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Coinbase cuts staff by a further 20%

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Re: Coinbase cuts staff by a further 20%

#321

Post by SunlightEdge »

serioussecurity wrote: post #130
SunlightEdge wrote: post #46

I lost a little bit of money investing in crypto on Coinbase (I put about £500 in which shrank to £200 - over the course of past 2 years and for past year I mostly have just had money in sterling - the market looked terrible) I finally decided yesterday to cash out of coinbase yesterday - they charged me £3 to withdraw my money!! In the scheme of things I didn't lose that much money - not really. But personally I can…

Your surprise over a £3 fee strikes me as a perfect illustration of crypto: profoundly naive, inexperienced investors getting a hard lesson in how unregulated markets work. I hope, some years down the line, you take the broader life lesson that anyone promising you money for nothing does not have your best interests at heart.

So I don't agree with your view here. The majority of my savings were in index funds which have done very well over the years. Dipping in to a high risk investment is I think perfectly reasonable. What would be insane is if I kept on investing - or continued to do so even now. But in the spirit of good will I will take the merits of your comment :)

Re: Coinbase cuts staff by a further 20%

#322

Post by TheNorthman »

WFHRenaissance wrote: post #206
TheNorthman wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that is extremely toxic and misleading. how the fuck is that allowed?

Okay Mr Reddit, no need for profanity. Parent comment is literally BSing. This isn't even happening on either of the mobile apps.

you got me, i used a swear word and for that i profusely apologize. it wont happen again

Re: Coinbase cuts staff by a further 20%

#323

Post by danuker »

lottin wrote: post #238
danuker wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's less crypto being issued than fiat, and demand were constant as a % of people's wealth (which I admit is a big if), then crypto is bound to go up. There is no end date to government currency debasement.

This is to say that if demand outpaces supply, price is going to go up. However, this is true of any asset. So why mention specifically 'crypto', as if there was something magical about 'crypto' that means it's bound to go up?

My point is yes, it is true of any asset. You might as well own cans of beans. But the purpose is to stave off the effects of monetary expansion while staying liquid. Cryptocurrency is in a special niche in that parameter space.

While other assets are bound to provide long-term returns greater than inflation (for example, stocks and bonds [1]), cryptocurrency can not surpass inflation long-term, but it still does so while demand is growing. In addition, even after it reaches a stable demand (which I reckon will be in 5-10 years, with market saturation), it will be a means of diversification (like gold is currently).

[1] - https://totalrealreturns.com/

Re: Coinbase cuts staff by a further 20%

#324

Post by akskos »

nfRfqX5n wrote: post #223

I'm curious what coinbase leadership has done to try and innovate in this space. they had this proclaimed vision of democratizing finance but they're just letting people buy and sell crypto.

There's a Lex Friedman podcast with the CEO of Coinbase. I don't remember exactly what all they talked about but at least there was stuff about wallet innovation.

Re: Coinbase cuts staff by a further 20%

#325

Post by geerlingguy »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #289
_hcuq wrote: post #274

The one thing that surprises me in all this is that the BTC price has stayed at a stable 16k since mid October.

I don't see this discussed in enough HN threads. Everyone is quick to talk about FTX, Tether being a scam, etc but I rarely hear people discuss how the heck BTC is pegged at $16k this whole time, through it all.

Simple: fraud

Re: Coinbase cuts staff by a further 20%

#326

Post by from »

wolongong942 wrote: post #303
SilverBirch wrote: post #87

Coinbase is a weird company, because it's got such an obvious comparable: CME Group. CME Group has about 3500 employees, did 1.2bn in revenue last quarter with 680m net income. Then you have coinbase now trimmming to about the same number 3500, 590m revenue and a net income loss of 550m. That's right, as far as I can see, Coinbase loses $1 for every $1 of revenue. Firstly, I don't see how Coinbase needs as many peopl…

The AML stuff is expensive even for the investment industry which unlike crypto, isn't perfectly catered to hackers, scammers and money launderers. I'm guessing AML and support is big a cost area for COIN. This is just speculation as i don't have time to read their public papers. Take a look at the Coinbase Subreddit to see how many suckers are getting hacked, scammed, locked out for AML reasons on any given day and…

Support/compliance officers do not need to be American even for American banks as far as I can tel. Based on a cursory glance at some identity verification companies I don’t think they’re paying more than $1 per selfie and document verification. Chainalysis is probably where things get expensive (probably high 7 figures a year) + I think the government just recently forced them to buy some new compliance tools as part of a settlement. But yes, the Binance model and allowing countries seen as risky does allow them to get substantially more volume.

Re: Coinbase cuts staff by a further 20%

#327

Post by smt88 »

cableshaft wrote: post #320
cs702 wrote: post #291

Despite numerous wrong turns and silly mistakes, Coinbase is looking more and more as the lonely survivor positioned to dominate crypto trading in the West. The company has lots of cash on hand in excess of corporate debt, almost no short-term corporate debt, customer assets backing all customer deposits, and as far as I can tell from a quick read of the latest quarterly report, a clean balance sheet with no red flag…

They've already survived two crypto winters as well before this one, so they've already had experience and gotten to see what works and what doesn't, and have structured their company accordingly. I think if any crypto company deserves to survive this crypto winter, they're probably the most deserving.

I doubt their past experience applies. This is far more than a winter.

Re: Coinbase cuts staff by a further 20%

#328

Post by tptacek »

jasode wrote: post #316
tptacek wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CME isn't just "corn commodities"; they're CME, CBOT, NYMEX and COMEX, and they're a clearinghouse, they operate an electronic trading system, they're a colo provider, and a minter of new derivative products like S&P futures and SOFR. I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of other things. They probably have much more code than Coinbase. It's not all code you'd want to work on, but, from passing experience, there is a lot of i…

>CME isn't just "corn commodities"; Yes, I understand that and I wasn't dismissing CME as a simple platform. I used to work across the street from the CME and saw the traders walking around in their yellow jackets every day. The "corn" was only one example to tie it to a bank services scenario. >, and a minter of new derivative products like S&P futures I think Coinbase recently offered something similar: https://www…

It's not that it's dismissive (though the corn thing was a bit much) so much as that it's probably wrong. CME is mostly a tech company, and they do a lot of stuff.

Re: Coinbase cuts staff by a further 20%

#329

Post by danuker »

pjc50 wrote: post #293
danuker wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's less crypto being issued than fiat, and demand were constant as a % of people's wealth (which I admit is a big if), then crypto is bound to go up. There is no end date to government currency debasement.

The supply of crypto isn't limited because people can just mint new chains. And of course, the more the number goes up on a chain the less attractive it is to actual users as opposed to holders.

Network effects dictate that value concentrates in the most popular chains. The top few will always dominate.
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