Coinbase is required by law to comply with applicable anti-money laundering and 'know your customer' laws, regulations and standards, including the Bank Secrecy Act and the USA PATRIOT Act. You must provide accurate and complete information about yourself when creating your Coinbase Account, including your full legal name, address, phone number, date of birth, and taxpayer identification number (SSN or ITIN). Coinbase may require you to provide additional verification information at any time.
You are required to share highly sensitive personal and financial information including your SSN with Coinbase as a condition of service, and this data is subject to their privacy practices and potential government disclosure obligations.
Coinbase's User Agreement gives the company broad unilateral powers to suspend accounts, freeze funds, and reverse transactions with limited notice, directly affecting your access to your money and cryptocurrency. In the event of Coinbase's insolvency, cryptocurrency held in your Coinbase account may be treated as Coinbase's property under bankruptcy law, leaving you as an unsecured creditor rather than the outright owner of your assets. You can withdraw your cryptocurrency to a self-custodied hardware or software wallet to avoid platform insolvency risk, and you can opt out of mandatory arbitration by sending written notice to Coinbase within 30 days of first accepting the agreement.