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Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

bloomberg.com

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Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#101

Post by kemonocode »

I won't say much about the article as it's a topic that has been discussed plenty of times before (The merits and faults of Bitcoin) with often inflammatory results, but I will definitively say it's pretty easy and rather intellectually dishonest to attack it only whenever there's a dramatic price swing. Where were all these articles during all those price lull periods?

Also, if we're pointing fingers, the influence Coinbase has on Bitcoin is insignificant compared to the Chinese mining conglomerates. The US is not the rest of the world.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#102

Post by betterunix2 »

asdev wrote: post #65

unrelated comment: it's crazy how anti crypto and anti blockchain HN is for being a tech community

What's crazy about that? There are strong technical arguments against Bitcoin and related cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is an environmental disaster that uses as much energy as a large country to process a tiny number of transactions. The security of Bitcoin is backwards, requiring honest parties to do more work than attackers. Ultimately Bitcoin was not even designed to solve any specific technical problems, just a vague, open-ended goal of "decentralization;" it was more of a political statement than anything else...

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#103

Post by imbnwa »

jariel wrote: post #50
ALittleLight wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Would you feel differently about coinbase if it's leadership were evenly divided between men and women, or largely women?

No. Your attempt to project hyperbole into what I 'feel' is not rhetoric. If it's a small group of heretofore unknown people with a major stake in a new, exotic and opaque, 1 Trillion dollar asset pool, then describing them as 'all men' is perfectly reasonable if they are. Just as if they were all American. It's relevant because they are obvious characteristics of the group and not a random outcome. If there was some…

Oh how the turn tables

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#105

Post by andrewtbham »

Traster wrote: post #21

It is kind of funny that exchanges have become so successful for Bitcoin- since they lose 100% of the stuff that made BTC attractive in the first place. They’re centralised, regulated and transactions don’t even go on the blockchain. The result is that the number 1 way people get into Bitcoin is through a mechanism that has none of the attributes of Bitcoin.

I think the fixed supply is what attracts people.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#106

Post by dehrmann »

Traster wrote: post #21

It is kind of funny that exchanges have become so successful for Bitcoin- since they lose 100% of the stuff that made BTC attractive in the first place. They’re centralised, regulated and transactions don’t even go on the blockchain. The result is that the number 1 way people get into Bitcoin is through a mechanism that has none of the attributes of Bitcoin.

> The result is that the number 1 way people get into Bitcoin is through a mechanism that has none of the attributes of Bitcoin.

Sure, but 95% of people don't care about that. They just want an asset they will go up. Everything else is just a story people tell themselves so they're not putting 20% of their net worth in trading cards.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#107

Post by mettamage »

Traster wrote: post #21

It is kind of funny that exchanges have become so successful for Bitcoin- since they lose 100% of the stuff that made BTC attractive in the first place. They’re centralised, regulated and transactions don’t even go on the blockchain. The result is that the number 1 way people get into Bitcoin is through a mechanism that has none of the attributes of Bitcoin.

From centralized exchanges the decentralized exchanges evolved since they share your criticism.

The way I look at it: people create things, these things have certain effects. That's all there's to it. I don't mind that it's almost 100% against the idealism of Bitcoin, the fact that centralized exchanges were created and used is interesting in itself. Moreover, it's not necessarily incompatible with decentralization since trading Bitcoin on an exchange (centralized) is something else than exchanging Bitcoin via the blockchain (decentralized).

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#108

Post by casi »

Sargos wrote: post #69
gnrlst wrote: post #13

Remember when BTC used to be fun and exciting? Stupid projects being created, tipping widespread all over the internet. It was created to be a "peer-to-peer electronic cash system" (quoting from the whitepaper title)... oh how far it has strayed.

>Remember when BTC used to be fun and exciting? Stupid projects being created, tipping widespread all over the internet. All of this moved over to Ethereum long ago but those outside of the crypto space might not know that. Thousands of hackers have created little neat experiments and projects for others to use and build on and more are released everyday. Some of my favorites are https://dontbuymeme.com/ , https://aa…

https://mia.bet/ is one i like, a home made site where you bet on a marble run race with the randomness generated by their pet hamster. makes me smile.

i'll also add in https://clr.fund/ as its relevant to the bigger question of "how do we fund open source public goods" that might be relevant to hackernews readers.

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#109

Post by rokhayakebe »

ur-whale wrote: post #16

Any article that uses the sentence "mostly men" in the first paragraph is highly likely not worth reading.

"This type of cancer affects mostly men."

"Women make the majority of the school's Computer Science enrollment which used to be mostly men."

Re: Coinbase mafia shows how tight a circle holds sway over Bitcoin

#110

Post by hertzrat »

betterunix2 wrote: post #102
asdev wrote: post #65

unrelated comment: it's crazy how anti crypto and anti blockchain HN is for being a tech community

What's crazy about that? There are strong technical arguments against Bitcoin and related cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is an environmental disaster that uses as much energy as a large country to process a tiny number of transactions. The security of Bitcoin is backwards, requiring honest parties to do more work than attackers. Ultimately Bitcoin was not even designed to solve any specific technical problems, just a vagu…

And with the main goal being decentralization, almost the entire blockchain is controlled by a few groups of miners and hoarders. It’s as or more centralized than ordinary currency
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