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Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

nytimes.com

181–190 of 355 posts

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#181

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And guess what, businesses are moving on. Steam just dropped Bitcoin as a method of payment. And before that OpenBazaar. And Yours.

Using the blockchain for one-off payments between participants is never a viable solution. The establishment of lightning allows commits to be aligned with the long term relationship between two participants. Even after that relationship ends, a completely unrelated payment may be routed through your channel, earning you a micropayment. There was never a solution to that type of functionality with a 10 minute block c…

Ah lightning network, the vaporware that is always just around the corner...

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#182
post #179
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While coinbase & BTC seems to be doing well, I've anecdotally seen a bunch of people who can't get a response from coinbase support over long periods of time. Doesn't make relying on coinbase seem like a good idea.

Coinbase is simply suffering from insane growth pains. I mean, come on, they are adding half a million new users per week ! Of course support isn't going to be very responsive.

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Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#183

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Could you explain why "this" needs to "stop"? Why would the success of Bitcoin be apocalyptic?

Although BTC has a finite maximum, it has been inflationary, since coins are being created. This will not hold. BTC was the first crypto, and network effects means it stands a good chance of staying on top. Like eBay, it may be the go-to crypto. If it's true that crypto is the future -- that the entire world will switch from fiat to crypto, kicking and screaming -- then that means the entire world will likely switch…

BTC is worth what it is thanks to massive manipulation under the hood just like the last run up. The music is gonna stop sometime. Almost every exchange is sketchy and you have no promise that anybody is playing fair....

Bitcoin is pure, 100% hype and will not replace any of our financial institutions.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#184

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Agreed. Maybe one day they will be so big that they are deemed "too big to fail" like the over-extended failed big banks and the bailouts/TARP of the Great Recession.

Sounds like a justification for seizing it. For safety and security. But the government wouldn't do that, would they?

If the government seized funds of Coinbase with how entrenched it is even now, there would be massive legal challenges. Ultimately that might be a good thing in terms of forfeiture reform. Coinbase (US company) is orders of magnitude different than btc-e or mtgox etc.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#185
post #175

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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…

Bitcoin is no less safe than any other asset re: civil forfeiture. One might even make the argument that it is moreso because there aren't the established communication mechanisms that exist between law enforcement agencies and banks that allow them to hold funds as quickly as they do. Per your other argument: a whole host of executive orders spanning 2 years, nearly 100 years ago, designed to work around the federal…

How many hacks does it take for cryptocurrencies fads to think their money is secure despite the dozen+ that have happened so far...

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a justification for seizing it. For safety and security. But the government wouldn't do that, would they?

If the government seized funds of Coinbase with how entrenched it is even now, there would be massive legal challenges. Ultimately that might be a good thing in terms of forfeiture reform. Coinbase (US company) is orders of magnitude different than btc-e or mtgox etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#188

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…

They don't accept passport as a valid government issued proof. It might be automated. Contacting support takes days.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes, but Mint used a similar approach.

Not sure if this is what they use now, but Mint used a similar (but older) service to Plaid called Yodlee [0] as their backend for accessing bank accounts.

[0] https://www.yodlee.com/

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/18/mint-is-yodlees-youtube/

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#190

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"It's safe as long as i think it's safe." Gotcha.

You realize "safe" is a feeling, an emotional response. I have yet to see "safe" defined in some probabilistic way and that is what you would have to do to have it not just a feeling.

> I have yet to see "safe" defined in some probabilistic way

https://www.moodys.com/sites/products/DefaultResearch/200710...

Of course, when you start defining "safe" in a probabilistic way, you end up very quickly estimating the degree of safety instead of binary safe/not safe.

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