Coinbase Introduces Stop Orders for Bitcoin Exchange Traders

Bitcoin services provider Coinbase has added stop orders to its Coinbase Exchange product, allowing customers to buy and sell the digital currency at a previously set price.

Coinbase

describes the service as a way to allow users to protect profits while improving their experience with the exchange product. Since Coinbase launched the exchange in January 2015, it has put an increasing emphasis on the product, indicating in recent messaging that it is first and foremost an exchange product.

In a widely circulated Medium post, CEO Brian Armstrong indicated in February his view that the perception that Coinbase was both a consumer wallet and an exchange product is creating issues for users.

Armstrong wrote:

"Over the next year or so, you’ll see the Coinbase brand shift from being a hybrid wallet and exchange to focusing on purely being a retail and institutional exchange. It will take some time to update, but the transition will happen."

As such, the stop loss feature represents the first signal that Coinbase is seeking to publicly follow through on the statements of its CEO.

In his post, Armstrong went on to stress that Coinbase would continue to prioritize its exchange product, and indicated that customers seeking to use its services as a wallet product were likely to continue to experience frustrations.

At press time, Coinbase was reporting 6,680 BTC in 24-hour volume, or about $2.8m, a figure that compares to its regulated US competitors itBit and Gemini, which saw $1.2m and $500,000 in bitcoin exchanged over the previous day’s trading, respectively.

Disclaimer: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which has an ownership stake in Coinbase.

Trading image via Shutterstock