Live data from Hacker News

Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

blog.coinbase.com

281–290 of 359 posts

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#281
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... so that we can enable a future where financial privacy is optional (versus today, where it is basically inescapable). This is a typo, right? Financial privacy today is basically impossible, not inescapable. Tracking is basically inescapable, unless one uses cash. And using cash is becoming virtually illegal.

"And using cash is becoming virtually illegal." No it is not. Not even close. Stop with the paranoid hyperbole.

I'm thinking of civil asset forfeiture.

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#282
Not super related to Shift Card, but I always thought big banks are terrible at customer service and how they treat their customers. Looking at complaints about CoinBase and how ShiftCard is setting pin based on phone number, you get a sense that this is all a bunch of amateurs and/or kids running the show.

Or maybe handling transactions is really hard?

Not sure what to think honestly.

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that Coinbase gets to decide whether or not their customers "did a bunch of illegal shit". At will, with no effective recourse.

Welcome to how financial regulations work. Show up with a bag of cash if you want to get around it.

They have civil asset forfeiture to handle that ;)

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#284
post #39

Just a reminder to Bitcoin newbies: This card looks like an OK product (still open questions about how much coinbase is gaming the ask/bid spread) but just realize that this card does NOT use Bitcoin, it uses "Coinbase Bitcoin"[1] which is Bitcoin for which the coinbase company is managing your private key: You only truly own Bitcoins if you own the private key for the account (users of MtGox learn this the hard way…

Wait, you give them your private key? Doesn't that defeat the entire security model of Bitcoin? Once Coinbase is hacked all of your money will be gone. It seems crazy to me that you would give them the private key.

Technically, you send the funds to a Bitcoin address you never had (and never will have) the private key to, but yeah, if Coinbase gets hacked, then the hacker gets your funds.

(Creating new Bitcoin addresses is very cheap.)

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#285
I cannot recommend Coinbase at all. I operate an adult comic book publisher and they shutdown our account without notice and gave no real reason for their action. All support tickets took 3 - 5 days to get a reply and it was always unhelpful.

For a company like ours the whole appeal of Bitcoin is the anonymity, so our readers don't have to worry about buying lewd comics and having it show up on their statements. Coinbase tarnishes what Bitcoin stands for and they do not protect artists/publishers.

Edit: For transparency here is my back and forth with their support (http://imgur.com/CHeAEPP) and the link to one of our books on Amazon I shared (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1634420241/ [NSFW]). Ironically I've been waiting on a reply from them for 22 days and counting. They have about $5,000 in our disabled account along with all our customer/order information that we can't access.

Do not use Coinbase.

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to how financial regulations work. Show up with a bag of cash if you want to get around it.

They have civil asset forfeiture to handle that ;)

Indeed. USPS money orders are pretty good for getting around that. They can be cashed at any USPS facility, can be bought in $1K limits (no more than $3K per day though), and can essentially be treated as bearer bonds if you don't fill them out until time of exchange.

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the new chip cards in the US I've read about are signature only. It was decided that the US consumer would dislike the added complication of needing to use PIN. I'd like a chip card that requires a PIN (and that is accepted widely in the US) because such a card would make unauthorized charges less likely after the card is lost or stolen, but was not able to find one.

I have a US chip card where I've set a PIN for transaction purposes, so it's not signature only, but it'll still accept both. That said, all of the chip card readers that I've used (few and far between still...) seem to have been configured for signature only, so I haven't been prompted for my PIN yet.

Thanks for clarifying. I agree that my "signature only" was inaccurate.

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#289
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Bitcoin Dogecoin CAD - Bitcoin Dogecoin EUR - Bitcoin Dogecoin BHT - Bitcoin Dogecoin HKD - Bitcoin Dogecoin AUD

Hah, Is this a joke or is there actually a doge service that does this?

There is. I mined 30 thousand of them, worth about 10 bucks

Re: Introducing the Shift Card: Use Bitcoin where Visa is accepted

#290
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if someone intercepts your mail, then they know your address and could possibly know your phone number. How secure is the activation process Every "normal" credit and debit card I've received in the mail has used this same procedure -- call a number on a removable sticker stuck to the card to activate it where the only verification is the phone number you're calling from (and caller ID is easily faked). How is…

> (and caller ID is easily faked) It's been a long time since I was into telephony stuff, but IIRC caller ID is easily faked but ANI is not. Do verifications use CID or ANI?

they use ANI, as they're toll free numbers you're dialing (which means they're already capturing ANI for billing purposes[1].)

this is also why caller ID blocking (as provided by your telco) doesn't work when calling toll-free numbers.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_identificatio...

Post reply on HN