All things must come to an end eventually (at least in the world as we know it) and as much as I pick on Coinbase for various things, that won’t be the case today.
Today (actually yesterday) Coinbase further expanded their offering to purchase bitcoin with a debit card to more of the United States and this is a positive thing. They joined the ranks of Circle, CEX.io, and a slew of others not too long ago allowing a select few in the US to purchase bitcoin with a debit card.
Coinbase recently made thenew serviceavailable to those in the United States after having established the offering to UK residents a while back. As we reported this was extended to approximately only 1% of the country rendering it almost useless and of little notable value to anyone at the time.
That has changed.
Coinbase has extended to other areas now and we can only assume this has been going on since its first availability. There is also no 4 day wait as is with their ACH service. It’s pretty much instant. The state of Texas is one [place] where these services have been extended and a more better placement of such an offering there could not be with itBit’s recent and bizarre departure from the state.To clarify, the roll-out of debit cards as a payment method for our customers was gradual. We started with 1% of customers within the US (not related to state geography at all), then increased to 5%, 25%, and eventually to 100% of our US customers.
[pullquote]To clarify, the roll-out of debit cards as a payment method for our customers was gradual. We started with 1% of customers within the US (not related to state geography at all), then increased to 5%, 25%, and eventually to 100% of our US customers. – CoinBase[/pullquote]
The Verdict
This new offering does not suck. There are worse things on earth, but it’s not without a few glitches of which we are certain Coinbase will iron out. We could not add an EMV based card and ran into the increase in purchasing ability in a negative direction.
Other than that … the damn thing works.
Out of pure curiosity we added the Shift Payment Visa card attached to this account. Sure enough it was added and we could buy bitcoin for an account by paying for it with bitcoin already in the account, albeit this time it told us only $40/day, not that anyone in their right mind would ever want to do that. It was just a curiosity and now you know.
All in all, we nothing nothing negative to say here. It’s fast and easy (at least for already established accounts). This is a great offering from Coinbase and one that has been long overdue.
Well done.
