Topic: Should I use Coinbase? (Read 1440 times)

Coinbase is a reputable company to buy and sell Bitcoins. I would take the time and verifying all your information with them if you plan on purchasing or selling several Bitcoins

The best/safest place for any digital currency is: Encrypting the wallets and disconnecting that computer or device from the internet.

If you are not capable or do not want to store Bitcoins by yourself, then coinbase is your best option as a secondary storage option.

Hope that helps,
CurrencyRanks.Com Support Team.

As a storage solution? It's not the best in terms of usability because Coinbase primarily for trading coins. If I were you, I would stick to a software based wallet. If you really wanted to use an online wallet, the wallet on blockchain.info is the best imho

First, there is a PUBLIC and and associated private address. The PUBLIC address is what you see posted online and in people's signatures, etc. The private address is what you need to spend the BTC balance and that must be kept secure and protected. The private address is like having a $100 bill (or actually, like having the cash value of your address in cash). Anyone who gets the private address can spend the associated BTC and the transaction cannot be reversed.  Look at this tutorial for a paper wallet... they private address is the part marked "SPEND" ( https://blockchain.info/wallet/paper-tutorial ). Both the private and public are printed on the paper wallet so that piece of paper needs to be protected.

You can get the balance of any BTC address by putting the PUBLIC address into blockchain.info on this page ( https://blockchain.info/ ) You'll see a not very obvious search bar, half way down on the right side.  Paste the BTC PUBLIC address into that search bar and it will show you the balance and all transactions on the address.

The paper wallet is like a back up, you can import it into coinbase (on the page where you can print it, you can also import it... separate button) or you can import it into any of the other wallet management tools online or off line. It is a backup to what is stored on your coinbase account. (I also use bitcoin-qt on my computer, I copy off my wallet file to a separate USB drive for storage. Then when I had to reload my computer, I just went and pulled that copy of my file back into the newly loaded bitcoin-qt and it was fine.)  The wallet really is only the two addresses. It is the blockchain that knows what coins have gone into or out of those addresses. So, you can print you paper wallet today, store it somewhere SAFE, and just leave it.

NOW - getting from paper to digital?
- You'll have your coinbase account, so you can always just look at your live account
- If you have a smart phone, you can load an app to read the QR code on your paper wallet. (You probably also want some sort of bitcoin app to help in making payments)
- You could retype the character string that is printed on the paper wallet... it would take some concentration, but there is no reason that you couldn't just type it in.

Hey,

If I use a paper wallet , my  wallet address will be on a piece of paper, right? But, how do I access my wallet and check how many bitcoins I have and how do I send/receive bitcoins? Do I need to download a software or do I need to use a website for this?

Also, is the paper wallet system reversible? Can I switch back to Coinbase if I want to?

Thanks for the replies!

I'm using them because of their buttons for on web sites.

They're upfront about who and where they are. They are the backend payment processor for Overstock.com, so they're not gong to skip out of town on their customer base and that makes me much more comfortable with them.

- Under Account Settings --> Security you can require two factor authentication for ANY transaction (also use a straight up cell phone or home phone, not something like a google voice number)

- Under Account Settings --> Bitcoin Addresses, you can print out a paper wallet of your account as a back up in case they do get hacked or go off line (you can take the paper wallet elsewhere if you want)


Blatant self promo... if you use this referral link, they'll also credit both our accounts with $5 in BTC in the event that you do a buy or sell of $100 worth of BTC: https://coinbase.com/?r=52da8abcb72d417a1e000002&utm_campaign=user-referral&src=referral-link  (info: https://coinbase.com/account/referrals )

Good luck.

I think it's relatively safe. Just enable 2-factor authentication and pick a random generated password that's as long as possible. LastPass might be good for this. You're putting your faith in a 3rd party just like putting your money in a bank. They could run off, get hacked, or go bankrupt w/o warning.

Hi.

I think they are safer than some but not nearly as safe as storing them yourself. who knows if coinbase will get hacked somehow, or otherwise fall to pay out. personally I use bitcoin-qt

Hey guys. I'm new to the forum and I'm also new to Bitcoin, and I have a question   

Should I use Coinbase to store Bitcoins? Are they safe?

Thanks.