You have to feel sorry for Americans. They are some of the most financially enslaved people in the world.
The bankrupt US government has been instituting capital controls for years now and have ensured that Americans can't open a bank account nor even a bitcoin exchange account outside of the US through things like the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and just outright threatening to attack any bank or bitcoin exchange in the world who accepts Americans as clients.
This leaves Americans in the "land of the free" with very few options for bitcoin exchanges.
No exchange outside of the US will accept Americans as clients. They'll accept North Koreans. Iranians. Russians. Chinese. Anyone… except for Americans.
And due to all the regulations in the fascist/socialist mixed US economy, it is incredibly hard to even operate a bitcoin exchange in the US.
While there are now a few other options, which we'll discuss further below, until recently, there was only one option. Coinbase.
To be fair to Coinbase a lot of the issues with the exchange aren't its fault directly. They are due to the myriad of rules and regulations that are strictly enforced in the US police state.
This has led to countless complaints about how difficult it is to open an account at Coinbase. Many have said that it is just as difficult to open an account at Coinbase as it is to open a bank account in the US… which usually requires a phone book stack of documents and needing to report in each morning with what you ate for breakfast.
And there have been countless reports of people saying that Coinbase closed their account without reason or notice. And many others have reported that their bank accounts have been closed once the bank noticed they were doing business with Coinbase.
Matters were made worse when late last year the IRS requested a John Doe summons as part of a bitcoin extortion-evasion probe, seeking to identify all Coinbase users in the US who "conducted transactions in a convertible virtual currency."
After all, the thieves at the IRS expect to get their cut.
To add to that, the US federal government is pushing a bill called "Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Counterfeiting Act of 2017" - which we talked about a few days ago.
This bill takes a further step to target bitcoin and wants to put any business which "issues" cryptocurrency under this umbrella of anti-money laundering regulations. Also, it will include bitcoin on the list of monetary instruments that must be reported when entering or leaving the US.
As you can see, trying to do anything related to bitcoin in the "land of the free" anymore is becoming more and more difficult. This combined with the SEC turning down a bitcoin ETF months ago has all but ensured that many Americans missed out on massive gains in the rise of bitcoin and other altcoins in the last year.
All in the name of protecting Americans, of course!
Lately, the site has also been plagued by technical issues as it is unable to handle the demand from customers.
There have been numerous website inefficiency and maintenance issues which rendered buy and sell orders useless for extending periods of time.
Plus there were extended periods of time when the site couldn't be accessed at all, which left users unable to move their funds into other wallets. It's worth noting as well that the majority of these instances occurred during periods of massive price movement which probably costs users millions in potential profits and losses.
As if all that weren't enough to make its users furious, it just came out that Coinbase disabled the fundraising account being used to pay the incarcerated founder of the Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht's defense attorneys.
Ross Ulbricht, for those who don't know, was given numerous life sentences for having a website in the, need I say again… "land of the free." Here was my recent interview with his mother on the massive injustice done to him.
This happened not long after Coinbase hired the former Silk Road's federal prosecutor, Kathryn Haun.
Wait a sec… why in the world is Coinbase hiring US government criminals?
Many libertarians were going to give the boot to Coinbase after hearing this… but it turns out this prosecutor was the one who put the corrupt FBI agents who stole Ross's bitcoin in jail.
So, she may not be totally evil. We aren't passing judgement just yet.
And, yesterday, Ross's account was enabled again:
So, Coinbase saved some face this time.
But, if they can't somehow lessen their adherence to the millions of US government regulations and fix their site technically they will lose customers to competitors.
At this time we are only aware of two other bitcoin exchanges operating in the US that will allow users with American bank accounts to exchange fiat for bitcoin.
There is New York-based Winklevoss twin's Gemini exchange and the San Francisco-based Kraken exchange.
We recommend Americans at least consider them as alternatives to Coinbase.
That's just being prudent.
As always, though, ignore Mike the Health Ranger Adams on anything to do with bitcoin.
He recently put out an article entitled, "Bitcoin wallet COINBASE now seizing accounts of Americans… users rage against 'total ripoff' as their Coinbase accounts VANISH," saying that Coinbase stole everyone's money.
This, as usual from Mike, is completely untrue. Please stick to vitamins Mike… we got the cryptocurrency space covered over here.
You can tell Mike doesn't understand what he's talking about in his article because he refers to Coinbase as a "popular bitcoin wallet". Of course, it provides users with different wallets for different currencies, but only an inexperienced user would refer to an exchange as a "wallet."
Mike goes on to quote an issue Coinbase is having with Wyoming users saying Coinbase is stealing their money;
"Although we strive to provide continuous access to Coinbase services, Coinbase has indefinitely suspended its business in Wyoming and we regret that we cannot currently support services in Wyoming. You can find a further explanation of our account suspension policy here. We hope to restore service in Wyoming soon, so please check back again."
While it is true that many users in the state of Wyoming experienced this issue, Coinbase hasn't yet stolen the funds Mike, let's not jump to conclusions. And, as I said earlier, this issue is caused yet again by the egregious labyrinth of laws in the "land of the free", not by Coinbase.
It seems like lately Mike seems to be jumping at any opportunity to incite more bitcoin-based fear propaganda, maybe he's upset he sold his bitcoin at such a low price level?
In any case, one thing is clear through all of this. As an American, it is becoming harder and harder to get access to bitcoin.
This should be a wake-up call to many. The US government is bankrupt. The US government is installing capital controls to ensure Americans cannot leave the country with their money.
And, they are making it harder and harder for Americans to convert their US dollars into bitcoin.
The writing on the wall is clear. And if you haven't begun to get at least some of your assets outside of the US you should be running not walking to do so.
This is what every country on Earth does just before their currency hyperinflates into worthlessness or the government defaults. Just ask people in Greece. The government there has just decided they will begin taking people's homes and the contents of their safety deposit boxes in order to keep the country from bankruptcy.
People like Peter Schiff have been warning people to stay out of bitcoin since it was $20. And now the Health Ranger is warning you to stay out of it too.
You have to wonder what is the motivation of these people who should be smart enough to know that we are on the verge of a collapse of the US dollar to warn people away from alternatives that could save them.
Cryptocurrencies have a lot of risks and we wouldn't recommend anyone put all their assets into them. But we do recommend you begin to use them, put a small percentage of your assets into them and learn more about them.
For that I have created a free four-video webinar on the importance of cryptocurrencies which you can view HERE. And we'll even send you your first $50 in bitcoin if you accept our offer to get more information in the videos.
To summarize, Coinbase has a lot of issues, but most of the issues are just because it operates in the US. It still, however, is the largest exchange in the US and does offer an excellent bitcoin ATM/debit card. And you can get $10 in free bitcoin if you signup using this link.
Americans can expect to have more and more problems as the US government bankruptcy and Federal Reserve hyperinflation of the dollar nears closer.
My advice is just to get out of the US for much freer places across the world where you can trade easily in bitcoin.
But, if you can't, or won't, you should be at least ensuring your assets are kept out of the easy reach of the world's largest terrorist organization, the US government and the world's largest extortion racket, the IRS.
Bitcoin is just one easy way to do that. You can find out more in my free four-video webinar here. 