For enhanced security, the Coinbase vault needs approval from the two email addresses linked to the vault at its creation, followed by a 48-hour waiting period before the vault transfer happens.
Waiting to Clear status
"Waiting to clear" means that you've successfully completed all approvals. The withdrawal will process once the 48-hour waiting period has completed.
Pending Approval status
"Pending Approval" means that one or both of the email addresses associated with the vault have not approved the withdrawal. The 48-hour waiting period won't start until that has been done.
The first approval can be done directly in your Coinbase account by going to the asset's vault page and selecting the transaction in question. Select Approve Withdrawal. If this option isn't present, you've already completed the approval for the primary email address.
To complete the second approval, access the secondary email account associated with the vault. If you've forgotten the email address, you can find a redacted version of it by going to the vault and selecting Vault details near the top of the page. This should give you a clue what the email address is.
Approval emails
When you initiated the withdrawal, an email was sent to the secondary email address on the vault. This email contains an "Approve withdrawal" link that you'll need to select to give the second approval.
The email can take up to 10 minutes to arrive. If you haven't received it:
Check your spam, junk, or trash folders.
You might need to whitelist the "@coinbase.com" domain name.
If you're using an email provider like Hotmail or Outlook, you might need to disable safelinks (or a similar feature) to approve the link (consult your email provider for assistance).
If you don't receive the approval email or you deleted it before approving the withdrawal, you'll need to cancel the withdrawal and start a new one. This invalidates any previous withdrawal approvals and email approval links. You'll need to follow the steps above again to approve the withdrawal from both email addresses associated with the vault.
If you've lost access to one or both emails associated with a vault that has funds in it, please contact us for further assistance.