I do not endorse or advocate for Coinbase.
What follows is just one persons recent experience.
I signed up on Monday.
I was verified on Tuesday.
The funds from sale of BTC were on deposit in my bank on Wednesday.
All in all a mostly positive experience.
Things I liked.
The price quoted prior to transaction was in line with other exchanges.
I succeeded in using voice two party authentication.
(no cellphone required)
I elected to use bank credit/debit as the method of bank verification.
They state 'up to two days' for process that took a 16 hours to complete.
The BTC->U$D bank deposit arrived today as advertised.
The fee charged was calculated and clearly displayed before I confirmed transaction.
With minimum "Know Your Customer" verification can do 3,000.00 USD per day.
They have a $10,000 daily limit available by providing them with more verifyable personal data.
Things I do not like.
They use as a verification option, giving them your bank login credentials.
This is cause for concern. a two day wait is the option I chose.
They could do extreeme harm to those wanting instant verification and giving them credentials.
If one MUST go this route change password BEFORE and AFTER giving them your credentials.
They do provide another option.
Their 'email referral program' dox's user as 'special code' is first initial and last name.
The bank transactions are clearly identifiable to the casual bank observer as being BTC related.
Banks have been known to cancel an account on the grounds of relation to BTC.
My intention is to also test my bank in the process.
They charge 1% and cater to the USA market.
They will give you a dollar when you sign up.
They take it back and more in commission, "gas, grass, or ass no one rides for free".
If you are willing to dox yourself they will also give you a dollar for everyone you steer to them.
(you will not see them in my sig, a few bucks is not worth whatever anon I have remaining)
If trading is your passion they have commission free trades till end of March.
I did not explore their trading platform, no opinion on that aspect of their business.
They appear to be set up to also handle processing payment for goods in BTC for sellers, similar to Bitpay.
Final notes and further cautions.
I did not risk much BTC in the process.
I mined the BTC I used, I can prove origin of BTC.
I don't care if the bank account I used gets closed, no loans there and trivial deposits involved.
Only time will tell if they can handle high volume in the event they are successful long term.
3k per day is plenty for me to pay electric bills.
10k per day is not enough for many with ASICs to cash out on a short high price peak.
(miners are by definition long on BTC)
gox launched to favorable reviews, everything was great till it wasn't...
I hope it works out long term, I want the Winkelvoss twins to have US competition.
YMMV
