You Can Now Buy And Sell Bitcoin By Connecting Any U.S. Bank Account

Good news! Our bank account integration feature finally launched.

You can now connect any U.S. bank account to buy or sell bitcoins on Coinbase! The process is fast and simple, and we’d love to have you try it out.

Here are the steps after you sign in:

1. Add and verify a bank account (for most large banks in the U.S. we’ll be able to instantly verify the account — smaller banks or credit unions may take a few days to verify while we credit two small amounts to your account and wait to see if you can verify the amounts).

2. Now you can buy or sell bitcoins, and the USD amount will be debited or credited to your bank within four business days.

Below you can see some screenshots of what the process looks like:

Simple right?

What are the fees?

Coinbase charges 1%, plus there is a $0.15 flat fee which goes to the bank. The fees are the same whether you are buying or selling bitcoin.

How long does it take?

You will receive your bitcoin once the bank transfer completes. Usually this is within four business days (note, not calendar days). We’ll send you an email when your bitcoins arrive.

Are there any limits in place?

Yes, the maximum you can buy or sell right now is $100 USD per user, per day. This is a low limit just so we can keep an eye on things as we ramp up, and make sure we have all the right systems in place to prevent abuse. We’ll raise this limit over the coming months.

Why do you ask for bank credentials? Is that secure?

We do this to prove you own the account, but you’re correct to be wary of entering bank info like this on any new service. We offer the second option, “Challenge Deposit Verification”, as a fallback if you aren’t comfortable with entering your bank credentials. We felt “Instant Account Verification” was a good option to provide though because:

• We felt we could do it securely. For example we never store the bank credentials (username, password, etc) in our own database, and we take care to filter it from logs, etc.

• It allows you to verify an account in just a few minutes instead of a few days, which really lowers the hurdle to purchasing bitcoin.

• It’s the default in the U.S. for services like Paypal so people are somewhat familiar with it.

• For people who are uncomfortable with it, the challenge deposit verification is there as a backup.

Hopefully this helps explain our thought process behind it a bit more.

Is this U.S. only?

Yes, this only works with U.S. bank accounts right now. We’ll be launching similar options for other countries down the road, but this will take quite a bit longer. We finished U.S. integration first, so this what we have ready today.

Having easy liquidity between bitcoin and traditional currencies is an important step for bitcoin adoption, so we’re super excited to finally have this available to the public.

We’d love to have you try it out and send us your feedback. If you haven’t already, please sign up for an account and purchase your first bitcoin today.

As always, feel free to send us any feedback through our support forum or in the comments below.