Coinbase Unavailable, Down Again, and So Not Ready For Primetime

It's 9:00 am EST, December 12, 2017, and like many nervous altcoin players, I'm ready to make a buy, get in low, and continue building the best cryptocurrency portfolio that I can. Unfortunately, for the 3rd or 4th time in the last several days, Coinbase is either crashing, unavailable, or simply lagging in transaction speed.

If you're on a budget like many small investors (like I am), and can't afford to leave sizable amounts of Bitcoin in exchange wallets (to strike when the price is right), reliability, and affordability can be the difference between dancing between volatility, and winning or losing crucial market positions.

Sadly, and quite frustratingly, Coinbase is one of the only sources for "safely" purchasing Bitcoin via credit/debit cards or Bank transfers. And as one of the few North American exchanges which enables investors with the ability to process USD-to-crypto exchanges, their inability or resistance to execute services with a professional level of technical proficiency, and their amazingly poor commitment to providing users with timely, effective, and non-canned customer service is simply crippling to the momentum of the market.

Beyond the well-reported site outages, general sluggishness of transactions, jacked-up fees, arguably broken I.D. and credit card verification system, and their substandard approach to conducting business, Coinbase has damaged consumer confidence to a level which negates the point of cryptocurrency as an efficient replacement to the conventional money systems, which many of us are so ready to pull the plug on.