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Coinbase S-1

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Re: Coinbase S-1

#641

Post by ajhurliman »

dang wrote: post #621
panarky wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prevailing sentiment on HN has been wrong about cryptocurrency from Day 1. Source: Day 1 HN post -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852 If you have a truly revolutionary idea, expect the conventional wisdom on this website to be extremely negative.

That's not an accurate description. I think you might be falling prey to the sample bias where people heavily weight the comments they dislike and don't so much notice the others [1]. In fact that 3-comment thread covered the spectrum: enthusiasm, skepticism, bewilderment. I'd say it set the stage nicely for the next 12 years. That thread wasn't the Day 1 post about cryptocurrency either. That would be https://news.y…

The original description may not be correct, but HN is almost certainly iconoclastic, and ever since cyrptocurrencies became mainstream HN has responded in kind by attacking them.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#642

Post by jariel »

Melting_Harps wrote: post #618
jariel wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks - the Central Bank is an essential pillar of governance. If it 'goes down' it means, almost everything else is 'going down again'. Your BTCs are useless in that scenario. BTC is a terrible currency and a bad store of value - and there is no 'mathematical arrangement' that can replace good governance. It would be like using digital contracts for legal contracts etc. - that won't solve corruption and inanity. Wha…

> Folks - the Central Bank is an essential pillar of governance. Folks, I give you the cowering voice of the disrupted Industry trying to rationalize it's existence: it's pointless, we already won, time is setting everything in motion now, but ultimately your cause is lost. UBI is going to happen now and global inflation has kicked off since the pandemic, and interest rates are at near 0% if not negative in some coun…

Thanks for clearing up the uninformed and conspiratorial world view of the BTC supporting legions.

It's fine to question these institutions, but it should be done on the basis of informed understanding, and then, the solutions arrived at from a pragmatic, informed perspective. Because once that is done, it will be clear BTC isn't really a solution to anything. Also, it's important to note the populist mania influence on these systems, to the point wherein they can quickly fall into Ponzi-like manias which defeat the purpose of the entire scheme in the first place.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#643

Post by yissp »

simias wrote: post #141
lvs wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is why that fact alone would affect the value of this company's shares. Just identifying him doesn't mean he'd liquidate.

It's still a huge known unknown for Bitcoin. What is Satoshi was linked to a shady organization, or something the general public wouldn't want to support for instance? Imagine if Satoshi turned out to be an avatar for the American, Russian or Chinese government for instance, that would both give them a huge leverage on the blockchain and mean that they'd benefit hugely from widespread adoption of the cryptocurrency.…

It already has a pretty strong association with illegal activity, doesn't it? After speculation I'd wager buying drugs is the most common use-case.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#644

Post by uncletammy »

dennis_jeeves wrote: post #629
aaron_m04 wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, you can pay a much lower fee and the transaction will probably be confirmed... eventually... For example, I donated to a torrenting site with a very low fee and it took ~3 days to confirm.

Thanks, almost exactly what I was looking for. So the tradeoff appears to be that the the quicker I want to settle a transaction, the more expensive it is.

There's a limit to that though. You can also pay too low of a fee and your transaction NEVER gets processed.

When you submit a transaction for the first time, it enters the client software's mempool. Miners pull transactions from the mempool if they deem the fee high enough to include. If your fee is too low, it sits in the mempool long enough that the client software purges it forever. It has to be resubmitted or it never gets mined

Re: Coinbase S-1

#645

Post by goat_whisperer »

hntrader wrote: post #585
goat_whisperer wrote: post #338

Bitcoin made a lot of sense when I first read about it in 2011. Back then I feel like it was primarily used as an anonymous payment method. Think dark web/silk road type stuff. I certainly don't endorse that behavior, but bitcoin as a payment method made a lot of sense. Bitcoin makes 0 sense to me as an investment. It's pure speculation with no underlying intrinsic value. It's the Dutch Tulips 10.0 basically. And now…

"no underlying intrinsic value" How does that differ to investing in fine art, scarce wine, old/rare stamps and coins, limited edition/novelty items, historical artefacts, or even gold? There's loads of things that have kept value for centuries despite having no intrinsic value.

Yeah but no one uses these things as a form of payment/currency. Those are non-monetary assets.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#646

Post by carlineng »

quartus wrote: post #611

Anyone else care to comment on the S-1 itself? Revenues doubling, and a rare example of a tech company that is actually profitable before IPO (to the tune of $320M net profit on $1.1B in revenue). Seems like a great business to me! Given current market conditions, I wouldn't be surprised to see a market cap on first day of trading of $50B or more

Some sources say Coinbase has already been trading at >$100B on private markets [1].

I find it interesting that about 2/3 of their trading volume (and thus revenue) is from institutions. Also that 44% of their trading volume is from "Other Crypto Assets", which implies that there must be a rather large bit of institutional activity in "Other Crypto Assets", and it's not just the stereotypical retail crypto investor trading in alt-coins.

[1]: https://www.axios.com/coinbase-valued-100-billion-direct-lis...

Re: Coinbase S-1

#647

Post by whiskyant »

Ninjinka wrote: post #260

I loathe Coinbase. Their support team is a joke (over a month with no response) and site stability is non existent.

Yup, it's been almost two months since I've originally messaged support about being unable to access my account. They said they would schedule a security interview, then never followed through.

I don't know how it's legal for a company to lock your account w/ funds with no explanation for this long.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#648

Post by whiskyant »

kart23 wrote: post #431
ppierald wrote: post #349

Argentina is a great example. I am an American and have been there many times. They have extreme inflation and regressive policies against USD or foreign currency. Take a look at https://bluedollar.net . Official rates are buy at 89.98 and sell at 94.98 (ARS). Unofficial rates are buy at 138 and sell at 143. That's a massive spread saying that the people on the street are willing to spend 35% more because they know t…

money transfer with BTC is almost comical right now. Fees are incredibly high if you want to get confirmations anytime soon. The average transaction fee is $26 right now. Try buying groceries or clothes with those kinds of fees. Bitcoin has become a good way to store and move money when you have a lot of it, but terrible for an everyday use case. You're better off using something like Nano or a stablecoin.

Lightning Network

Re: Coinbase S-1

#649

Post by lmm »

flixic wrote: post #180
jki275 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, ADA doesn't have a smart contract platform yet. I believe that's part of the update that is coming in a couple of days. They've been building towards that for several years and have done a lot of great work in the space. Tezos is quite a bit ahead of ADA in that particular respect as they have smart contracts already. I don't believe ETH2 will ever show up, but who knows. Full disclosure, I've got holdin…

Well, if Ethereum 2.0 "never shows up", that's $5.3B locked in a contract[0] that "will never do anything". I think $5.3B is sufficient motivation to get it released. [0]: https://etherscan.io/address/0x00000000219ab540356cbb839cbe0...

In a world where Ethereum 2.0 turns out to be difficult or irrelevant, the value of that contract will drop a lot for the same reasons.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#650

Post by noobly »

pid_0 wrote: post #404
jabroni_salad wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about your brokerage, but my fidelity cash management account sweeps money into a set of FDIC insured bank accounts, which is a hell of a lot more than can be said for your coins. And anything that is parked in a security is protected by SIPC from the brokerage going insolvent. What will happen to your assets if coinbase's systems become inoperable or if customers try to withdraw more coins than coinbase…

> Ask Mtgox customers how they feel about where to park coins. Your crypto is _not_ yours unless it is "kept" on a hardware wallet. End of story.

You don't need a "hardware wallet" for this. You just need your private keys.
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