Founded in June of 2012, Coinbase is a bitcoin wallet and platform where merchants and consumers can transact with the new digital currency bitcoin. We're based in San Francisco, California.

Coinbase has been severely criticized for their business and acquisitions practices. Although claiming to highly prioritize security they have:

• Acquired a KYC team, Neutrino, with roots backdooring software and selling malware to oppressive governments to that was used to murder journalists.
• Recommend users store private keys in the cloud.
• They use SMS for 2FA.

Bitcoin is the world's most widely used alternative currency with a total market cap of approximately $3.5 billion. The bitcoin network is made up of thousands of computers run by individuals all over the world.

The service aims to be the easiest way to get started with Bitcoin. Its service is modeled to provide an experience familiar to those who are comfortable using PayPal.

Stats

• 2,500,000 - Users
• 3,900,000 - Wallets
• 40,000 - Merchants
• 7,000 - Developer Apps

Coinbase Review

In my mind, nothing comes close to Coinbase in terms of ease of use and security. You link a bank account to the San Francisco-based start-up, and then send them money to buy Bitcoin at the currently offered price.

They wait up to a few days to ensure your transaction clears (Bitcoin is a murky financial area, and they do not want to risk identity theft or other problems until they have banks on their side), and then give you access to your coins. 30 days after you have a successful transaction, you can add a credit card to your account to enable instant buys of up to $1,000 per week. Regular speed buys are allowed at up to $50,000 per week, from a linked bank account.

Their platform is very popular, and justifiably so it makes owning and managing your coins very simple. They also take excellent security precautions like two-factor authentication on log-in AND on send, keeping the VAST majority (97%!) of their coins in offline storage, and so on.

They are an excellent way to enter the Bitcoin ecosystem, and an excellent way to integrate Bitcoin into your business, if you are so inclined. They also offer the excellent Coinbase Vault program which is a system that allows you to place your coins into a very high-security lock, requiring two-factor authentication along with a mandatory waiting period before the coins can be moved.

What are they not? They ARE NOT an exchange. They are not a trading platform. If your goal is to be buying and selling Bitcoin on its swings then you do not want to be using Coinbase for your day-to-day trading.

Details:

• Backed by Andreessen Horowitz in a $25m Round A
• Backed by Goldman Sachs and IDG in a $75m Round B
• Biggest US player, focused on merchant integration
• Easy platform for buying and selling
• Good way to get money into the ecosystem
• High fees and long waits make it unsuited for trading. It’s more like Western Union than like Scottrade.
• There appears to be a coordinated smear campaign against them on the internet.

Pros:

• Fairly easy to use!
• Secure, trustworthy and US based
• Proactive customer service
• They pay your transaction fees when you move your Bitcoin around

Cons:

• Fees of about 1%
• 3-5 day lag time for initial purchase
• Slightly higher than market price for purchase
• Not intended to be used for trading
• Will occasionally cancel orders for 'high-risk' behavior (suspected motive is really to not honor the price)

Employees

Venture Capital Rounds