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Coinbase S-1

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Re: Coinbase S-1

#231

Post by PKop »

user-the-name wrote: post #225
Spivak wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need a majority of computing power on the network to agree to actually do this which is what the parent means.

No, that was the original claim. That you need the miners to agree. They are the ones that hold the computing power. The claim I responded to says that in addition to this, you also need the majority of the "nodes", which are just computers that do no work and just forward transactions. This is incorrect, you do not need their help. It is easier if you have it, but you do not need it.

>They are the ones that hold the computing power

If they hold this power to dictate value to the market, why don't they do this right now and print infinite money for themselves?

It's because they don't actually have this power.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#232

Post by runako »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #75
anonu wrote: post #37

Love reading the risk factors section. First thought: how can a lay person possibly understood the risks as laid out here? Also they view this as a major risk: •the identification of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous person or persons who developed Bitcoin, or the transfer of Satoshi’s Bitcoins; Second thought, what an incredible business and growth. 1.14bn in revenue on 193bn in trading volume: thats 60bps on every…

> These are insane fees ripe for disruption. No other exchange today has my trust, I don’t care if they compete on fees. When your btc is at real risk of they by an exchange, trust is everything. There is no FDIC insurance for exchanges. Now if Chase were to do BTC exchange at better rates... i would probably switch.

This is exactly the risk. Once regulators are comfortable that "crypto trading for retail investors" is acceptable as a product, then what stops the big exchanges and brokerages from entering the space and competing the fees down to zero?

Re: Coinbase S-1

#233

Post by CPLX »

arnaudsm wrote: post #44

Many have forgotten why we used cryptocurrencies in the first place. The original promise of cryptocurrency was to become independent from banks. In the end CoinBase (like every exchange) is a great product, but just a bank. It's centralized, hackable, has economies of scale, etc.

> The original promise of cryptocurrency was to become independent from banks.

The original promise was being able to buy drugs and gamble.

How much this has changed since then is left as an exercise for the reader.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#234

Post by holtalanm »

arnaudsm wrote: post #44

Many have forgotten why we used cryptocurrencies in the first place. The original promise of cryptocurrency was to become independent from banks. In the end CoinBase (like every exchange) is a great product, but just a bank. It's centralized, hackable, has economies of scale, etc.

this is my gripe with cryptocurrencies in general now. they've strayed so far from their original ideal that they don't even hold up anymore for that. they're just a different form of stocks now, with no intrinsic value, imo, besides being an energy sink.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#235

Post by cactus2093 »

levosmetalo wrote: post #198
cactus2093 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t speak for everyone there, “we” don’t all have the same reason. I like Bitcoin as a diversification for being a “better version of gold” - it has the scarcity and you can physically own it but it is much easier to store and send anywhere in the world if needed. These properties also mean that in a pinch, if you live in an unstable society or one facing high inflation it can work as an alternative financial syste…

> I like Bitcoin as a diversification for being a “better version of gold” - it has the scarcity ... Why do we repeat the claim of Bitcoin scarcity when we all know it's just a promise and nothing more, there is no technical limitation? All it takes to "print" more Bitcoins is for the majority of miners to agree to make a fork that will allow for more. And that will happen at one point. As for Gold, good luck trying…

Honestly maybe it will fork, and maybe that will be a good change. We don’t exactly know how the dynamics of mining will play out in a post-block reward world, maybe it’s actually better to keep mining at the current block reward size indefinitely rather than decrease all the way to zero. Very slow fixed inflation is not necessarily that different than having a hard cap on supply. Gold is still being mined too.

If it forked in a way that completely defeated the limited supply and led to rapid inflation then it would massively tank in value and miners would lose a lot of money. That’s a pretty good incentive for them not to destroy it.

As far as bitcoin existential threats go, there are many of them - the energy cost, a 51% attack, so much concentration of mining in China, etc. Miners mutually colluding to destroy their own investments is not at the top of my list of worries.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#236

Post by Tenoke »

flixic wrote: post #187
Tenoke wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, ETH 2.0 is coming in 2022 (unless it gets delayed). There's one proposal for July that might help a little and more transactions are moving to L2 chains (LRC, Matic) where you pay the high fees only on exit/entering the L2 but can do transactions there for cheap. Outside of ETH, BSC (Binance's smart chain, the exchange with 9x Coinbase's volume) already has lower fees but the chain is controlled by binance (its…

So I've been hearing this "being the most decentralized option" about Cardano in less reputable sources (aka YouTube comments) than HN. Can you expand on that? From what I'm seeing, Cardano has 1 912 pools[0] that can produce blocks, which is less than 11 586 on Ethereum[1] and much less than 100 000 validators on Ethereum 2.0[2]. Sure, many validators are controlled by same people, but there's a much easier barrier…

Okay, admittedly it's not quite there yet but by the end of march 100% of blocks will be produced by independent stake pool operators. The number of current pools is somewhat misleading - switching between them is frictionless, more will keep being added, and there are rules in place so they can't grow too much (staking rewards decrease quickly) and the average # of ADA per wallet is dropping (I should've really said the most decentralized alternative option but even in terms of biggest holders ETH is more top heavy (many controlled by the same people as you said).

> but there's a much easier barrier to entry for new validators.

Is it? The minimum to run a validator is 32 ETH[0] while there isn't even a minimum for ADA. 4 GB of RAM and 1 GB bandwidth[1] (for ADA) isn't much of a deterrent either.

0. https://ethereum.org/en/eth2/staking

1. https://forum.cardano.org/t/a-guide-to-becoming-a-stake-pool...

Re: Coinbase S-1

#237

Post by rawtxapp »

user-the-name wrote: post #211
rawtxapp wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing stops you from changing the 21M cap in the code, but you need majority of the network nodes to agree to the new rules (aka a hard fork), the miners can't willy nilly change the rules of the network. What you would have at that point isn't Bitcoin, it would be probably be called "Bitcoin infinite" or something, similar to "Bitcoin cash".

You don't need the nodes to agree on anything. If they don't agree, they drop off the network, and form their own chain with little to no hashing power, that will stagnate and die in short order.

We have precedence on what happens if nodes/miners try to attempt a hard fork, it's called "Bitcoin cash". You need majority to agree on the rules, nodes/miners/users/exchanges all need to agree on what's Bitcoin, that's the whole point of a decentralized currency.

If a block size change caused the split into Bitcoin cash, you can only imagine what a cap change on Bitcoin available will cause, 21M cap is a lot less controversial than block sizes.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#238

Post by Galanwe »

spamalot159 wrote: post #177
Galanwe wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the evolution of the modern financial system is less and less friction for each transaction Still, buying shares of a company is much more "friction" than buying coins. > crypto: more friction Can you elaborate? > slower transactions Huh, even bitcoin will settle with 6 confirmations in an hour. Settlement to buy a share or FX is 2/3 days. > higher transaction costs Hmm, no. > And wicked exchange volatility. Volati…

You are comparing crypto currencies to stocks. In that case what you said is true. But I think the fairer comparison is crypto currency to a fiat currency. There is more friction involved in using crypto currency to make a purchase. It does take longer to processes a bitcoin transaction than it would for visa to processes a transaction in usd. And the transaction costs for a typical transaction are usually higher for…

> You are comparing crypto currencies to stocks. In that case what you said is true. > I think the fact that a lot of people compare crypto currencies to stocks is telling that they are not being used for their intended purpos

Absolutely not. If you take the top 10 crypto currencies sorted by marketcap, half of them are actually stock-like tokens. It is not a misinterpretation, or a deviation from the intended purpose at all. These tokens are intended to replace shares of the company, and they have rather similar capabilities: by owning them you have voting rights, different token (share) classes exist, etc.

Honestly, the term "crypto currency" is very misleading, most of the tokens issued nowadays are share-like, and buying them is just a form of venture funding for these startups.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#239

Post by f430 »

andy_ppp wrote: post #29
mensetmanusman wrote: post #12

Do you think BTC is worth $500k? If so buy Coinbase.

This isn't even remotely necessary for Coinbase to do well - the only thing they need is for crypto currencies to be more widely used in 25 years.

They won't be. For the same reason it is not widely adopted as a store of value or a currency. Especially not with the looming Tether liquidity crisis.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#240

Post by josephwegner »

Fjolsvith wrote: post #203
levosmetalo wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like Bitcoin as a diversification for being a “better version of gold” - it has the scarcity ... Why do we repeat the claim of Bitcoin scarcity when we all know it's just a promise and nothing more, there is no technical limitation? All it takes to "print" more Bitcoins is for the majority of miners to agree to make a fork that will allow for more. And that will happen at one point. As for Gold, good luck trying…

> All it takes to "print" more Bitcoins is for the majority of miners to agree to make a fork that will allow for more. And that will happen at one point. Why is this a bad thing? America's founders believed that the people could mint their own coins.

It's not intrinsically a bad thing (some may hold that opinion, though). However, if you are investing in Bitcoin because it is similar to gold in that scarcity is a primary attribute, then the ability to mint new bitcoins is dangerous.

I'd also posit that "because America does it" is a fairly weak argument for many of the claimed benefits of Bitcoin. Much of Bitcoin's charter is that it helps move away from government-controlled currency. If you think America's monetary system is the best option available, then Bitcoin likely is not your thing.

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