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Coinbase from YC to DPO

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#651

Post by ericlewis »

RhodoGSA wrote: post #504
marrone12 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a plant? coinbase support is notoriously horrible, even my friend who works at the company thinks it's bad.

I accidentally sent a wire from my business account instead of my personal account into coinbase. Since my account wasn't verified to be a business account they contacted me, sent the money back and reimbursed me the $30 wire fee. I found the customer service to be great. I've been trading crypto for a while and exchanges are as sketchy as it gets. Sometimes, you have anecdotal experiences that bubble up on the inter…

That sounds like they didn’t want to get in trouble. Doubtful they would do the same for an average joe.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#652

Post by rudi-c »

tbrock wrote: post #648

I know I’ll probably get banned for calling this out but I find it disgusting that silicon valley was crucifying Brian Armstrong for his “no politics at work” stance but now everyone is back to kissing the ring now that he’s made everyone and their grandma millions of dollars.

Almost always when I see a statement of the form "people in group X are doing two contradictory things", it's very likely that it's different people in group X that said those things. You're creating strawmen.

In this case, even if the same person criticized Brian Armstrong then later congratulated him, I don't see the issue. Humans sometimes achieve things, sometimes do controversial things, it's as mundane as it gets.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#653

Post by delaaxe »

tootie wrote: post #320
thinkingkong wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know lots of really smart software people who avoided crypto because it didnt and still doesnt “make sense”. But we all didnt invest on the merit of the technology. We forgot the whole “how will people behave” part and lost out on millions.

It still makes no sense to me. It makes sense in the sense that if people believe in it it becomes real. But I don't get why people believe in it. And frankly I'm still pretty skeptical that it's being floated by more than money laundering.

Only a engineer would say that

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#654

Post by xiphias2 »

Grustaf wrote: post #494
pinkybanana wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb market cap is at 105 billion and Coinbase is currently at 86. Personally I'm very sceptical that current valuation for Coinbase is justified. It is a great company for sure but there definitely arent similar network effects as with Airbnb. There's plenty of competition in the crypto exchange space.

Airbnb doesn't have network effects, the value to users increases pretty linearly with the number of hosts, and doesn't really increase at all with the number of other users.

Of course it does, the date of last written review is a pretty good signal whether something shady is going on with an apartment/hotel.

Hotels have much more guest nights than apartments, so the network effects are much smaller there.

There were companies trying to compete with AirBnB, but I'm not sure if they are still used, at the same time with hotel sites I just find the cheapest one for the hotel that I like.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#655

Post by ericlewis »

nscalf wrote: post #137
urza wrote: post #24

Unpopular opinion - Bitcoin would be better without Coinbase.

Were you in the space before Coinbase became big? Because I've had crypto exchanges get hacked and run away with my money. There was zero trust (for good reason) in any of the sites that let you buy crypto. Without Coinbase, this likely would still be a sketchy ecosystem that wasn't taken seriously. Coinbase was the first slick, trustworthy exchange based in the US. I personally am not very comfortable buying from fo…

If you don’t hold the private keys they aren’t your coins. That is crypto 101.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#656

Post by lmm »

d3ntb3ev1l wrote: post #558
Grustaf wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb doesn't have network effects, the value to users increases pretty linearly with the number of hosts, and doesn't really increase at all with the number of other users.

Also ignoring most cities now are banning or highly regulating these illegal hotels in residential neighborhoods Coinbase seems less threatened by regulations

Coinbase is hugely threatened by regulations.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#657

Post by mtnGoat »

rcurry wrote: post #630
mtnGoat wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it wouldn't even take a global internet shortage, just your country to go offline, how you gonna pay someone to get you out(keep you safe, etc) if you cant transfer your crypto to them? A few ounces of gold on the other hand will take you anywhere you want to go. Crypto is far from a safe hedge in any type of crazy event. you see, gold can still be traded without power and internet, as could cash or really anything p…

Guns, ammo, and gold aren’t bad choices to hoard for an end of the world situation, but if you want to make out like a bandit when the shit hits the fan just stockpile spices - when people start having to eat squirrels they’re going to want some pepper :-)

good point! a working still would probably be useful as well.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#658

Post by futevolei »

rgifford wrote: post #385

The NYSEs parent company Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE) is worth 66.40B. Today's IPO puts Coinbase at 100B+. The NYSE has been in operation since 1817. Coinbase has been in operation since 2012. The value of all crypto is Trading fees in the crypto-world are getting more competitive as more established players support crypto. I don't see a defensible market position here, let alone established track record or st…

I would point you to Matt Levine’s column today to maybe help you understand the type of thinking that drives the stock market. I would say you are guilty of looking in the rear view mirror and stating the obvious as opposed to looking to the future.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#659

Post by robocat »

paulpauper wrote: post #357
cableshaft wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Assuming he put in just $10,000 (and I imagine it was probably more than that), 6000x return would be 60 million dollars. Any early companies out there right now seem like it could potentially offer even a 10th of that in ~5-10 years?

i dunno how people say VCs have a return of only 9% year when Ycombinator is absolutely crushing that even with a high failure rate. AirBNB, box, dropbox, coinbase, etc. Paul stumbled on an absolute goldmine by just giving a bunch of promising companies with good founders 10k in exchange for a decent portion of equity and then some of these companies being worth billions. NOw you know what those homes and are so expe…

> by just giving a bunch of promising companies with

Selection bias. There are a heap of other companies that tried the YC model, and failed. It isn’t “just” good founders and 10k.

Re: Coinbase from YC to DPO

#660

Post by mtnGoat »

Johnny555 wrote: post #642
mtnGoat wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it wouldn't even take a global internet shortage, just your country to go offline, how you gonna pay someone to get you out(keep you safe, etc) if you cant transfer your crypto to them? A few ounces of gold on the other hand will take you anywhere you want to go. Crypto is far from a safe hedge in any type of crazy event. you see, gold can still be traded without power and internet, as could cash or really anything p…

just your country to go offline, how you gonna pay someone to get you out(keep you safe, etc).... A few ounces of gold on the other hand will take you anywhere you want to go People keep using that argument about gold, but is it really realistic? If the SHTF and the USA goes dark for whatever reason, how good is gold really going to be? First, how does someone know you're really giving them pure gold and not some wor…

gold was just an example used, because the BTC fans like to compare the two. but you are right, gold isnt overly tradable either, since it has very little day to day use. my point was just that BTC would still be useless as it cant be traded without an internet, miners, etc.
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