Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
So I signed up on Coinbase tonight and bought a whopping $5 of litecoin. Did it straight out of my bank. It said it wouldn’t show up until next Wednesday. An hour later I go
On and no record of the transaction but it hasn’t been pulled from the bank either.
1. Is this normal?
2. Is this lag all the time or just because it’s my first transaction? Should I be using PayPal instead?
You should get an e-mail confirmation a bit later (15min?) after the transaction. However Coinbase is under a lot of stress and delay due to the record number of people joining and transactions as people are jumping in. So there is a chance it may be longer.
You will then see the transaction on your CoinBase dashboard.
You will probably see the pending bank account transaction the following day
And then there are the delays. Several days after I bought the original $100 worth of bitcoin, I purchased another $150 worth before deciding to put an end to my brief life as a bitcoin trader. It took a full week for the first transaction to go through. The second transaction is still pending.
Put another way: If the price of bitcoin were to plunge 50% this afternoon and I wanted to sell, I would be unable to sell the second batch I'd purchased because technically I still don't have it.
As for that original $100, I ended up netting about $50 in profit after various fees for buying and selling. When that money finally hits my bank account on Friday, I intend to take my wife out to a dinner to make up to her for all the bitcoin talk this month.
And then there are the delays. Several days after I bought the original $100 worth of bitcoin, I purchased another $150 worth before deciding to put an end to my brief life as a bitcoin trader. It took a full week for the first transaction to go through. The second transaction is still pending.
Put another way: If the price of bitcoin were to plunge 50% this afternoon and I wanted to sell, I would be unable to sell the second batch I'd purchased because technically I still don't have it.
As for that original $100, I ended up netting about $50 in profit after various fees for buying and selling. When that money finally hits my bank account on Friday, I intend to take my wife out to a dinner to make up to her for all the bitcoin talk this month.
Easy solution to this problem, load up your account with USD which is completely free to do, then wait for your funds to clear before buying Bitcoin and you can sell it whenever you want.
Solution number 2, if you know your in a time crunch buy with a credit card, you'll pay 1% more but have access immediately.
One other thing to note, if your buying Bitcoin with the plan on selling before the clearing period even clears you probably shouldn't be buying in the first place.
Fidelity and Vanguard are able to move monies to and fro via ACH in a matter of a couple biz days, why does it take so much longer for these trading platforms (and specifically Coinbase)? Funds can be wired in, but that just adds more to the cost of transacting. Yes I do understand if the coins are increasing quickly in value the cost may be well-justified. But that's not the point.
Fidelity and Vanguard are able to move monies to and fro via ACH in a matter of a couple biz days, why does it take so much longer for these trading platforms (and specifically Coinbase)? Funds can be wired in, but that just adds more to the cost of transacting. Yes I do understand if the coins are increasing quickly in value the cost may be well-justified. But that's not the point.
I was referring to moving Coins ie in my experience it's difficult to move stocks from say Scottrade to Schwab, however I can move Bitcoin or Litecoin from Coinbase/GDAX to another exchange or another wallet in a minute and 2 to 3 clicks.
Coinbase's and really every other exchange out there's customer support is horrible, no denying that, however the issue is Bitcoin both in terms of price and userbase is exploding faster than they can grow. That said in the interview the CEO said the number of support agents they had working, and I forget the exact number but it was a ridiculously small number of people. I think recetnly they are up to 200 support agents and within the next few months should be at like 400 but again when you have 100,00 signups in a day that's not enough.
Those of us who have been in this for a while are used to things not being up to the standard of a stock brockerage so it's not as huge a deal to us as were basically just used to it but I agree unacceptable. Every exchange is like this so so either accept it as the reality and plan accordingly ie have limit orders set at all times, spread out your money, etc, etc, etc, accept or it don't get in the space is the reality right now
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
