Bitcoin Cash Soars to $700, Coinbase Customers Threaten to Sue • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin Cash Soars to $700, Coinbase Customers Threaten to Sue

#241

Post by encoderer » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 6:31 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #105

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's something I don't quite get (being a cryptocurrency newbie). Why can coinbase users not simply import their private key into some other wallet that supports both Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash? My understanding is that Bitcoin Cash recognises the old Bitcoin blockchain as their own up to the point of the fork. So as of Aug 1st all Bitcoin balances are Bitcoin Cash balances as well. Or is that not how it works?

Coinbase users don't have a private key for their Coinbase balance. They have an account with Coinbase, and Coinbase has their own private keys for their internal wallets. When you withdraw money from Coinbase, you're asking them to use their private keys to sign a transaction sending bitcoins to an address you specify. What users could have done was withdraw their Coinbase balance into their own wallet, then they'd…

Worth mentioning that they notified users before the fork.

Re: Bitcoin Cash Soars to $700, Coinbase Customers Threaten to Sue

#242

Post by lawn » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 6:33 PM UTC

pera wrote: post #230

lawn wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you not read my comment? What is confusing?

There is nothing confusing, your reasoning is simply unsound: the market price (not the value ) of some traded altcoin is completely irrelevant to Bitcoin. Even the price of Bitcoin itself is irrelevant to the Bitcoin protocol. There is no law, anywhere in the world, mandating cryptocurrency exchanges to adopt altcoins after they reach some price point, and exchanges are not obligated to trade new altcoins either (wh…

> why exactly should it matter that Bitcoin Cash is being traded somewhere else for X% of the current price of Bitcoin? It simply doesn't.

Because Coinbase is keeping the coins the customers could have used to gain the X%?

Re: Bitcoin Cash Soars to $700, Coinbase Customers Threaten to Sue

#243

Post by aero142 » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 6:35 PM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #195

reefoctopus wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also conveniently prevents people from dumping BCH to drive down the price. The number of confirmations required by most exchanges in order to guard against double spending Sybil attacks will take days. The price will continue to rise as it makes its way into the news. By the time people can dump their BCH it is likely there will be substantial momentum behind it. The launch has been brilliantly orchestrated.

But the amount of existing BCH is so high, that the moment it starts reaching the exchanges the dump will be earth-shattering. If only there was a way to short BCH... :(

A short is just a loan and a contract. If you can find your own counterparty, you might be able to do it.

Re: Bitcoin Cash Soars to $700, Coinbase Customers Threaten to Sue

#244

Post by PrimHelios » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 6:37 PM UTC

hendzen wrote: post #238

blhack wrote: post #229

Coinbase is in a bad situation here. If they set a precedent that all BTC forks will be available to their users, then they open themselves to some pretty obvious DOS attacks. 10 new "bitcoins" could fork every day. Are we really going to expect coinbase to support them all? That's absurd. I think it's pretty obvious that they're going to just issue the BCH to people eventually. Here's another thought experiment: I a…

Yes we expect Coinbase to support them all. Public companies have complicated stock actions like spinoffs (i.e. "Forking" the company), rights offerings, scrip offerings, stock dividends, etc. Do you think ETrade gets to not give their users the results of such actions because it would be complex to implement?

Not just anybody can "fork" a company. Anyone and everyone can fork a blockchain multiple times.

Re: Bitcoin Cash Soars to $700, Coinbase Customers Threaten to Sue

#245

Post by yebyen » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 6:38 PM UTC

lawn wrote: post #232

yebyen wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fork has literally existed for 36 hours only. It is easily too soon to say whether it will survive. You may have read or done technical analysis that came back supporting the conclusion that it will survive, but if Coinbase is taking the position that it won't survive, IMHO it is much too soon to say whether or not the same thing is happening here. As a matter of fact, this can't be the same thing... Ethereum Cla…

> It is easily too soon to say whether it will survive. I agree. That's why Coinbase should have said that they will wait and see if the fork will survive or not. If Bitcoin Cash continues to have a non trivial value and the fork survives Coinbase will either have to give in and give the customers their Bitcoin Cash or they will get sued and loose. > Ethereum Classic was the original chain. Ethereum(') is what the de…

Well, BCC has about 13 blocks on their chain in 24 hours. I understand there's a technical reason for the delays, but if you thought Bitcoin Classic had a problem with transaction delays, BCC absolutely still has yet to prove it can even remotely help with that.

I welcome the diversity, and a chain that has lower difficulty will be most welcome for miners as well. Hearing about some of the issues with withdrawal limits, I will not be surprised if there is a lawsuit against CoinBase. I'm personally just glad to see that, on the Bitcoin price graph, this whole event has so far been a complete non-event. (Even though I sold mine before the Hard Fork. I'm betting on ETH.)

Re: Bitcoin Cash Soars to $700, Coinbase Customers Threaten to Sue

#246

Post by mikeash » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 6:39 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #202

mikeash wrote: post #114

For all the people saying this is totally fine and they warned people and they shouldn't have to support every single fork that comes along, I'd like to pose a hypothetical. All forks are basically equivalent. If I fork Bitcoin today, my fork is just as legitimate as Segwit or Bitcoin Cash. The only differentiation is community buy-in and hashing power and similar fuzzy metrics. Rather than sticking with Segwit and i…

I don't follow Bitcoin other than on HN, but it seems to me that while they may both be legitimate, but they're still distinguishable, right? They may share the chain history, but only one of them produces blocks supported by pre-fork clients, right? The situation doesn't seem analogous to me.

I think it depends on how you do the fork. You can make a fork that generates blocks that the original clients can't validate, or you can make a fork whose blocks on the original chain, and are ignored just because they're not the tallest. If you somehow got a majority of the mining power on your side in that scenario, you'd supplant the "original."

Re: Bitcoin Cash Soars to $700, Coinbase Customers Threaten to Sue

#247

Post by mikeash » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 6:40 PM UTC

lostmsu wrote: post #189

mikeash wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't be released from liability for doing something stupid and harmful just by warning people that you're about to do something stupid and harmful.

Except they did not do anything stupid and harmful. They just did not do something clever and beneficial for customers.

I disagree, but it doesn't really matter for this: either way, the fact that they told people ahead of time doesn't change things.

Re: Bitcoin Cash Soars to $700, Coinbase Customers Threaten to Sue

#248

Post by rjbwork » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 6:40 PM UTC

celticninja wrote: post #235

blhack wrote: post #229

Coinbase is in a bad situation here. If they set a precedent that all BTC forks will be available to their users, then they open themselves to some pretty obvious DOS attacks. 10 new "bitcoins" could fork every day. Are we really going to expect coinbase to support them all? That's absurd. I think it's pretty obvious that they're going to just issue the BCH to people eventually. Here's another thought experiment: I a…

It would require enough mining power to keep the chains alive, this is probably the only chance of keeping a fork of bitcoin alive, and even this is tenuous. Bitcoin Cash has a large support base however very little of that seems to be in the form of miners and you can have all the supporters and users in the world, but if you have no miners then you have no network. Given that they will use the same technology and h…

It also doesn't make sense to mine a currency that has no users...or people taking it as payment.

If there is a user base, miners will materialize.

Re: Bitcoin Cash Soars to $700, Coinbase Customers Threaten to Sue

#249

Post by fauigerzigerk » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 6:41 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #169

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would that not only become relevant if BCC were to become more valuable (say in USD) than BTC? As of now, Coinbase is sitting on the fence basically (just like everyone else who holds their own private key and hasn't made a transaction since the fork). They can decide to use their (users') coins on either blockchain but not on both. So what Coinbase has is similar to a call option on BCC.

> They can decide to use their (users') coins on either blockchain but not on both. Please stop saying this. Read your own grandparent comment: > There is no "conversion", it is free money for all BTC holders. Everyone who owned BTC, now owns BTC+BCC. It isn't possible to spend BTC on the BCC blockchain, because coins spent on the BCC blockchain are BCC by definition . Once you've spent your BCC on the BCC blockchain…

I see what you mean. That's pretty amazing. Thanks for explaining.

I would have expected the two forks to coordinate sufficiently to make sure double spending is not possible. But I see how this would have been extremely difficult if not impossible without one of these two rival camps agreeing to be the opt-in network while the other one remains the default.

Re: Bitcoin Cash Soars to $700, Coinbase Customers Threaten to Sue

#250

Post by SilasX » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 6:43 PM UTC

barkingcat wrote: post #73

Haha why is there "fiduciary" duty when Coinbase is not a bank, not a security agency, and not any type of share that people bought into (ie customers are not shareholder). Coinbase can do anything they want! Also, I suggest it's people's own fault for storing their bitcoins at a place that does not give access to their own private keys. This fork has been a long time coming. Everyone and their mother was warned to k…

But (to repeat another comment), some exchanges do have fiduciary status -- Gemini, for one, and I assume others. Would they be obligated to preserve the value of BCH for clients?