Why does every single BTC exchange suck?!

[ChiBitCTy]

It's not helping anything that transactions have become slow and expensive, but on top of that every single exchange I've used ( Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp, and Localbitcoins.com) have massive flaws and limitations that in my opinion are damaging BTC's progress in a big way.

Coinbase is the only exchange who's got a nice set up, easy to use and just makes sense (plus an app worth a damn).  However they crash far too often to be considered legitimate in my eyes (website is down for hours with billions of dollars in limbo).  I work in the financial industry and love BTC, the blockchain tech, other crypto's and all that they represent but for people who aren't financially or tech savvy...how is this ever going to work ? 

I now have two friends in the past couple days who simply could not figure out how to set up an account at any exchange, even Coinbase's easy set up process error'd out for one friend and now they've both given up.  I can't be alone in complete frustration with this joke of a set up.  Bitcoin is supposed to be easy, instant etc. While the banking system is archaic, the exchanges are not much above a DOS program at the moment.   

[ccoinca]

excellent points try Gemini 

[Xavofat]

The problem is that a fair number of BTC nerds convince themselves that regulation is not necessary.

Take the scam online wallet service Torwallet, for example.  They have scammed loads of people, and loads of people have posted about it on this forum.  People didn't care that they were giving money to a stranger, because it was Bitcoin and they assumed that anonymity was how it works.

To have a consistently decent exchange, regulation is necessary.  Users can mix their coins afterwards to retain pseudonymity, but exchanges can be audited properly and their security can be checked on a regular basis.

It's shocking that exchanges get hacked so often, but the funny thing is that a lot of them might just be lying.  It's so hard to tell because no one is checking them.  Cryptsy was so poorly regulated that they could just run off with all their users' funds for seemingly no reason.

[buwaytress]

Sorry to hear about your friends' experiences... I do agree to a certain extent that some exchangers are built in a such a way that they discourage new users, especially for those outside of the "first world" Western sphere (like Coinbase).

But on the other hand, I've had a relatively easy sign up experience with both localbitcoins (which I almost exclusively use now to sell my coins) and Poloniex (which, to be fair, has processed all my withdrawals near instantly). They both have verification processes which are automated for the most basic level and take less than 5 minutes (email and phone).

It gets a bit more complicated for higher levels but for a casual user I haven't needed more than the daily USD2,000 limit of Polo.

[pearlmen]

It's not helping anything that transactions have become slow and expensive, but on top of that every single exchange I've used ( Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp, and Localbitcoins.com) have massive flaws and limitations that in my opinion are damaging BTC's progress in a big way.

Coinbase is the only exchange who's got a nice set up, easy to use and just makes sense (plus an app worth a damn).  However they crash far too often to be considered legitimate in my eyes (website is down for hours with billions of dollars in limbo).  I work in the financial industry and love BTC, the blockchain tech, other crypto's and all that they represent but for people who aren't financially or tech savvy...how is this ever going to work ? 

I now have two friends in the past couple days who simply could not figure out how to set up an account at any exchange, even Coinbase's easy set up process error'd out for one friend and now they've both given up.  I can't be alone in complete frustration with this joke of a set up.  Bitcoin is supposed to be easy, instant etc. While the banking system is archaic, the exchanges are not much above a DOS program at the moment.   

I understand your frustration as I have witnessed such my self in some exchange sites where they just go offline for several hours and without any notification of such to their clients or users. It does not happen in the Fiat world but at the same time not every blames fall on them because they just needs to keep up to date with security mechanism to be put in place to stand attacks against them since every now and then, they are targets of attack which could being a lot of serious issues if that is successful.

[Alex Heim]

Correct me if I am wrong, but verification is must for those exchanges, where it is possible to deposit/withdraw, using bank accounts directly. Consider Russian based exchanges, like yobit (not the best one though), where account setup is very easy. The disadvantage of this approach is necessity to work with online payment systems, like OKpay, yandex money, etc... which have sometimes rather large fees. So everything is relative. We have to choose between ease, anonymous but risky exchange or user-unfriendly but regulated one

[Aura]

Kraken is quite good. What did you not like about them?

[ccoinca]

Kraken is quite good. What did you not like about them?

1 month deposit delays, terrible support, horrible interface design, the list could go on

[amaral1977]

As for the crashes... It´s called insider trading... They just take advantage of there knowlegde. This is a good example taht he market doesn´t regulate itself.  But maybe that is some part of the fun of Crypto jungle.

As for the part where your friends couldn´t set up an account on any exchange. Come on... You can argue they don´t wan´t to. But writing an email address and password and the rest of the setup process is the same for any other site, being a BTC exchange, an online casino of a facebook account. For the confirmation process ( i don´t like it) but is as difficult as taking a picture of yourself holding a card on your hand...

[Aura]

Kraken is quite good. What did you not like about them?

1 month deposit delays, terrible support, horrible interface design, the list could go on

I haven't experienced any of these.
Anyway if you feel like that then I can't help you.

[European Central Bank]

capacity - servers, staff to respond to tickets and verify - costs money. none of them have invested enough money yet. crypto is prone to massive spikes and then going quiet again. they wouldn't make any money if they had all that capacity sitting around all the time. imagine having 500 staff during the endless $200-250 stage. they would've gone under.

[Iranus]

capacity - servers, staff to respond to tickets and verify - costs money. none of them have invested enough money yet. crypto is prone to massive spikes and then going quiet again. they wouldn't make any money if they had all that capacity sitting around all the time. imagine having 500 staff during the endless $200-250 stage. they would've gone under.

True.  I'm absolutely all for union rights and job security but when it comes to offering people who work at crypto exchange a stable job it must be difficult, considering that most of the revenue should be coming from static fees on their trades and that the trading volume tends to decrease after crazy rallies like the recent ones.

That said, I'm still skeptical of crypto exchanges' inability to have enough workers.  I mean surely support staff must be quite easy to attain on the Internet.  It seems shocking that Poloniex has been having trading volume of basically a billion dollars on some days, and yet they still can't just respond to tickets or keep their trades online. 

It's activity like that makes me think that many of the exchanges are usually either incompetent or malicious (along with the fact that Cryptsy and Mt. Gox are already gone).

The problem is that a fair number of BTC nerds convince themselves that regulation is not necessary.

The regulation is the government's decision rather than BTC users' decision.  Sure, regulation pressure from BTC holders would help, but it wouldn't be the deciding factor. 

[gon]

I was asking the same question myself lately.
More users -> mean more trading volume
More trading volume -> mean more commission.
So why the f they are f with their own customers.
The only valid option crossed my mind was they are gambling the clients funds and then they cannot proceed withdraws.

[Siren]

I think it has something with do with expectations. They didn't expect that bitcoin will explode like this specially in the last couple of month. The support personnel and even the servers are not capable to handle huge transactions that's why sometimes the server is down or very very slow resulting to a lost of money for most of us. Also maybe the support is also incompetent to handle and answer a lot of tickets.

[iron talon]

Kraken is quite good. What did you not like about them?

Kraken is good? Are you kidding?

My deposit was not completed since 5 weeks and their support does not even reply my ticket.

[ChiBitCTy]

Kraken is quite good. What did you not like about them?

I'm with the other users comments on Kraken.  The layout is very very poorly made.  Many part of it simply don't make much sense with little explanation to what some things are with out research that takes to long to find.  There are basics for websites and a company that moves that much money could afford to spend a bit more to make some very basic yet massively needed changes.  Even for a market trader like myself used to all sorts of different trading platforms ..there's and most others have a feel of a 1995 website.

[ChiBitCTy]

capacity - servers, staff to respond to tickets and verify - costs money. none of them have invested enough money yet. crypto is prone to massive spikes and then going quiet again. they wouldn't make any money if they had all that capacity sitting around all the time. imagine having 500 staff during the endless $200-250 stage. they would've gone under.

This is all very understandable but it's not acceptable for the largest exchanges.  They've got the money and resources to vastly improve their set-ups but they haven't.  They don't want to take away from the millions in profit they each have sitting in fiat somewhere.  It's greedy and damaging to Bitcoins chance to catch mainstream majority use. 

[buwaytress]

capacity - servers, staff to respond to tickets and verify - costs money. none of them have invested enough money yet. crypto is prone to massive spikes and then going quiet again. they wouldn't make any money if they had all that capacity sitting around all the time. imagine having 500 staff during the endless $200-250 stage. they would've gone under.

This is all very understandable but it's not acceptable for the largest exchanges.  They've got the money and resources to vastly improve their set-ups but they haven't.  They don't want to take away from the millions in profit they each have sitting in fiat somewhere.  It's greedy and damaging to Bitcoins chance to catch mainstream majority use. 

It seems to be acceptable pattern for any multi-million crypto business these days, isn't it? Look at the job offers by those ICOs raking in more than enough to run a staff of 100 for years, not even paying minimum wage of developing countries.

I'm pretty certain exchangers also try to cut costs with hiring, judging by the quality of support I've seen from some - with all due respect. They should learn how to surge hire using temps and part-timers. Customer service especially is fairly simple enough to outsource.

[avilsd]

Kraken is quite good. What did you not like about them?

Kraken is horrible, I mean when they got DDOSd multiple times and liquidated accounts full of BTC/LTC/etc. and people lost tens of thousands, they blamed it on them. At least when Poloniex got screwed they paid people back. Now Poloniex sucks incredibly, but I wouldn't trust any exchange that treats clients in such a way

[ChiBitCTy]

capacity - servers, staff to respond to tickets and verify - costs money. none of them have invested enough money yet. crypto is prone to massive spikes and then going quiet again. they wouldn't make any money if they had all that capacity sitting around all the time. imagine having 500 staff during the endless $200-250 stage. they would've gone under.

This is all very understandable but it's not acceptable for the largest exchanges.  They've got the money and resources to vastly improve their set-ups but they haven't.  They don't want to take away from the millions in profit they each have sitting in fiat somewhere.  It's greedy and damaging to Bitcoins chance to catch mainstream majority use.  

It seems to be acceptable pattern for any multi-million crypto business these days, isn't it? Look at the job offers by those ICOs raking in more than enough to run a staff of 100 for years, not even paying minimum wage of developing countries.

I'm pretty certain exchangers also try to cut costs with hiring, judging by the quality of support I've seen from some - with all due respect. They should learn how to surge hire using temps and part-timers. Customer service especially is fairly simple enough to outsource.

This is exactly right.  I've sent a VERY simple question to Coinbase that any schmuck with a 1 hour online training course of knowledge could have answered ( 4 weeks ago ) and have yet to receive a response.  Like you said..They've raked in more than any of them ever imagined this quickly.  It seems to me they have become quite complacent with status-quo and aren't serious about advancing Bitcoins existence and commonality.  

These exchanges seem to break some of the most simple business 101's.

Domino's and Panera are two good examples of companies who've decided to make things SO DAMN EASY for their customers by implementing such basic and simple ideas into their technology (websites and app's) that it has resulted into skyrocketing share prices.  I am not saying these exchanges are the multi-billion dollar powerhouses that are Dominos and Panera ..but slight improvements like these companies have made can go a long way.

It's hard to hear expenses for improvement are too vast. I'm quite confident profits major exchanges have realized are obscene and if they aren't as abundant as I assume they have been then I'm positive that they wouldn't have that hard of a time finding VC's to help foot the bill.  Just my 2.