Wondering how to receive Bitcoin into your GDAX account? We were too. Seems like a pretty simple thing, right? We went on to their help section and tried to find it, and I must say, it wasn’t very helpful. Shouldn’t there be an article in the FAQ entitled “How to facilitate a Bitcoin to Bitcoin transfer?” We thought so.
A Google search revealed an article, which tells you to go to gdax.com/trade, and then choose a trading pair with the currency you wish to deposit from the “Select Product” menu. The only problem is that there is no BTC to BTC option. The article goes on to say that you should select the deposit button at the top left, choose the right type of address, (e.g.) BTC address, ETH address or LTC address and simply copy the account address shown.
First off, while we did see the BTC option on our account, we did not see ETH or LTC. This might be explained by the fact that we don’t have any ETH or LTC in our GDAX account. Ok, we can deal with that and chalk it up to poor documentation on the GDAX end. However, when I went into the BTC section to get the BTC address to copy it, I was interrupted and had to get out of that screen momentarily. When I went back into it, I noticed that the “hash” or address was distinctly different from the first time I saw it. (Perceptive, huh?). Why? “Isn’t this our permanent Bitcoin address”, I thought… Why would it change? This made us a little uncomfortable.
We decided to call the GDAX Technical Support Phone Number at (855) 577-1727. The representative must have been brand new, because he seemed pretty clueless. Definitely not a confidence builder! He advised us to use our Coinbase account to facilitate the BTC to BTC transfer in lieu of a direct to GDAX transfer. I explained that we didn’t want to do that, and that I wanted to do it directly into GDAX, Bitcoin to Bitcoin. He didn’t seem to know how to do that. So, then, I explained the aforementioned process above, to which he basically said, “yea, you could do it that way too”. More confidence lost. (queue SAD emoticon).
I take it that GDAX is simply generating a unique hash each time you go into that screen, which is linked to your actual Bitcoin wallet address. How else would one explain the address changing every time you go into it? In any case, in the end, we decided to facilitate the BTC to BTC transfer using Coinbase, out of an abundance of caution. Wow. This is truly the WILD, WILD WEST! Feel free to comment below on your experience.
Daniel Haurey Jr. is the president and founder of managed IT services provider Exigent Technologies, which he founded in 1997. Under his leadership, the MSP has earned accolades ranging from Channel Futures MSP 501 to being named SonicWall’s 2024 MSP Growth Partner of the Year. Dan is a true entrepreneur, dedicated to growing, investing in, and mentoring small businesses. You can find him on LinkedIn, where he regularly posts about technology, business, leadership, and community.