Canadian and Venezuelan users of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Pro found themselves unable to withdraw their money over the weekend. Coinbase Pro is an exchange operated by Coinbase. It has daily trading volumes of $84,519,253.
Inconvenience/sanctions
Users in Canada were annoyed at the inconvenience, and users in Venezuela were worried that they were seeing the result of some new national sanction. However, the issue was caused by a bug in the system and was quickly resolved.
Venezuelan users reporting that Coinbase is showing this message when attempting to withdraw or send crypto. Please note that the users are not trying to buy or sell, but to transfer their coins. @CoinbaseSupport pic.twitter.com/nqKuS3tydw
— Eduardo⚡Gómez (@Codiox) August 2, 2018
The last time that a major bug was discovered at Coinbase was in March 2018. That particular malfunction could have potentially let someone generate unlimited ETH. The firm gave a $10,000 reward to the security company that discovered the problem.
In a break from the norm, nobody accused Coinbase of running a scam as a result of the bug this weekend, according to CCN. This can be seen as a positive for the company as this is often the first response to a malfunction at any exchange.
Pound and python
Over the weekend, Coinbase announced some new features to its payment service, which is called Coinbase Commerce.
The first relates to a plugin called WooCommerce, which Coinbase claims to power "more than 28% of all online stores". The upgrade will allow customers to send Bitcoin and Litecoin directly from this application according to a company announcement which also promises Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash compatibility in the future.
The second new feature is a Python library. Python is a programming language; in this context, a library is a collection of shortcuts that save time when writing out code. This feature has been added to make it easier for companies to integrate Coinbase features into their websites, which include a payment button. According to the announcement, Coinbase will follow up with other programming languages too (Node.js, Ruby, and PHP).
Institutionalising
On Thursday, August 2, Coinbase added support for pound sterling to make it easier for UK citizens to buy cryptocurrency. This followed getting an e-money licence from the Financial Conduct Authority and opening an account at Barclays in March.
At the same time, it has been moving to get into the US establishment with things like setting up a political action committee and hiring a chief compliance officer. It was even acquitted by itself of wrongdoing in the insider trading scandal of last year.
Whale service
Coinbase Pro has daily trading volumes of $130 million, according to coinmarketcap.com. One of its services is a called 'Coinbase Custody', where it acts as a custodian for big-money Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum and Litecoin holders. The minimum amount that it will agree to store is $10 million. Apart from the $10 million minimum storage, users of the service have to pay a $100,000 setup fee and a monthly charge of 0.1 percent, meaning a minimum of $10,000.
On Friday it announced that it wants to add 40 new Cryptocurrencies , including XRP, to that list.
