Topic: eToro launches Bitcoin trade (Read 6845 times)

MY etoro experience:

• etoro account opened, money deposited by paypal. "Bought" some netflix stock.

• after a few days the account locked down and demanded i upload ID. wouldn't let me trade/withdraw/anything.

• Site's ID upload didn't work, nor did help section.

• Contacted etoro help. They didn't help much over email, and though i stated not to use my phone,they called my phone.

• Customer services person over phone suggested i insecurely email scans of government-issued ID, which I wasn't gonna do. I remind them that they're legally prohibited from trading on behalf of anyone who they can't prove to be over 18 in the UK, so they can't lawfully take a deposit before seeing a user's ID. More to the point, my passport is out of date so I didn't have enough ID at the time.

• This meant my account was stuck holding netflix and I couldn't change that before renewing my passport or generating some other form of ID. If i was holding some less successful stock, that might have wiped out my money. I explained this, and how it meant I wanted my account cancelled and my money withdrawn.

• I posted about this experience on these boards in etoro's bitcoin announce thread, and was messaged that they'd look into it.

• They tried to call me 8 more times while I was working but I wanted to use email, not phone (so I had logs, perhaps to paste here). I let it ring, but they didn't try my email.

• They DID cancel my account and informed me, but rather than paying me the account balance, they only paypalled me the amount I first deposited, minus 5$ for fees.

In short: I paid 5 bucks to let them borrow my money for a month.

And to be slightly dissed by an american over the phone who seemingly didn't believe that a brit can exist without a current passport or driving license.

...and to be told this:


Sorry, etoro. Your service may be legit and real to moneyed users with ID who don't mind risking it in insecure transmissions, but from my experience being locked out of my account, for all I can tell no trading occurs there and it may just be a big operation to sucker folks into that $5 processing fee.

I mean, that referral $$ that etoro is giving people to spam links around has got to come from somewhere. Some of it is mine.

Oh, absolutely!  NOBODY allows withdrawing bitcoins while the payment made for them is still reversible.  That's just ordinary sense and nobody sensible would have a problem with that.  In fact if someone offered to do something that silly, I'd immediately re-evaluate their service for its potential as being a scam or for the risk of being an honest-but-incompetent player unlikely to continue for long.  It's a nonissue most places because they don't take reversible payments such as credit cards in the first place.  Most bitcoins purchased for money, are purchased with money orders or cashier's checks.

Sweet

You have the ability to allow withdraws after 6 months to mitigate risk.

Thank you for the comment, we are currently looking into adding these features in the future and will update people here once we do. We have decided that the ability to invest in bitcoin in a simple and transparent way with a regulated entity which enables you to also purchase with credit cards is sufficient for an initial launch.
The main gaps offering the majority of 1-6 are regulation and credit risk, the reason that currently exchanges do not support credit cards is that CC are reversible by nature and bitcoin is not, which is a significant risk for any company who wants to enable people to both invest with a credit card and withdraw the bitcoins.

Do you honestly think that MtGox has all the bitcoins that its customers have deposited?

If eToro wants to fake that they have bitcoin then that means they are equivalently going short on those bitcoins.  That is a massive risk that I am sure any exchange will not take.

They are saying they do hold bitcoins so this is good for traders. Very easy, no security risk and a very compliant exchange. As long as they hold the right amount of bitcoins at all times, I approve.

Though they have a great chance at becoming a real exchange this point with timing and their brand bought them this much time.

Gut

As far as I can see, the service on EToro is this:

1) You can sell your fiat currency for bitcoin.  (at some price they get when trading just four times a day)
2) You can sell your bitcoin for the exact same fiat currency. (also at some price they get when trading just four times a day)

And that is the whole of the service.  Additional services that most people on this forum expect and whose absence is threatening or confusing to them (prompting them to yell "SCAM!" when they don't find these services) are:

1) You can send your bitcoins from your EToro account to a merchant address to buy things for Bitcoins.
2) You can send your bitcoins from your EToro account to your own wallet with your own key so EToro is not involved with them any more.
3) You can buy other assets available on EToro directly with Bitcoins instead of paying fees twice for conversion to fiat and then to other asset.
4) You can send your bitcoins to a cryptocurrency exchange where you could use them to buy litecoins etc.
5) You can send bitcoins you've already obtained from elsewhere (for example by selling goods for bitcoins) to your EToro wallet.  
6) You can exchange bitcoins in both directions, at will, for *any* fiat currency from around the world (forex trading).  

So, as far as the community's expectations about services offered, they offer about one-third of the services of a regular Bitcoin account you could get anywhere else. And that's kind of a problem.

On the plus side, they are compliant with financial regs, have a good legal staff, and lots of other assets (including reputation) to protect, so they're unlikely to disappear overnight or have their (your) assets disappear in a government seizure.  Also on the plus side, they are well experienced in network security due to their existing business and aren't very likely to get hacked either.  

yep, you cannot withdraw actual bitcoins from them.. you just which is but without actually holding or owning any actual bitcoin.

untill e-toro actually allow you to withdraw the currencies you "buy" and "sell" it is purely a gambling service based on FIAT use. true bitcoin fans should stick to true bitcoin exchanges until e-toro adds bitcoin withdrawals.

so they are trying to trap you in Fiat and you can never get any coin of them 

I'm having precisely the same problem with etoro: funds in, account locked, can't withdraw/trade/anything, ID upload nonfunctional.

Selling bitcoin 'naked' would actully be a very dangerous game.  So it is highly likely that you do acquire your own BTC.

In terms of colored coins,  I would like to refer you to iXcoin that is currently in the development of a native implementation of colored coins.  This native implementation is secured by a network with a hash rate of 10 peta has per second (40% of Bitcoin).  Furthermore,  a native implementation will permit secure light weight clients based on SPV.   

Cheers! 

In the interest of balance, I can now confirm that an EToro representative has contacted me and confirmed that they will refund my balance and close my account. I just got very nervous taking this any further for fear that I may end up owing more than I put in...I'm no expert on CFD but I was warned that there are risks you can end up owing more due to margin calls. TBH as soon as I discovered that I will not be holding any BTC I lost interest!

Very nice. You guys have a chance to become an established exchange too before it's too late if you're interested.

Hi Bitcoiners,

I am Yoni Assia, the ceo and founder of eToro, and I am very happy we recently laucnhed bitcoin on our social investment network.

We have been following bitcoin since 2010, and are one of the few regulated financial institutions that offer investments into bitcoin.

eToro is the largest social investment network with 3.2M users, and is a regulated  financial institution (UK FCA, CYSEC and across Europe Australia ASIC), as a regulated company we have KYC policies as well as customer funds safe keeping policies.

The main advatage of investing in bitcoin through etoro, is that opening an account in eToro takes few seconds and you can  deposit with a credit card, PayPal etc’ and follow Bitcoin investors from all around the world. We currently offer investing without leverage so the risk is similair to holding bitcoin at any bitcoin exchange.

When you invest in Bitcoin at eToro, eToro buys the actual Bitcoins and holds them, we work with existing bitcoin exchanges and have our own cold storage facility. This is not different than an account balance at a bitcoin exchnage (it is different than a bitcoin wallet).
 
At this stage, you cannot withdraw your funds as Bitcoins, so if you want to actually spend and use the Bitcoins, you should buy them at traditional exchanges.
 
Find out more on trading Bitcoin at eToro here: https://openbook.etoro.com/markets/btc/ and in our blog http://www.etoro.com/blog/product-updates/13012014/bitcoin-arrived/
 
Anyway, we would be happy to answer any of your questions using any of the following channels:
 
1) Customer Service wall (https://openbook.etoro.com/customerservice/overview/)
2) On-line FAQ and chat with us (http://www.etoro.com/en/help/)
3) If you have an account and any issues open a ticket and write to us (http://www.etoro.com/support/)
4) I have also asked our customer service to setup an official user on bitcointalk to help users here if needed

Regarding the comments on CFD's, CFDs are regulated financial instrument, any type of trading bears risk and offcourse of counterparty (expect owning bitcoin directly in a wallet - AKA the genious of bitcoin).
 
Thanks,
Yoni Assia
https://openbook.etoro.com/YoniAssia/
@yoniassia

Then prove your holdings publicly with signed messages.

one of eToro's core values is transparency-  we make sure that all trades on our system are displayed publicly here : https://openbook.etoro.com/
Our execution policy is available here -  http://www.etoro.com/en/customer-service/regulation-license/  and audited by our regulator .

This is my private username, i saw this msg and i wanted to provide you with additiona information.

the following differentiate eToro from BTC exchanges:

1. you can withdraw your Bitcoins only with Fiat - not Bitcoins
2. You don't need to be concerned about security. your funds are safe with eToro.
3. You invest using your credit card.
4. You deposit your funds with a regulated entity.

 Any questions feel free to ask
  

I don't believe it. Their forex platform is betting, they hold no currency. And they're banned in the usa. Lastly, having an anonymous username when representing a company is shady as Fuck.

Hi

I'm sorry you feel that way, we have no attention to misleading our clients.
Could you please PM you'r user in eToro and i will help?

Amos
eToro