Coinbase - Views Please

[Sumfinkelse]

I am looking at Wallet options for my mining project in 2018.

Reviewed the likes of doing it myself with the likes of Xapo, Electrum etc; but interested in Forum members opinions of Coinbase for Wallet/Exchange capability.

Anyone had any experience of using their services? Good, bad or indifferent?

[LeGaulois]

Coinbase has a horrible support and nonexistent most of the time, so if a day you need any help or have a question, simply forget about getting support. To add to this, they like to decide that suddenly they don't want to make business with you and so decide to close your account. And they won't give you any clear explanation.
The site itself works fine with a nice UI, etc but due to their broken support and their surprises, it doesn't make this wallet so good as people claim.

[BitHodler]

I am using Coinbase for quite a while now, and have never had a real issue with them. I don't bother with fiat or make use of their exchange section since that is subject to verification, and that's something I'm not interested in.

I use it mainly to transact with people within their ecosystem due to the free and instant internal transactions, but aside from that, there is not much that interests me about them.

As long as you stay away from their exchange section and everything related to fiat, you'll be fine, but when they do end up freezing your account and force you to verify yourself, good luck to you! It's a major time consuming hassle.

[Potato Chips]

I am looking at Wallet options for my mining project in 2018.

Reviewed the likes of doing it myself with the likes of Xapo, Electrum etc; but interested in Forum members opinions of Coinbase for Wallet/Exchange capability.

Anyone had any experience of using their services? Good, bad or indifferent?

Mining project? You mean you will be storing a huge amount of bitcoins right? If thats the case using a wallet where your funds are handled by a third party is not a wise move.
As LeGaulois already explained, Coinbase monitors your activity and if they find something suspicious that is against to their TOS they might freeze your account. And yes, their support is plain crap.

If you have funds to buy a hardware wallet then I recommend you to go for it, They're ideal for large amounts. Or if not Bitcoin core (Full Node) or elctrum (SPV/light weight) should be fine. But please note that you should know some fundamental things about your chosen wallet because in some cases, they won't protect your coins from your careless move/s e.g. when you accidentally installed some unknown application that has malwares/keyloggers etc.

[Sumfinkelse]

Thanks for the response guys really useful stuff
Appreciate your time in answering my question.

[JanpriX]

Have you decided on what to use on your mining site? I'm no expert in this area of cryptocurrency but if you will be using it to store large amount of BTC, I would suggest for you to use a hardware wallet with multisig capabilities. This will be much safer because you just can't put your trust to third-party wallet companies to store your BTC that will be used in your business. I don't know if it will be faster using the hardware wallets (Ledger and Trezor) but you should prioritize first the security of your funds.

[hello_good_sir]

I am looking at Wallet options for my mining project in 2018.

Reviewed the likes of doing it myself with the likes of Xapo, Electrum etc; but interested in Forum members opinions of Coinbase for Wallet/Exchange capability.

Anyone had any experience of using their services? Good, bad or indifferent?

Xapo/Coinbase etc. have no apparent advantages in my opinion other than their offchain transfers which have no fees. Obviously that's good but in practice you're rarely going to find anyone that conveniently has funds on the same service as you are using.

Coinbase has pretty shitty customer support as well so don't expect much if you run into troubles. Xapo is from experience better(but not that much) for customer support. Both have heavy AML and KYC regulations which you should consider about.

TBH, if you can go with Electrum or something that you can hold your own privkeys with, go for it.

[Fatunad]

I am looking at Wallet options for my mining project in 2018.

Reviewed the likes of doing it myself with the likes of Xapo, Electrum etc; but interested in Forum members opinions of Coinbase for Wallet/Exchange capability.

Anyone had any experience of using their services? Good, bad or indifferent?

Mining project? You mean you will be storing a huge amount of bitcoins right? If thats the case using a wallet where your funds are handled by a third party is not a wise move.
As LeGaulois already explained, Coinbase monitors your activity and if they find something suspicious that is against to their TOS they might freeze your account. And yes, their support is plain crap.

If you have funds to buy a hardware wallet then I recommend you to go for it, They're ideal for large amounts. Or if not Bitcoin core (Full Node) or elctrum (SPV/light weight) should be fine. But please note that you should know some fundamental things about your chosen wallet because in some cases, they won't protect your coins from your careless move/s e.g. when you accidentally installed some unknown application that has malwares/keyloggers etc.

If this do involves mining project then expect we are talking huge chunks on here but depending if the mining farm is on large scale or small but well doesnt matter if we are really looking for the security of our bitcoins that being mined then we should not put in the option on storing it on 3rd parties just like being suggested by most people here. They do have the full control of your funds since you dont have they keys of your wallet into their site.Im sure you dont like that thing? Even myself wont really tend to use their service specially they do have some issues on blocking accounts.

[marky89]

I am looking at Wallet options for my mining project in 2018.

Reviewed the likes of doing it myself with the likes of Xapo, Electrum etc; but interested in Forum members opinions of Coinbase for Wallet/Exchange capability.

Anyone had any experience of using their services? Good, bad or indifferent?

Coinbase is great for fast ACH transfers, if you use them to sell BTC. Make sure to use their exchange interface (GDAX) so you can take advantage of their no-fee limit orders.

However, I wouldn't use them for a wallet. Like any third party service, I would only risk keeping coins there for a limited time, e.g. waiting for asks to get filled and withdrawing USD to my bank account.

I highly recommend Electrum for a convenient light client. But if you are talking about mining, then you'll need to be running a full node.

[Sumfinkelse]

Thanks for the replies guys, they are very helpful indeed.....

It just confirms my thoughts about going for Electrum.
If I store my BTC on Electrum what are the best routes for then turning some of it into Fiat?

To answer your questions: My family are looking to invest in mining here in the UK, we are fortunate that we have premises with cheaper electric.
We will try and buy a pallet of Avalon ASIC miners early in the new year (if we can get them).
741's x 60 units = about 440 TH/s. (although rumours on this forum about a new Avalon A8 miner)

We will probably attach to Slush as our pool of choice.

[1Referee]

If I store my BTC on Electrum what are the best routes for then turning some of it into Fiat?

Electrum is a perfect option to go for when it comes to wallet clients, stick with it. Regarding a convenient way of cashing out coins to fiat, I personally have always been using Bitstamp, which till this day has never let me down. But since you're from the UK, and possibly add value to an exchange that has a decent bit of GBP trading volume, you should go with Coinsbank (formerly known as Bit-x). Another benefit is that this exchange's support desk seems to be far more responsive than all major Bitcoin and altcoin exchanges in this market, which cranks people up big time.

[Lipe490]

When you said mining project, you meant to send your gains of mining to Coinbase? I think Coinbase do not accept some coins came from mining, so be careful before you do it. About the support, Coinbase is the worst I have ever seen, even than Poloniex which I have had several issues with withdrawls and deposits. But the main reason I don't like Coinbase is the time they take to confirm your deposit made in fiat currency. Until your deposit gets in their exchange (my last deposit before I stop to use Coinbase took 4 days.), the price have changed several times. Try using a hardware wallet (ledger) or even Electrum for Windows, they are so much better if you are just sending coins.

[supermine]

I am looking at Wallet options for my mining project in 2018.

Reviewed the likes of doing it myself with the likes of Xapo, Electrum etc; but interested in Forum members opinions of Coinbase for Wallet/Exchange capability.

Anyone had any experience of using their services? Good, bad or indifferent?

Coinbase is one of the best online wallets for bitcoins but it is not suitable to store huge amount of bitcoins.Coinbase wallet is suitable for the persons who is making bitcoin transactions often.But I am using coinbase for long time no issues with it but I don't know coinbase for mining project.In electrum wallet you have the private key so you have full access to your account.And electrum is the best wallet if you want to send multiple transactions because it will consume less transaction fee.

[mrjoy15]

It's true tthat, Coinbase service is suck. To advice I'd rather not suggest to use this wallet store ALL my coins or any purposes. Big security issue. Know the difference, coinbase is an exchange, but exodus a wallet. Think twice and then decide which wallet should you use.

[Zocadas]

Although I had only good experiences with coinbase, I wouldn't recommend their exchange/wallet. Use a wallet, that you own. Means, you have addresses and private keys. What exchanger you could use best, depends on your country and kind of exchange. For exchangung cryptocurrencies, you can choose for example bitfinex, changelly or cryptopia. If you want to exchange to fiat, you could choose Kraken, Bitpanda or exchange here in forum with trustable members.