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Coinbase from YC to DPO

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#161

Post by cj »

dd36 wrote: post #158

I still don’t see what the upside is to their valuation? It’s all baked in AFAICT.

Very little. This is a result of the private equity market growing so large that companies can put off going public for very long (Coinbase raised $800 million and the last round was "Series E").

10-15 years ago, it was much more difficult for companies to raise this much before going public, which forced companies to go public much earlier, before all upside was realized by private investors.

The result is private equity and VC funds benefit from the early gains, and by the time the company becomes public (and is accessible to retail investors) there's typically not much of a lucrative near-term upside opportunity.

The same thing will happen with Stripe once they finally IPO. They'll debut at an insane valuation, and there won't be much upside opportunity for retail investors to benefit from. Because if there were, they would be able to more easily raise the capital from private investors rather than the public market.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#162

Post by Nursie »

fumblebee wrote: post #93
Fede_V wrote: post #35

I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It has significantly worse externalities than just about any company I can think of (including defense contractors/vaping companies), and, if it grows larger before we have clean energy, then we virtually guarantee we won't be able to tackle global warming. We are going to bestow a world that will be sig…

Couldn't agree more. I struggle to comprehend how an energy obliterating and (relatively speaking) primitive technology like Bitcoin is the top dog in this space. Sure, first mover advantage counts for something, but come on - how has superior tech not yet left it in the rearview. In a space that moves at such rapid pace with heavy investment and buckets of innovation, at some point the crowd surely will migrate en m…

> Sure, first mover advantage counts for something, but come on - how has superior tech not yet left it in the rearview.

To me it demonstrates perfectly that this market is largely speculation based on brand recognition and number-go-up-tech rather than any use of the currency. If it was based on use and capabilities then yes, we would expect BTC to be superseded by its more capable cousins.

But it's not.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#163

Post by literallycancer »

arcticbull wrote: post #6
Tenoke wrote: post #5

I still prefer Binance who are exposed to users via actual crypto (BNB) than Coinbase who are trying to eat the trad investors exposure and banking on their preferential treatment from US regulators. Not to mention that Binance has 9x the volume, much much more crypto and is pro-competition and lists Coin on day 1 while CB wouldn't even consider listing BNB or anything by competitors.

Well, Binance is, somehow, dramatically more of a fly-by-night bucket shop intentionally looking the other way to people opening multiple accounts to avoid KYC -- and they won't event tell you in which country they're domiciled. They're one of Team Tether's top partners in crime. How on earth can you believe their volume numbers haha.

That's a feature. Willingness to avoid onerous regulation or even break the law to benefit users is a good thing.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#164

Post by losteric »

praveenperera wrote: post #152
Fede_V wrote: post #35

I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It has significantly worse externalities than just about any company I can think of (including defense contractors/vaping companies), and, if it grows larger before we have clean energy, then we virtually guarantee we won't be able to tackle global warming. We are going to bestow a world that will be sig…

People always complain about Bitcoin's environmental effects. What about Gold's, the current financial system's? https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/critics-claim-bitcoin-threa...

1. whataboutism

2. Most currencies are fiat, not gold-backed

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#165

Post by russdpale »

Fede_V wrote: post #35

I'm horrendously worried about crypto gaining more marketshare as long as proof of work crypto remains mainstream. It has significantly worse externalities than just about any company I can think of (including defense contractors/vaping companies), and, if it grows larger before we have clean energy, then we virtually guarantee we won't be able to tackle global warming. We are going to bestow a world that will be sig…

The problem is that you are solving the issue from the wrong direction. Like getting people to stop littering, the answer is to regulate the producers of the waste, not the end users doing the wasting.

The answer is to lobby governments for green energy, not rail against people doing PoW. People who fold at home are using a lot of energy also.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#166

Post by jude- »

jtsiskin wrote: post #159
gonehome wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm skeptical of proof-of-stake, proof-of-work seems like the main innovation of cryptocurrencies that differentiates them from the standard financial industry? If you swap out POW for POS (or worse clearing house type trust orgs like Stellar) then aren't you just putting trust into some incentive based system no different than existing financial systems? Just instead a government you're trusting some other entity. Y…

For the uninformed, what mathematical guarantees does POW have that POS doesn’t?

PoW is open-membership, because the means of coin production are not tied to owning coins already. All you need to contribute is computing power, and you can start earning coins at a profit.

PoS is closed-membership with a veneer of open-membership, because the means of coin production are tied to owning a coin already. What this means in practice is that no rational coin-owner is going to sell you coins at a fast enough rate that you'll be able to increase your means of coin production. Put another way, the price you'd pay for the increased means of coin production will meet or exceed the total expected revenue created by staking those coins over their lifetime. So unless you know something the seller doesn't, you won't be able to profit by buying your way into staking.

Overall, this makes PoS less resilient and less egalitarian than PoW. While both require an up-front capital expenditure, the expenditure for PoS coin-production will meet or exceed the total expected revenue of those coins at the point of sale. So, the system is only as resilient as the nodes run by the people who bought in initially, and the only way to join later is to buy coins from people who want to exit (which would only be viable if these folks believed the coins are worth less than what you're buying them for, which doesn't bode well for you as the buyer).

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#167

Post by jedberg »

csomar wrote: post #91
sosuke wrote: post #2

Dividends to HN users? Joking aside congrats! I'm planning on picking up a share or two as I did with Digital Ocean.

They did give 0.1 btc in the early days. Which if you did hold into them would be roughly $6500 by today's rate (you'd also have BCH, BCHN, BSV and BTG).

I just looked at my Coinbase balance for the first time in a few years.

Apparently I got $5 of free bitcoin at some point in 2016 and it's now worth $800. Sweet!

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#168

Post by colesantiago »

nuclx wrote: post #31
asdev wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CB abides by regulators and doesn't list every crappy project that comes along. They're trying to bring legitimacy to crypto. Binance is the wild wild west still and BNB is a centralized useless ETH sidechain.

They're listing a scam that is XRP though.

why is XRP a scam?

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#169

Post by Nursie »

capableweb wrote: post #101
dehrmann wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all you care about is energy usage and transaction speed, the traditional finance system still wins. Unless people are actively trading bitcoin enough where the transaction cost because an issue, there's little reason to trade in their tulip bulbs for iris bulbs. A bet on a cryptocurrency is a bet that people will think it's worth more money, not an investment in the underlying technology.

> If all you care about is energy usage and transaction speed, the traditional finance system still wins Does it though? There are so many things to consider when talking about the "energy usage" of traditional money. All the vans moving money around, manufacturing, items to support PoS systems, sorting, protecting the money and so on.

> There are so many things to consider when talking about the "energy usage" of traditional money.

Yes, so many things that BTC will never do. It's vastly less efficient and offers nothing like the range of services and products of the existing finance system.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#170

Post by literallycancer »

ddevault wrote: post #28

Bitcoin is an enormously wasteful ponzi scheme mind virus and YC should be ashamed of their involvement in it - not proud. I long for the day (which it seems may come soon!) when cryptocurrencies are outlawed and we can all move on with our lives.

Your existence is wasteful. If you don't like it, just don't use it? Why do you feel the need to tell others what do to with their lives and money?
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