Is Coinbase insolvent?

[BTCtrader71]

I hate to mention the possibility that Coinbase could be insolvent, but 10 days ago I initiated a wire withdrawal from Coinbase to my investment account. Coinbase has debited my account 25k and labels the transaction as "completed" but my financial advisor has seen neither hide nor hair of the wire. Coinbase does not provide the fed number for the wire and has given absolutely zero response to my ticket. There are MANY MANY others in the same boat.

And why don't they provide us with the fed number for the wire? It's the first thing my financial advisor looked for, so he could troubleshoot and see if it's caught up somewhere. One might wonder whether Coinbase doesn't want us to be able to troubleshoot. Maybe they just want to delay delay delay.

I know that they're flooded with new customers yadda yadda, but there's no excuse for holding tens of thousands of dollars of someone else's money. This is how it ALWAYS starts. It is our duty as citizens of bitcoinlandia to consider the possibility of Coinbase insolvency, until they make sure that their customers' withdrawals go through without a hitch.


Case ID: 3496424

Edit: I will gladly update this thread once my wire goes through.

[LeGaulois]

It makes me remember someone on Twitter saying "Who is crazy to trust Coinbase while they've never been able to prove the company's solvency"

In your case, could it be because Coinbase has sent the wire (and so marked as complete) but with the bank deadline it will be credited only in 2 or 3 days or more?

Their support is famous to be horrible by the way, and deserve an Academy Award for this.

[pugman]

Coinbase cannot be insolvent, because there are so many thousands of users signing up for Coinbase, they won't get insolvent at least for now. Can you provide some images to make your claim legit? The amount that you're withdrawing is also huge, and maybe Coinbase is being regulated by the SEC, so probably you can wait for some more time and see what happens. Coinbase won't run away with your 25,000$, if they had to, there are a series of consequences they'd have to think about dealing with first.

[richardsNY]

Coinbase cannot be insolvent, because there are so many thousands of users signing up for Coinbase, they won't get insolvent at least for now.

Just because a lot people are signing up at Coinbase it doesn't automatically means that they by default aren't insolvent. We have seen enough examples already where businesses can hide their insolvency for years straight, and that without anyone actually finding out. In case of OP, it's clear that it's just an administrative fault on Coinbase's side, where recently more people have been complaining about, but after a while a good number of them have been paid out, but it may take a while for them to track the specific problem. Coinbase has said last year to greatly improve its support capabilities, so I'm curious to find out how much of a change it will be compared with current situation where support is unresponsive like there is no tomorrow....

[Fidemoga]

It is often a bad sign, when automaticly provided withdrawal turn into manual withdrawals. But it may also be caused by laws, that payments must go through administration procedures, but that is not acceptable, anyway, in combination with a lame support.
I wish you much luck for your case.

[BTCtrader71]

I just opened an account at Gemini. Thinking about moving my business away from coinbase. Coinbase banks $1billion in revenue in 2017 and they can't be bothered to handle a simple wire transfer in a timely fashion?

[idkden]

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16045158

[chuckblocker]

So bad it's funny... Good luck with the incoming lawsuits

https://www.cnet.com/news/coinbase-duplicate-withdrawals-refund/

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/15/17017374/coinbase-cryptocurrency-bitcoin-ether-unauthorized-charges

[TryNinja]

lol coinbase randomly charging people's bank/card multiple times -> https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/
I guess coinbase is covering for their obvious insolvency by nipping redditors for $300 a pop .

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16045158

So bad it's funny... Good luck with the incoming lawsuits

https://www.cnet.com/news/coinbase-duplicate-withdrawals-refund/

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/15/17017374/coinbase-cryptocurrency-bitcoin-ether-unauthorized-charges

Except that the overcharging issue was not Coinbase's fault after all.

https://blog.coinbase.com/joint-statement-from-visa-and-worldpay-for-coinbase-customers-9a6f2ff5f3b3
https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/16/visa-coinbase-not-at-fault

[chuckblocker]

Where exactly does Visa acknowledge that? All I see is a blog post by Coinbase themselvs and that article, which used the Coinbase blog as a source most likely. lol

[TryNinja]

Where exactly does Visa acknowledge that? All I see is a blog post by Coinbase themselvs and that article, which used the Coinbase blog as a source most likely. lol

You can clearly see at the first blog by Coinbase that the text is a joint statement from Visa and Worldpay where it says: "This issue was not caused by Coinbase."

Maybe we could wait to see if they corroborate with the statement posted by Coinbase. But do you think they would lie? That wouldn't end well for them.

More: http://fortune.com/2018/02/16/bitcoin-coinbase-overcharging-glitch/

[chuckblocker]

Yea, hard to believe anything these days. Sucks for those who still didn't get refunded or suffered.

They are not insolvent tho, to keep it OT

[vapourminer]

ive not been effected by this.

when i set coinbase up several years ago i linked it to a new bank account dedicated ONLY to coinbase, just in case a hacker got in the damage would be limited. also in case coinbase went hog wild, which i never thought would happen but hey, lookee here..it did.

no way would i link my day to day bank accounts to an exchange. i keep very little fiat in the account and same with coinbase.. i transfer fiat in or out to buy or sell, then move that stuff out pronto.

oh, and no cards are linked to coinbase either.

[SDRebel]

Where exactly does Visa acknowledge that? All I see is a blog post by Coinbase themselvs and that article, which used the Coinbase blog as a source most likely. lol

Where exactly does Visa acknowledge that? All I see is a blog post by Coinbase themselvs and that article, which used the Coinbase blog as a source most likely. lol

You can clearly see at the first blog by Coinbase that the text is a joint statement from Visa and Worldpay where it says: "This issue was not caused by Coinbase."

Maybe we could wait to see if they corroborate with the statement posted by Coinbase. But do you think they would lie? That wouldn't end well for them.

More: http://fortune.com/2018/02/16/bitcoin-coinbase-overcharging-glitch/

Agree with chuckblocker, that is not Visa acknowledging. That is coinbase saying that visa and worldpay acknowledged, but that is coming from coinbase, not from visa.
I've been pinging visa on twitter and so far no response. I'm not saying it's not visa, but coinbase saying it's not them doesn't give me much confidence

[BitHodler]

I've been pinging visa on twitter and so far no response. I'm not saying it's not visa, but coinbase saying it's not them doesn't give me much confidence

None of them will admit that it's their fault, and thus will keep pointing at the other party. I have read an interesting theory that's basically implying that Visa did it to make crypto as a whole look bad due to Coinbase's size.

It could turn out to be the reality, but on the other hand don't want to assume something without any proof being shown, because in the same way, it could be totally due to Coinbase's incompetence.

Bottom line is that both will suffer major public damage if they openly admit their fault, since this is nothing more than incompetence of one of the involved sides. As long as it gets settled, people should be happy and move on.

[BTCtrader71]

Almost 2 months later, and Coinbase has yet to find the time to take a look at my support ticket. $25,000 of mine that they have been holding onto for 2 months.

They deserve very bad PR for this dismal customer service.

[warningsigns]

Almost 2 months later, and Coinbase has yet to find the time to take a look at my support ticket. $25,000 of mine that they have been holding onto for 2 months.

They deserve very bad PR for this dismal customer service.

You must be joking. They marked the withdrawal as completed 2 months ago and not a word from them about the whereabouts of the money? That’s really bad customer service at its worst form. I mean it’s $25k and not $10! The money must be somewhere. I suspect they neither processed nor wired it but they did debit your account. It can’t be an intermediary bank which won’t simply sit on unexplained funds for 2 months. And your bank cannot possibly have that money. Banks have stringent audit systems with mathematically correct account balancing mechanisms to prevent fraud and theft so you can rule out the banks. Coinbase has those funds and they are taking their own sweet time to resolve your open ticket.

An exchange to avoid.

[timerland]

I hate to mention the possibility that Coinbase could be insolvent, but 10 days ago I initiated a wire withdrawal from Coinbase to my investment account. Coinbase has debited my account 25k and labels the transaction as "completed" but my financial advisor has seen neither hide nor hair of the wire. Coinbase does not provide the fed number for the wire and has given absolutely zero response to my ticket. There are MANY MANY others in the same boat.

And why don't they provide us with the fed number for the wire? It's the first thing my financial advisor looked for, so he could troubleshoot and see if it's caught up somewhere. One might wonder whether Coinbase doesn't want us to be able to troubleshoot. Maybe they just want to delay delay delay.

I know that they're flooded with new customers yadda yadda, but there's no excuse for holding tens of thousands of dollars of someone else's money. This is how it ALWAYS starts. It is our duty as citizens of bitcoinlandia to consider the possibility of Coinbase insolvency, until they make sure that their customers' withdrawals go through without a hitch.


Case ID: 3496424

Edit: I will gladly update this thread once my wire goes through.

We don't know if Coinbase is actually insolvent. I think that they may be, due to running on a fractional reserve system. If everyone withdrew their BTC and fiat at once, I doubt there will be enough equity to cover that on Coinbase's end.

It's just a theory though, but it's further backed up by coinbase's shitty support that has been that way since mid last year and has not improved a bit. There could be a financial problem with getting new staff for them as their operations expand.

Your case could be because of the fiat banking system, it could be something wrong with coinbase, it could be that they are insolvent. We do not know and do not have proof for any of those potential reasons, though.

Bottom line is why would anyone store funds on coinbase without proof of solvency, when you can store coins yourself or store fiat in a bank that is under FDIC insurance.

[1Referee]

I think that they may be, due to running on a fractional reserve system. If everyone withdrew their BTC and fiat at once, I doubt there will be enough equity to cover that on Coinbase's end.

I think it's almost a guarantee that Coinbase is insolvent in terms of their fiat holdings. I can't even blame them for that if this actually turns out to be the reality. The market has increased so much, that no single exchange can actually allow the major part of their customers to withdraw serious amounts of fiat. I would like them to be open about it, but on the other hand, I also understand that they can't openly admit being insolvent. Interesting fact is that Coinbase is backed by very wealthy investors/share holders, where in case they need it, they wouldn't have any problems raising a few hundred million in capital to strengthen their financial position. I hope for the sake of their customers they will do something, because this once again shows that incompetence is still a major factor in this ecosystem.

[alyssa85]

Coinbase isn't insolvent.

Make an account on reddit and then post our ticket number in the following sub:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CoinBase/

Coinbase patrols that sub so they should be able to help you. There is no point posting your ticket here - I think Theymos banned Coinbase from bitcointalk when they listed Ethereum.