Allowlisting is an opt-in security feature that limits sends to only the crypto addresses in your address book. The crypto addresses can be external or belong to another Coinbase user. This makes it easier to send crypto to addresses you know and trust:
Add a crypto address for any of the cryptocurrencies supported on Coinbase
Assign a nickname to the crypto address
Once you’ve turned on allowlisting:
Search the crypto address by its nickname when you send crypto
Add new, previously unsaved addresses to your address book when you initiate a send
To enable this feature, toggle allowlisting on in your address book.
How do I add a new address to my address book?
Go to your Allowlist settings and click Add Address.
Select the currency you want to allowlist from the dropdown menu, then enter a nickname and the crypto address for that specific asset.
Click Add address and verify this action by completing 2-step verification.
If you’ve enabled allowlisting on your account, you will see your added addresses displayed in gray which means that they’re going through our 48-hour security hold before they’re approved for sends.
Important: When allowlisting is enabled, every new address added to your address book must go through a 48-hour security hold before it’s fully allowlisted.
How do I send crypto to an address in my address book?
Enter the address in the recipient field when you initiate a send.
Note that with allowlisting enabled, you will not be able to withdraw to any address not listed in your address book. If you want to send crypto to an address not allowlisted in your address book, then add it to your address book.
Security hold
As an extra layer of security, there will be a 48-hour hold period before the crypto addresses in your address book are approved for sends, including when you turn off allowlisting.
When you first turn on allowlisting:
All addresses saved in your address book will be immediately allowlisted.
There will be an 8-hour window where you can add new addresses to your address book before a 48-hour security hold is activated. For this reason, you may want to add your known addresses right away.
You can turn off allowlisting during the 8-hour window and the addresses will not be subject to the 48-hour security hold.
After the initial 8-hour window has passed, any new address you add to your address book must go through a 48-hour security hold before it’s fully allowlisted and approved for sends. Note that the hold period only applies to the address use and not your cryptocurrency. You can still buy, sell, or convert that specific asset while the address is subject to the security hold.
How do I know when an address is fully allowlisted and approved for sends?
Go to your address book and look in the date added column, if there is a date listed then the address is fully allowlisted and can be used. If there is a time listed (i.e. 33h 26m), the address is still pending allowlisting and subject to the 48-hour security hold.
Because allowlisting is a security feature, it’s not possible to bypass the 48-hour security hold to allowlist addresses sooner. Also, you cannot remove an address while it’s subject to this holding period.