Coinbase Conveniently Unavailable During Crypto Crashes
If you're like me, you woke up to see Bitcoin in a downward spiral at around $2,200 and Ethereum in the high $200s. I hurried to get to my Coinbase account to buy some ether, but I had this staring me in the face:
Now, let me assure you that this isn't the first time I've seen this message from our friends at Coinbase. Not even close. It seems that every time BTC has a big move up or down, somehow Coinbase mysteriously closes for maintenance or their servers are malfunctioning. Do you smell the bullshit?
I was able to make a purchase, but I had to use my computer, and it wasn't the low. It was when Ethereum was back up to $315. What would happen if every time silver fell flat or surged, your local coin shop closed the doors? People would get pissed.
What is your take on this? Do you use Coinbase anymore? What other (good) options are out there? Someone recommended Gemini, but I haven't heard much about it. And, as far as I know, Poloniex is just a trading platform, no buying can be done.
Anyway, thanks for stopping by and reading my frustration,
Maybe they operate like banks and don't really have enough cold storage (in this case Bitcoin) to cover such a massive exit, worth thinking about?
Thought about that. Makes sense. Restaurant is out of onions, but doesn't want to admit it. Chef John goes out back to buy up a bunch of cheap onions before coming back in like everything is fine. Meanwhile, you waited 3 hours for your damn meal.
Bix Weir claims that Coinbase is maxed out on the volume it can handle and I believe he's right. Most of their income is made on trades and purchases. I'm not sure they care about the price you pay. When trader's are chasing the top and bottom they overwhelm the system during those periods. This will be bad for their business if not addressed. I would be curious to know if people using other exchanges are experiencing the same thing.
As would I! Nice comment. I'm a fan of Bix.
This is super annoying, but it might also be understandable. I will not be surprised if they really don't have the infrastructure to handle high volumes or if they operate like @pqlenator suggested.
Definitely annoying. Maybe they should get more servers (or maybe the don't on purpose!)
I'm absolutely not disqualifying the possibility for them to do this to protect themselves from being the losing side.
I haven't had a good experience with coinbase. Seems awfully convenient an error at times like this. If it is a genuine error then fine but if it's something else and they keep throwing this up customers are gonna get well miffed.
I can relate VSS, exactly the same thing happened to me earlier too