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Coinbase S-1

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Re: Coinbase S-1

#651

Post by hntrader »

goat_whisperer wrote: post #645
hntrader wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Rare coins that are now valued as artefacts were once monetary assets. So I'm not sure that this distinction is meaningful.

BTC's value now could come from it acting as a store of value for example. Or its value could come from the novelty aspect. Or that it facilitates online gambling (leveraged bets on crypto exchanges) in countries where such activity is heavily restricted. BTC's value in the future could come from it being a historical artefact. Lots of subjective reasons investors may have for holding it (just like they hold a piece of art) beyond its use as a currency.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#652

Post by frongpik »

vkou wrote: post #622
jsutton wrote: post #593

I find it interesting (sad, actually) that most other S-1 posts on here are congratulatory for the most part, giving kudos to the teams (look at the DO one today). However, when it comes to anything crypto related, the emotions really come out. It's all "bitcoin/crypto is useless, doesn't solve any problem, waste of talent." For a community of hackers, there really seems to be a lack of vision when it comes to crypto…

> For a community of hackers, there really seems to be a lack of vision when it comes to crypto specifically. The lack of vision panned out. Bitcoin is not a good currency, it is not bringing us into a decentralized land of milk and honey, it is environmentally ruinous, and all that it has accomplished is creating yet another financial gambling market. Broadly speaking, we already have enough of those. And I guess yo…

Bitcoin, imho, is a clever way to redirect excess energy production into a trustless payments system. The fact that individuals have used personal gpus is an abveration. It will be governments running btc network on excess energy from nuclear plants, they will sign treaties to use only so much energy on btc to prevent the race to the bottom (similar to icbm treaties) and they will use btc for massive gov-to-gov transactions. Individuals in most countries will be barred from touching btc.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#653

Post by ghayes »

xadhominemx wrote: post #136
ketamine__ wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coinbase makes money in a down market because of trading volumes.

I guarantee you coinbase stock is going to be highly correlated to the price of Bitcoin.

I would disagree. Coinbase's value is based on volume and volatility. If anything, stable values are the worst time for exchanges, as experienced in early 2019.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#654

Post by gbillz »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #451
ttul wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their growth rate is staggering, and they are enormously profitable. I was most stunned by the gross margins. They spend so little to make so much. It illustrates how feverish the crypto investing world is.

I worked for a prop firm that briefly did a foray into coin trading. Coinbase's trading fees are * outrageous** compared to what we're used to in the world of normal equity/option/future/fx trading. Literally 100x+ what we're used to paying. You have to do absolutely enormous volume before they'll give you anywhere near a sane rate. I'm not surprised they're printing money.

Or you could just go to Coinbase pro and log in with the same credentials and pay a tiny fraction of the usual fees. No setup or form to fill out. You can transact small amounts as well.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#655

Post by yao420 »

hntrader wrote: post #584
ttul wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their growth rate is staggering, and they are enormously profitable. I was most stunned by the gross margins. They spend so little to make so much. It illustrates how feverish the crypto investing world is.

It also illustrates the lack of competition due to US regulations preventing foreign exchanges (many of them signficiantly larger and cheaper than Coinbase) from serving US customers. Very few people outside the US trade on Coinbase because they have monopoly margins.

I’m starting to feel this is a positive and all countries should do this.

I know China gets a lot of flack for doing the same thing but maybe they are right? Better to have a local company do well and contribute to the local economy than to send profits overseas and be subject to global corps.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#656

Post by rudderz »

frongpik wrote: post #652
vkou wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For a community of hackers, there really seems to be a lack of vision when it comes to crypto specifically. The lack of vision panned out. Bitcoin is not a good currency, it is not bringing us into a decentralized land of milk and honey, it is environmentally ruinous, and all that it has accomplished is creating yet another financial gambling market. Broadly speaking, we already have enough of those. And I guess yo…

Bitcoin, imho, is a clever way to redirect excess energy production into a trustless payments system. The fact that individuals have used personal gpus is an abveration. It will be governments running btc network on excess energy from nuclear plants, they will sign treaties to use only so much energy on btc to prevent the race to the bottom (similar to icbm treaties) and they will use btc for massive gov-to-gov trans…

I predict eventually a chain that doesn't require PoW will gain popularity.

Also, the chain won't have to be a store of value. Instead the value will be real assets represented as "tokens".

The asset can be anything. Stock, royalty rights, water rights, futures, commodities, etc.

The ledger would then act as an exchange/settlement layer that can match trades. Merchant denominates prices in shares of GOOG, customer pays with AAPL.

It seems like currency is largely helpful for providing liquidity for trades. It's hard to trade goats for camels if the other person doesn't want goats. The ledger I believe can help get around that.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#657

Post by technick »

jsutton wrote: post #593

I find it interesting (sad, actually) that most other S-1 posts on here are congratulatory for the most part, giving kudos to the teams (look at the DO one today). However, when it comes to anything crypto related, the emotions really come out. It's all "bitcoin/crypto is useless, doesn't solve any problem, waste of talent." For a community of hackers, there really seems to be a lack of vision when it comes to crypto…

true, as a 20+ year sec guy, I didn't get interested in crypto till I started buying it in 2017. I might be able to retire in under 5 years if crypto keeps growing at the rate.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#658

Post by [deleted] »

lottin wrote: post #295
iexplainbtc wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't go to a bank, ask them to give you all your money in cash and hide it under a mattress (not in most countries at least). You can go to Coinbase and simply transfer all your funds to your own wallet in a matter of seconds.

I didn't know that in most countries it is forbidden to hide money under a mattress. This is news to me.

[deleted]

Re: Coinbase S-1

#659

Post by boh »

arrosenberg wrote: post #596
boh wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Otherwise known as credit, which has been the prevailing valuation since the Stone Age.

The difference between relying on credit backed by a physical item (gold bricks) versus credit backed by "the Full Faith and Credit" clause of the Constitution is what happens in the event of default by the issuer of the credit. If the wheels stop turning at some point, there is no recoverable asset.

You're confusing macro-economics with micro-economics. There is "no recoverable asset" with currencies and currencies aren't debts that demand payments.

Re: Coinbase S-1

#660

Post by drexlspivey »

azinman2 wrote: post #435
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Risk factors don’t mean “this will definitely happen”. It means this is a known risk for the system underpinning their profits. A more likely scenario is that the keys to those coins are compromised, somehow, given their unbelievably high value.

I’m surprised someone doesn’t spent 10B in computation to brute force those keys.

You can’t brute force 256 bit keys
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