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Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

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Re: Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

#371

Post by AnneOminous »

dragonwriter wrote: post #327
AnneOminous wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a failure of Bitcoin. It's a failure of the market. Bitcoin has an approximate "intrinsic value", which in economic terms is a bit above the cost of mining. Current market price has been very far from that. Bitcoin market right now is pretty much the definition of a bubble. Beware. In a "bubble" market, your money can disappear overnight. But again: that's not Bitcoin's fault. It's the fault of idiots vast…

> Bitcoin has an approximate "intrinsic value", which in economic terms is a bit above the cost of mining. The current cost of mining is a rough replacement cost of bitcoin (and thus, in a sane market, ought to be a ceiling on its market value, since if the exchange cost is higher than that, you are better of mining then buying), but since mining isn't inherently reversible its not an intrinsic value .

Quote: "...but since mining isn't inherently reversible its not an intrinsic value."

It IS "value", because the resources used for mining have measurable value, and can be traded for things other than Bitcoins.

It may be an indirect measure of value, but it's still a measure of value.

Re: Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

#373

Post by Loughla »

devcpp wrote: post #341
opam2 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coinbase updated their comment after seeing the backlash.

Huh, I'll remember the "take it to HN" option if I ever run into big problems with a high-tech company.

That's pretty much the lesson learned for everyone here today. People won't see that you have to complete 18 steps with their customer service beforehand. Instead, they'll see complain on HN = instant gratification.

Look for an increase in this kind of whinging in the very near future, and it won't be fun for anyone.

Re: Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

#374

Post by tedunangst »

jellicle wrote: post #366
tedunangst wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But even by those standards, taking 35 grand and not noticing you didn't give them what they paid for stands out. That's really the weird part. This is a business that does money in, money out. They should be balancing the books and checking inventory every day. It can take Amazon a while to realize a mistake because it takes time for somebody to go around the warehouse and count all the boxes to discover they're hol…

But that's regulation. And HN is against that. Get with the program.

It's not just regulation. It's basic accounting. If you're not doing it, you literally don't know how much money you have. It's always a good idea to know how much money you have, even if the government doesn't require you to know.

Re: Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

#375

Post by 3327 »

yapcguy wrote: post #283
3327 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually NO from an independent point of view they JAMMED him. Trades and transactions have a SETTLEMENT day and date in the financial markets. If a trade is not settled, i.e deposited and the funds available by the said settlement date the trade is called a FAILED trade. Both parties return at original transaction or go to arbitration. This alone is a reason not to touch coinbase. The system is too immature and new…

Yes. The question is why did they refuse to act until this public outcry. My theory? Proprietary trading. The CoinBase guys were probably trading on behalf of the company and screwed up royally, taking a big hit, so they decided to try and pass that loss onto customers or until they balanced the books

A very good guess either that or front running. This is what market makers used to do back in the day, aka "front running". Its banned in the financial markets because there is regulation and thus illegal. Either that or like you say they took a massive hit and basically held a ton of orders to mitigate the damage.

Re: Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

#376

Post by girvo »

TylerE wrote: post #342
seldo wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy cow, that's amazing. Q: Does MongoDB support transactions? A: MongoDB does not provide ACID transactions. ( http://docs.mongodb.org/manual/faq/fundamentals/#does-mongod... ) It is crazy to be doing financial stuff in a DB that doesn't provide transactions. It completely blows my mind that anybody would do this.

Not really. Financial transactions are really almost never implemented with database transactions.

A lot of people truly don't understand how financial companies do stuff. Hell, Financial companies are ones who are adopting Mongo and the like themselves. We all assume it's one way, when it's actually done another....

Re: Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

#377

Post by girvo »

yapcguy wrote: post #289
seldo wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget the difference in the exchange rates. Are you saying you have no system in place to monitor if transactions execute successfully ? I'm not trying to be hyperbolic but that's really shocking for a company that is trying to play a role as a financial institution.

It might not be a computer system problem. Perhaps CoinBase (or a rogue employee) were doing some proprietary trading and screwed up badly? Maybe they were trying to quietly recover their losses and weren't expecting a customer to cause a public outcry and force their hand?

...how? This isn't stocks, there just isn't the same financial instruments that they can play with to recover from a drop in price :/

Re: Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

#378

Post by FireBeyond »

sheetjs wrote: post #237
EGreg wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a court case, the breach of contract will be evaluated and the losses incurred will be relevant whether or not the assets are an "investment". What kind of law will apply is up for debate.

> breach of contract What breach of contract? Coinbase didn't agree to deliver by a specified date. I will emphasize the key phrase: > Coinbase makes no representations or warranties regarding the amount of time needed to complete processing There's a reason these CYA clauses exist. And the time frame (8 business days) isn't entirely unreasonable (in the sense that banks generally give themselves 3 days for ACH, with…

No, that doesn't work. There's a difference between fine print qualifying statements, and fine print explicitly contradicting statements.

Your system can't say "Bitcoin deposit, 13 December", whilst your TOC says "eh, can be whenever we want".

Re: Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

#379

Post by ajsharp »

seldo wrote: post #185
barmstrong wrote: post #53

Brian from Coinbase here. Sorry for the delay on that - definitely not the customer experience we are striving for. We should have things squared away for you by end of day. Edit: your bitcoin credit has now been processed. It looks like as we were performing server upgrades last week a handful of jobs didn't run as normal. We should have certainly caught it and responded sooner so that was our fault. My deepest apol…

Forget the difference in the exchange rates. Are you saying you have no system in place to monitor if transactions execute successfully ? I'm not trying to be hyperbolic but that's really shocking for a company that is trying to play a role as a financial institution.

Not hyperbolic at all. This is brokerage 101. It's absolutely asinine that their system fails this hard when doing some "upgrades". A real brokerage (e.g. Fidelity, Schwab et al) would likely be subject to non-trivial fines from the FCC for this type of gross negligence.

Sounds like they need some people who have actual practical experience building financial systems.

Re: Sent $35,104.11 USD to CoinBase. Never received Bitcoins

#380

Post by 21echoes »

AnneOminous wrote: post #371
dragonwriter wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin has an approximate "intrinsic value", which in economic terms is a bit above the cost of mining. The current cost of mining is a rough replacement cost of bitcoin (and thus, in a sane market, ought to be a ceiling on its market value, since if the exchange cost is higher than that, you are better of mining then buying), but since mining isn't inherently reversible its not an intrinsic value .

Quote: "...but since mining isn't inherently reversible its not an intrinsic value." It IS "value", because the resources used for mining have measurable value, and can be traded for things other than Bitcoins. It may be an indirect measure of value, but it's still a measure of value.

carbon emissions from a coal plant do not have the "intrinsic value" of the coal that produced them. bitcoins from a miner's computer do not have the "intrinsic value" of the electricity and silicon that produced them.
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