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Desperate Coinbase customers turn to SEC with allegations of fraud

mashable.com

21–30 of 69 posts

Re: Desperate Coinbase customers turn to SEC with allegations of fraud

#21
post #8

> A recurring theme in the SEC complaint files Mashable obtained is the seeming disappearance of a would-be trader's money Coinbase uses MongoDB, doesn't it? Asking for a friend.

https://www.mongodb.com/blog/post/multi-document-transaction...

Re: Desperate Coinbase customers turn to SEC with allegations of fraud

#22
This is a settlement problem. Coinbase is unable to settle money between different accounts. And there is a perfect solution for this. We can use blockchain....Oh Wait. /s

On a serious note, building a production level real time two book entry system is hard. Many times money just disappears because both legs of transactions don't match. The only way to track is some real good amount of sleuthing. But given the amount of customers Coinbase is adding left and right, it might be difficult to find time to get down to this sleuthing.

It would have been best for Coinbase to temporarily hold new accounts to get their shit together. But I guess lure of money from constant trading was too much.

Re: Desperate Coinbase customers turn to SEC with allegations of fraud

#23

That awkward moment when you appeal to authority, but it is the wrong authority. Coinbase doesn't trades securities, and had not even registered as a broker-dealer at the time of any of these complaints. Wouldn't the Federal Trade Commission be the more apt generic regulator to lodge these complaints to?

I'd suggest the consumer help reporter on your local TV station. The Feds don't care. Why should they? It's not like this involves real currency or stocks. "You pays your money, you takes your chances."

>It's not like this involves real currency

According to the US Treasury Dept. it's a currency.

Re: Desperate Coinbase customers turn to SEC with allegations of fraud

#25

Coinbase needs some serious competition. Their site is fine, until you ran into a problem. I didn't have one, but from what I can see, once people run into issues, they are just not resolved, hence frustration.

what's wrong with the existing competition? 1Broker 1BTCXE ACX Allcoin ANXPro Anybits Bibox Binance Bit2C bitbank BitBay Bitfinex bitFlyer Bithumb bitkk Bitlish BitMarket BitMEX Bitsane Bitso Bitstamp Bittrex Bit-Z BL3P Bleutrade Braziliex BtcBox BTCChina BTCExchange BTC Markets BtcTrade.im BTC Trade UA BTCTurk BTCX BX.in.th C-CEX CEX.IO CHBTC ChileBit COBINHOOD coincheck CoinEgg CoinEx CoinExchange coinfloor Coingi…

With the exception of Kraken, Poloniex, and Gemini, I either haven't heard of these places or have heard nothing but terrible, terrible things (i.e., Bitfinex).

And I'm sure people have bad things to say about the ones I listed as not being that bad.

There simply isn't a well trusted exchange. Coinbase/GDAX and Kraken are the two I would recommend to people getting started, even with these issues surfacing.

Re: Desperate Coinbase customers turn to SEC with allegations of fraud

#26
What I think computer programmers tend to ignore are principles of real engineering in classical, high-consequence fields. It seems like Coinbase has been following the mantra of "move fast and break things," that would absolutely horrify any traditional engineer. Any civil engineer reviewing a bridge, any aerospace engineer designing a passenger aircraft that he himself may to have to fly on. When the work gets serious, it's time to move slowly and fix things. "Move fast and break things" is antithetical to any form of engineering.

Re: Desperate Coinbase customers turn to SEC with allegations of fraud

#30

I know several good people that have been locked out of Coinbase permanently - without any explanation of why - for over a year despite repeated unanswered requests to have accounts reinstated. I watched those people turn from advocates for coinbase into critics. Just a simple explanation would have helped prevent that scenario. This company is a terrible example of how to do business. It's as if they watched how Goo…

Coinbase is basically the PayPal of cryptocurrency. Arbitrary unexplained account freezes are part of the model.
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