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Coinbase blocks WikiLeaks Shop

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Re: Coinbase blocks WikiLeaks Shop

#11

Post by olliej »

matt4077 wrote: post #5

Fun to see how bitcoin has come full circle in reinventing everything its cheerleaders initially railed against: fraud, then centralization, regulation, and now “censorship”. I guess the lesson here should be about the primacy of law, and how you won’t succeed in using technology to undermine it.

The problem I suspect is that a are real company (eg incorporated legal presence - not dismissing other companies, just distinguishing them as things that have government identity), and so must abide by the laws set by their host country (USA), and the policies of banking corps, etc that they interact with.

Assuming they need a bank (liquidity, etc) they need to follow their bank’s rules. Given all us banks hammering WL it would be unsurprising if they were pressured to do that.

That said I despise Wikileaks for a number of reasons, but don’t feel like starting the firestorm that is arguing about them in a comment forum :)

Re: Coinbase blocks WikiLeaks Shop

#12

Post by omgbananas »

https://globee.com/ accepts multiple cryptocurrencies and pays out in either fiat or Monero (the closest thing to digital cash there is). They are based in South Africa with different laws.

Last year they went in 50/50 with the Monero community and worked on https://www.projectcoralreef.com/ which is the implementation of many famous music artists accepting Monero in their online stores.

Re: Coinbase blocks WikiLeaks Shop

#14

Post by Retroity »

vuln wrote: post #9
mankash666 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they can stop colluding with Russia under the pretext of freedom

> Or they can stop colluding with Russia under the pretext of freedom Could you provide a source? I'd love to know more.

Don't worry guys, the DNC said so, so it must be true!

Re: Coinbase blocks WikiLeaks Shop

#15

Post by Zak »

largehotcoffee wrote: post #6

I cannot recommend Coinbase at all. I operate an adult comic book publisher and they shutdown our account without notice and blamed the bank they work with (despite the fact that we were not converting our BTC to USD). All support tickets took weeks 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 com…

I had my personal account blocked from buying without explanation and customer service was a brick wall. They did answer, but refused to provide any explanation, recourse or escalation.

Had they wanted additional verification of my identity, citizenship or ownership of my bank account, I was ready to provide it.

Re: Coinbase blocks WikiLeaks Shop

#16

Post by bhouston »

trumped wrote: post #10
merinowool wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it is good to know what is coinbase's moral compass.

Coinbase has been fishy from the start... For example, I placed buy orders for some Bitcoins when they dropped sharply years ago (Coinbase just started at that time) and they canceled those orders after I placed them. Now what they do is that they bring the servers down when it happens. They did the same with Bitcoin Cash, or maybe worst... (see stories about when they first introduced bitcoin cash)

Is coinbase becoming hegemonic over cryptocurrencies? So much for decentralization.

Re: Coinbase blocks WikiLeaks Shop

#17

Post by roywiggins »

Retroity wrote: post #14
vuln wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or they can stop colluding with Russia under the pretext of freedom Could you provide a source? I'd love to know more.

Don't worry guys, the DNC said so, so it must be true!

"It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is – a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia. In January of this year, our Intelligence Community determined that Russian military intelligence—the GRU—had used WikiLeaks to release data of US victims that the GRU had obtained through cyber operations against the Democratic National Committee. And the report also found that Russia’s primary propaganda outlet, RT, has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks."

- Mike Pompeo, current CIA director and nominee for Secretary of State

I'm all for skepticism of what people say, especially people in positions like CIA Director, but when a Republican CIA director agrees with the DNC about what happened, it seems not entirely unreasonable to give it some credence. He is in the absolutely perfect position to say otherwise, if he believed otherwise, and is in the perfect position to reevaluate the previous intelligence report. He's the director of the CIA! If he thinks there's evidence backing another narrative, he can just come out and say so.

Re: Coinbase blocks WikiLeaks Shop

#18

Post by pera »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #13

Wikileaks, rightly or wrongly, has essentially been declared an enemy of USA. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cia-wikileaks/cia-chief-c... I do not blame Coinbase

Declared by whom? Your cited article says:

> Pompeo, in an address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, called WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange “a fraud” and “a coward.”

> “It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia,” Pompeo said.

I wouldn't taken this particular statement as the official position of the whole U.S. Federal Government towards the Wikileaks organization.

Re: Coinbase blocks WikiLeaks Shop

#19

Post by sp527 »

matt4077 wrote: post #5

Fun to see how bitcoin has come full circle in reinventing everything its cheerleaders initially railed against: fraud, then centralization, regulation, and now “censorship”. I guess the lesson here should be about the primacy of law, and how you won’t succeed in using technology to undermine it.

> I guess the lesson here should be about the primacy of law, and how you won’t succeed in using technology to undermine it.

What? I think the lesson is that centralization and regulation are necessary to prevent undesirable outcomes amongst large groups of people. That's literally the reason we invented governments...

Sure governments are fallible, but they're still a more effective tool in ensuring stability than most other paradigms we can think of (and certainly more so than anarchy).

Re: Coinbase blocks WikiLeaks Shop

#20

Post by buildbuildbuild »

merinowool wrote: post #4
m52go wrote: post #2

If you want full control, you've got to be in full control. But you can't do that if you delegate that control to a third party. That's the whole point of bitcoin. Instead of complaining, WikiLeaks can set up their own payment processing server and do away with Coinbase altogether. Can't do that with a bank account!

But it is good to know what is coinbase's moral compass.

Less of a reading of moral compass, more of a consequence of jurisdiction.
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