit my priorities?

BTW...my funds are not tied to illegal activities or gambling.  I plan on paying my fair share of taxes for any profits I make...I like to be able to sleep at night.

Mazzy

[scottmazzy]

I checked out GDAX and saw that they were an associate of CoinBase.  So that solved the problem of a secure fiat wallet.  GDAX also has a more workable trading platform with stop/loss, etc.  But I am hoping they get more than 3 coins to trade.

Mazzy