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Coinbase S-1

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Re: Coinbase S-1

#271

Post by anonymousab »

hanniabu wrote: post #217
blhack wrote: post #213

It's so weird to me that here, on hacker news people have such a hatred of coinbase. Coinbase is a YC company, and if some of the predictions are accurate, will be the highest valued YC company so far.

It's because they view crypto like people viewed the internet/computers back in the day. "It'll never work it's too complicated. No need for it, mail workers just fine. It's just used for illegal activity. Why do I need a productivity boost when I have my assistant to do everything. "

> It'll never work it's too complicated

It usually seems far more nuanced to me. People seem somewhat skeptical on some finer points of cryptocurrencies, blockchains and distributed ledger ideas.

But then they see supporters trumpeting 'this is good for Xcoin' on every piece of news, good or bad, and can't help but get a snake-oil-salesman-y feeling from that. Everything in life has many ways in which it can or does suck, and you won't want to trust people who handwaive away or dismiss the sucky parts.

So... partially reasonable technical and idea concerns, and partially a PR problem that anything with a particularly large and vocal fanbase will have.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#272

Post by PragmaticPulp »

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.

> Many have forgotten why we used cryptocurrencies in the first place

I think the speculators know exactly what they’re doing. They want a speculative instrument and they don’t want a currency that people spend (creating sell pressure), so thats what these services have evolved to provide.

Bitcoin’s lack of fundamentals is the key to the narrative that it has unlimited upside. If you can remove all of the fundamentals, no one can argued that it’s overpriced.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#273

Post by psychlops »

ceejayoz wrote: post #108
rawtxapp wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how you can pull stocks from an exchange once you're done trading. Personally, I deposit coins into an exchange, do my trade and withdraw it as soon as possible. Not just because I think there's a risk they might get hacked, etc, I also don't want them to hold my funds later on for reason x,y,z.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_certificate

In practice, you cannot take ownership of your certificates any more. There may still be brokers that do it, but fewer all the time. Stocks are held in street name and the brokers like it that way.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#274

Post by dools »

bdamm wrote: post #263
dools wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is nothing more than a blockchain ledger of who owns Bitcoin

Bitcoin definitely includes more than just the ledger. Without the miners, there would be no transactions, and without the intermediate processors, there would be no transaction intake. Without exchanges, there would be no value. Bitcoin is clearly a lot more than just the ledger.

What you described is just a blockchain implementation.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#275

Post by pa7x1 »

jki275 wrote: post #184
Tenoke wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>To be clear, ADA doesn't have a smart contract platform yet. Yes, as I said it is planned to come in early Q2. What comes tomorrow is a necessary step in that direction - the introduction of tokens on the ADA network. For what is worth, I see little reason to doubt that their smart launch will go well - I used their playground and looked at the activity in the testnet and it all seems to be going as planned. The big…

I'm pretty confident they'll do it right. For those who don't know, the founder of IOHK (which created ADA) is one of the co-founders of ETH. I'm confident in his ethics and his ability. I'm not so confident in the ethics of the ETH project anymore. -edited above since I get rate limited every time I post more than two posts in a day, read the following as a response to the post calling me a liar below: Ok, I edited…

This is absolutely untrue. Charles Hoskinson left the Ethereum Foundation in June 2014. The DAO hack occurred in June 2016.

He left because he wanted the Ethereum Foundation to be a for-profit while the rest of founders were looking to make it a non-profit foundation. This is by his own account, the other side of the story doesn't look as good for him but I have no idea what happened so I give him the benefit of the doubt.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#277

Post by lottin »

bhupy wrote: post #139
xadhominemx wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most money is created by normal banks, not the central bank. If you Google “money creation” you will find this helpful link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation#Role_of_banks...

Yes, but that's only possible because of the underlying monetary policy, which is controlled by the Fed. In contrast, there is no way you can do this with (most) cryptocurrencies. The monetary policy of Bitcoin is dictated by the physical bounds of the proof-of-work algorithm. There is absolutely nothing that Coinbase can do to "create" more Bitcoin outside of just mining it like everyone else.

You don't understand how commercial banks create money.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#278

Post by temp8964 »

jmcqk6 wrote: post #264
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…

> an unstable society or one facing high inflation What are the chances that in an environment where the USD is not usable, there is an available network and electricity that makes bitcoin usable?

I don't think cactus2093 meant US / western world.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#279

Post by ceejayoz »

koonsolo wrote: post #251
ceejayoz wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll presumably take more than one second to convert it to a usable currency, i.e. Euros. How often do you need $50k without being able to wait a business day?

Ok, then send me a $0.001 micro transaction. Same deal.

How are you going to convert $0.001 to Euros?

Why is receiving $0.001 a matter of urgency that can't wait until tomorrow?

Re: Coinbase S-1

#280

Post by psychlops »

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.

Cryptocurrencies are protocols, Coinbase is a platform.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20841059

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