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Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

nytimes.com

221–230 of 355 posts

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#221
post #214
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never heard anyone have that problem. You're in minority so please don't speak like this is some major problem.

Do you work for Coinbase?

Yeah, because it's entirely impossible that you may have just been unlucky or messed it up on your side?

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#222
I bought £100 of Bitcoin in September via Coinbase, pretty much just to have a play with Bitcoin itself, and try a couple of transactions.

To my horror, I discovered that transaction wasn't actually in the blockchain, and that Coinbase essentially has an internal system you just have to trust, which seemed to be contrary to the whole idea of a global ledger.

I setup my own wallet and transferred it to that (thus achieving my initial goal of seeing my own transaction in the block chain). There's no way I'd put any significant amounts into Bitcoin, let alone Coinbase.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#223

I bought £100 of Bitcoin in September via Coinbase, pretty much just to have a play with Bitcoin itself, and try a couple of transactions. To my horror, I discovered that transaction wasn't actually in the blockchain, and that Coinbase essentially has an internal system you just have to trust, which seemed to be contrary to the whole idea of a global ledger. I setup my own wallet and transferred it to that (thus achi…

Would it also horrify you to learn that when you transfer money from your savings to your checking account (at the same bank), those transactions are not cleared by the Federal Reserve?

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#224
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.

It's not so much that they don't understand, but rather that they don't care. People can buy Bitcoin for fun or to try to make money without believing in the ideology that was originally used to justify it.

I think that's a clear sign of bubble -- I'll just buy this thing because it will just appreciate forever.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you think that part is automated?

How can you automate the checking of an ID?

Third party identity verification services use OCR and machine learning on scanned ID documents.

99% get an automatic Green flag. Only ~1% are manually reviewed.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You shouldn't worry about it before scaling problem is solved. Dollar will start losing value to bitcoin only if a considerable number of transactions are made in bitcoin, and there is nothing apocalyptic about it - it will be a slow move from the dollar to a cryptocurrency.

$1M/bitcoin and 3 transactions/second are not compatible.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#227
post #221
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you work for Coinbase?

Yeah, because it's entirely impossible that you may have just been unlucky or messed it up on your side?

I can send customer support transcript if you want as attacking me does nothing constructive for this conversation. Also, if you do a quick web search you will find that this is not just unlucky, it is common although in the grand scheme of things it might be nothing for Coinbase or perhaps you are just not personally dealing with these types of problems. You know a minority can be a pretty large group of people.

Look, my comment is not meant to bash Coinbase but there are issues with the service and it can be ironed out to make it so much better.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#228
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet Coinbase makes more money from their exchange (GDAX) which does $1 billion each day in volume. While limit orders are free, market orders cost 0.25% of transaction value.

Why would anyone ever want to use a market order versus a limit? In any exchange, for any kind of trading? If you're really ok with e.g. selling for 0.01, set that as your limit.

Because the market could move against you.

If you're ok with buying for 100, but someone else is selling for 99, you've effectively done a market order and have to pay the fees. However if the lowest sell is 101 and then the price moves up to 105, you've just screwed yourself for 4 in order to save 0.25

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#229
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you automate the checking of an ID?

Third party identity verification services use OCR and machine learning on scanned ID documents. 99% get an automatic Green flag. Only ~1% are manually reviewed.

Interesting. I'd assume that these methods are probably more effective than a manual review by your average person anyway, but there are certain areas where I would expect automation to be at least frowned upon.

Re: Coinbase: The Heart of the Bitcoin Frenzy

#230

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…

As a heavy bitcoin/crypto trader, Coinbase and Gdax are one of the worst exchanges out there. Speaking strictly from a technical point of view. Not only their Front-End interface (Gdax) suffers from lag probably due to poor engineering but they also made terrible mistakes at the beginning.

One of them being a lost deposit. The address generated by the site was wrong and thus the deposit never credited. It took a couple months for support to get on this and refund the lost amount. This happened a couple years ago. So had it happened now I'm not sure if technical support will ever get back.

I also failed to contact their technical support about other issues (can't really remember) but there was no way to reach them. They don't have proper support, they just have monkeys that tries to save face on social media. Only.

The best exchange so far from a technical perspective is Bitfinex. It is surprising because it is quite shady. But it is a rock solid exchange; and it is magnificently engineered. No wonder it is the top exchange out there. And Finex has handled the recent surge much better than Gdax or any other exchange out there.

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