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Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

nytimes.com

81–90 of 355 posts

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#81

With the frenzy out there, Coinbase makes crypto currencies trading/investing/purchasing as robust and seemingly as safe as possible. This could be a signal, now that we have some reputable market players that crypto currencies are really just starting and there is a very high ceiling. Getting in before coinbase you had to mine your own (that party ended quickly - Butterfly Labs, cex.io for cloud mining etc) or be pa…

I've run into all sorts of bugs which made the site annoying to use. 1. My bank account has a 5000$ limit and my credit card has a 750$ limit. After spending 1000$ from the bank (which takes a week), I wanted a quick 50$ from my CC, but it said I was already past the 750$ limit. 2. When trying to recover an older account, the recovery keeps asking for my phone number but isn't sending me texts properly. If you say yo…

The limits are different for everyone and they go up as time goes on and you have successful transactions with them. To avoid waiting you can transfer USD into Coinbase ahead of time and then the buy will confirm instantly when you choose to do the transaction.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's safe if you keep your money in coinbase.

Completely false. The number one rule of bitcoin is never store your bitcoin on an exchange. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102 You wait and see what happens when coinbase has 500 billion or a trillion dollars worth of hard currency on their platform, and the us dollar is three years into its slide. The temptation to raid that will be far…

Well I meant "safe" in the way that a Normie would think is safe. IE, similar security guarantees that a bank would provide.

Obviously, this makes no sense to a cryto enthusiast, because they care more about the stuff you talked about.

But the "average" zero knowledge person who freaks out about how Bitcoin is "unsafe" is usually talking about private key theft, or getting scammed by someone. These "unsafe" things aren't a problem on coinbase.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#83
post #24

I used to use coinbase but some godawful KYC/AML thing kicked in and asked me to send them a "selfie" of myself, which creeped me the hell out. I'm a US citizen, am not on any sort of list of prohibited people, and had already given them a photo of my driver's licence and my SSN -- and have had no issues with opening other bank/bitcoin-exchange accounts online previously. I thus switched to Gemini because I do not wa…

You had to provide your bank user/pass to Coinbase? I only had to provide routing and account numbers, then verify the ACH amounts (edit: and driver's license photo). But I'm only in the shallow end of the kiddie pool here.

ACH does not work in read or in write-only mode. Once you provide someone your ACH info, they can deposit you money.. or empty out your bank account!

I had few rough service providers who tried to come up with some magical charges (technical fee of $500 per year) after agreement was signed and had to change bank numbers to make sure they wont take the money out since it would be more than $500 to fight them in court.

The company is called EMS Merchants btw.. you can read horrible stories of merchants screwed by them in this way via ACH on online forums.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely false. The number one rule of bitcoin is never store your bitcoin on an exchange. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102 You wait and see what happens when coinbase has 500 billion or a trillion dollars worth of hard currency on their platform, and the us dollar is three years into its slide. The temptation to raid that will be far…

Well I meant "safe" in the way that a Normie would think is safe. IE, similar security guarantees that a bank would provide. Obviously, this makes no sense to a cryto enthusiast, because they care more about the stuff you talked about. But the "average" zero knowledge person who freaks out about how Bitcoin is "unsafe" is usually talking about private key theft, or getting scammed by someone. These "unsafe" things ar…

So not safe but just say it is.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#86
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what? Did they really ask for your bank login credentials? If so, approximately what date was that?

They use Plaid[1] to verify bank accounts using bank login credentials instead of micro deposits -- which reduces abandoned applications since you don't have to wait a couple days to complete verification. This is a very common thing for fintech companies to do. [1] https://plaid.com/

What the fuck? There is no way, never, ever, that I would even consider doing that. How the hell is it a good idea for any company to try to convince people that it should be normal to share login credentials with a third party for any service, much less something as sensitive as one's bank account? That's just training people to get scammed.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#87
post #28

Most interesting thing I learned from this article: Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO, "said he now holds more of his wealth in a Bitcoin competitor, Ether"

Ethereum has better use case than Bitcoin with it's smart contract implementation. Though the fallout of crypto kitties is proving that improvements can still be made.

Thoughts on EOS?

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#88
It is pretty funny how the original value proposition of "being your own bank" given in the bitcoin whitepaper, which is necessitated by actually possessing the private keys, has gone out the window due to convenience and a lack of understanding of the fundamental blockchain technology by speculators. Coinbase is central in these facts.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#89
post #88

It is pretty funny how the original value proposition of "being your own bank" given in the bitcoin whitepaper, which is necessitated by actually possessing the private keys, has gone out the window due to convenience and a lack of understanding of the fundamental blockchain technology by speculators. Coinbase is central in these facts.

[deleted]

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They use Plaid[1] to verify bank accounts using bank login credentials instead of micro deposits -- which reduces abandoned applications since you don't have to wait a couple days to complete verification. This is a very common thing for fintech companies to do. [1] https://plaid.com/

What the fuck ? There is no way, never, ever, that I would even consider doing that. How the hell is it a good idea for any company to try to convince people that it should be normal to share login credentials with a third party for any service, much less something as sensitive as one's bank account? That's just training people to get scammed.

Hasn't Mint been doing this for ages?
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