Be very, very, very careful about giving any service, <i>ever</i>, information about your actual bank account. This is a much bigger deal than giving a service your credit card information.<p>(Individual ACH charges may, with some effort, be reversible like a credit card charge, but invalid reversible credit card charges are pretty much all you have to worry about with a stolen credit card, and <i>not</i> all you have to worry about with a stolen bank account).
I don't mean to be harsh, but the fact that you're even asking for banking credentials means I want nothing do with your service, and I feel like actually shouting loudly to everyone I know not to use it either.<p>There have been far too many shady Bitcoin related hacks/frauds/incidents for this to be something that you should even be encouraging. What protection do your customers have if you do get hacked?
Given the horrible security record of Bitcoin trading platforms, there is no way in hell I will give my bank account details to one. There are so many amateurs in the field that I cannot take any of them seriously.
I find it absolutely incredible that they are asking for online banking username, password and PIN number to "instantly verify" an account.<p>I'm not saying this company is a scam, but if I wanted to create an elaborate phishing scam, this is <i></i>exactly<i></i> the type of setup I would create.<p>Hopefully no one is stupid enough to give this key online banking information to this company or anyone else that asks for it.
Anyone working with bitcoin would do well to read this advice from jellicle and forensic daily:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2973803" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2973803</a>
While CoinBase needs to do this to make it easy for mainstream US customers, it is a dangerous move for them.<p>They are at a huge risk of the ACH equivalent of chargebacks first and foremost.<p>Their banking connection will undoubtedly cut the cord as well. I'm surprised they even were able to launch this.<p>Their 1% transaction fee is way to low to deal with the risk.<p>See this article on why:<p><a href="http://stakeventures.com/articles/2012/03/07/the-may-scale-of-money-hardness-and-bitcoin" rel="nofollow">http://stakeventures.com/articles/2012/03/07/the-may-scale-o...</a>
From some of the other comments, it sounds like (asking for bank passwords) is a semi-common practise [in the US]. Is that accurate? I'm absolutely stunned that anyone could think that (a) it's a good idea, and that (b) anyone would be so unbelievably stupid to actually provide them!<p>I can't imagine the banks are thrilled with this either - and if they're not actively blocking this sort of activity, they probably should be. I'd be careful that providing your password doesn't invokes various liability clauses in your banking agreement.<p>The only way I would <i>ever</i> consider doing this, is if I set up a new bank account, preferably with a different bank from my usual transactions, where I specifically put funds for this purpose. In which case, it's probably not worth the hassle.
A while ago I wrote that perhaps the greatest contribution the Bitcoin experiment will make to humankind is to teach you and me and our neighbors more about the realities of economics. And later I added that the Bitcoin experiment will also contribute to greater understanding of attack surfaces and online crime. Many of the ideas about how to mine Bitcoins, store Bitcoins, and trade with Bitcoins as a medium of exchange illustrate both the strengths and weaknesses of any other medium of exchange in a world full of human beings. Seeing the discussion of Bitcoins here on Hacker News reminds me of early online discussions in the 1990s of online payment systems such as PayPal, and the arguments beforehand that PayPal wouldn't have to invest a lot of time and effort (as it eventually did) building defenses against theft and fraud. If a weakness in a system is attached to a lot of money, the way to bet is to bet that someone will go looking for that weakness, even if you haven't thought of it.<p>This prompts a question for all the security-knowledgeable persons who participate here on Hacker News, a question once asked of the inventor of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). How expensive do you think it would be for the United States National Security Agency (or a comparable organization from another national government) to crack a Bitcoin store, given that we know that some Bitcoin caches have already been cracked? And if the organization storing Bitcoin data held personal bank account data too, how attractive a target might it be to thieves?
Lots of people here are right to question the security given the track record of ... well, pretty much everyone involved in BitCoin trading, but I work at a company that has looked into using this type of instant bank account verification and it's not quite as ridiculous as some people are assuming.<p>To pull money from your account, they are using ACH (Automated Clearing House) sometimes called e-check. The standard way to confirm an ACH relationship is to make two small deposits known as microdeposits into the customers account, and then the customer needs to come back and confirm the amounts.<p>This requires waiting for what's usually a daily process to send the ACH micro deposits, then waiting until they show up in the customer's account. Thus, the customer needs to wait several days before they can add funds.<p>Another option is to use a service like By All Accounts which logs in on the users behalf to their their bank account and confirms that they actually have access to the bank account they are trying to draw from and confirms sufficient funds.<p>Once either of these happens, then the company can pull from your bank account. This is great if you're setting up something like automatic bill pay or hooking up a scheduled deposit into an investment account.<p>So if you trust this BTC dealer as much as your credit card company or stock broker, this is a reasonable method to get money to them. If you don't trust them, then you probably don't want to give them money anyway.
Can you actually buy anything legitimate with BTC yet?<p>When I was last involved (2 years ago), the entire economy seemed to be an amusing dance between get rich quick miners / speculators and a relative handful of early adopters and pool operators siphoning cash off of the former.
Why is the spread so high on the buy/sell orders? Mt.Gox currently has Ask: $9.99 Bid: $9.92 while Coinbase has Ask: $11.27 Bid: $10.05. This is an effective 12% fee on purchases in addition to the 1% fee you already charge.
Why is this whole thread about the instant-verification feature? If it looks scary, use the 2-3 day method!<p>Anyway, this service looks very cool and I will try it out for future bitcoin purchases.
Interestingly, the exchange rate is slumping the last two days:<p><a href="http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg60zczsg2012-09-01zeg2012-10-27ztgSzm1g10zm2g25" rel="nofollow">http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg60zczsg2012-09-01...</a><p>I wonder if an easier disposal method for US customers is letting miners unload en masse?
Glad to see USD/BTC exchange getting easier again. With mining GPU requirements continuing to rise, it is becoming less feasible for most people to mine for bitcoins, and purchasing them will be the only feasible way of acquiring them, especially if difficulty levels continue to rise.
I just went to the comments section to see how many people would be warning about giving away your banking credentials to another shady bitcoin site. Glad to see I wasn't disappointed.