Consumer complaint received 2021-10-11
Company: Coinbase, Inc.
State: IL
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service
Sub-product: Virtual currency
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
On XX/XX/2021, I purchased just under {$35000.00} worth of Shiba Inu ( SHIB ) coins on the Coinbase Pro application. After making multiple purchase orders, my SHIB holding totaled XXXX at an average of {$.00} per coin. Fifty minutes later upon checking my account, I tried liquidating my entire SHIB holding at {$.00} per coin. As I repeatedly pressed the sell button, which wouldn't work, I watched my account balance go from {$34000.00} to roughly {$4500.00} in less than five seconds. The price of SHIB significantly dropped and dropped my account balance by roughly 90 %. I immediately contacted Coinbase customer support via email, and this is their response pertaining to the abnormal adjustment of my portfolio : Hello Anonymous, Thank you for contacting Coinbase Support regarding SHIB orders and trades on Coinbase Pro. I am happy to help explain some of the price differences you may have encountered on the day we listed the asset. 
The prices of any new asset listings are determined by supply and demand and are not set by Coinbase. However, when we disabled deposits for SHIB to address a technical issue and then re-enabled deposits, the SHIB market experienced a period of abnormal supply and demand, causing a temporary dislocation in SHIBs market price as seen on the price chart in Coinbase Pro. 
Your valuable feedback will be taken into consideration for future improvements. 

To better explain what happened, Coinbase Pro listed an inaccurate price of SHIB on XXXX XXXXmore than 10x the real market price. They permitted deposits and transfers to come in initially to provide liquidity conditions but shortly after, and without proclamation, they halted transfers within one hour of launch. This created a small, isolated and illiquid marketplace where there were extremely few sellers and an immense amount of buyers, causing the price to skyrocket from its original listing. 

The following day on XX/XX/XXXX, Coinbase Pro XXXX  on XXXX : We have re-enabled sends and receives for SHIB. Our SHIB-USD and SHIB-USDT order books remain in limit-only mode at this time. Limit orders can be placed and cancelled, and matches may occur. Market orders can not be submitted. They proceeded to open the floodgates for SHIB holders to transfer their coins to Coinbase Pro from other exchanges, resulting in a massive selling at hugely inflated prices, originally caused by their technical error. As a result, the price of SHIB fell by 90 % instantly, as SHIB holders from other exchanges were aiming to make a 900 % profit by performing a boomerang transfer ( taking advantage of the cross exchange arbitrage ). Per Coinbases user agreement, they will make all reasonable efforts to restore all Traders to the position they would have been in had the error not occurred. Since then, no reasonable efforts were made to restore Traders to the position they would have been in had the error not occured. Had this been done, my SHIB balance would be {$180000.00} at the time of this writing.

Prior to SHIBs launch, Coinbase Pro XXXX  that it would not fully open trading unless the market was assessed to be healthy and orderly. This was not the case upon SHIBs launch. Coinbase should not have allowed this coin to be traded while transfers were haltedcreating an imbalanced and unhealthy market. On XX/XX/XXXX, XXXX weeks after this happening, Coinbase Pro XXXX : Coinbase Exchange is launching price auctions. When launching new assets on the Coinbase Exchange, well be using a price auction to help price discovery which creates a healthier market when trading starts. Why didnt Coinbase announce this prior to the SHIB launch? Theyre admitting that launches have been mishandled, and yet they aren't willing to take responsibility for the millions of dollars lost. This loss experienced by the masses was the result of a serious technical error, which artificially manipulated the order books. Coinbase loves to reference their user agreement yet they violate it many times, even demonstrating a violation of section 2.6 : Market Manipulation Prohibited. Coinbase demonstrated market manipulation by disabling the sell ' button, halting transfers which artificially controls volume, as well as listing a ridiculously inaccurate price of SHIB. 

From the surface it appears as though there was a technical error or perhaps Coinbase made a vital mistake by listing the wrong price. However that is not the case here ; this is sheer market manipulation at its finest. With no explanation so far, I am forced to question the ethics and integrity of this global enterprise. In lieu of these copy and past responses, Coinbase owes their users an explanation, which since has not been a priority. If trading was disabled then who did I buy SHIB from? Why weren't slippage warnings present at the time of transaction ( Coinbase notifies a user when theyre purchasing outside the 2 % range )? Why is there no transaction history on the total price paid? How does Coinbase Pros price of SHIB differ from Coinbases price when theyre essentially one single exchange? On second thought, why was SHIB only listed on Coinbase Pro and not Coinbase as well? Why were market orders restricted but limit orders werent? Coinbase is supposed to be the most trusted cryptocurrency trading platform and yet they are the most nefarious. With Coinbase not being regulated by the SEC, they will continue to hide behind their user agreement. With all this being said, this constitutes fraud and should be dealt with accordingly by legislation. Below I have provided links from XXXX and XXXX engagement regarding this affair. 

XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX  : XXXX XXXX  : XXXX XXXX : XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

Company response to consumer: Closed with monetary relief