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Update on Bitcoin Cash

blog.coinbase.com

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Re: Update on Bitcoin Cash

#81

Post by sowbug »

colept wrote: post #16

Is there a viable alternative to Coinbase? Their support is absurdly awful. Two months and they sent two auto-replies to a simple ticket that couldn't be answered by the knowledge base. They don't care about your money - so long as it's already in their vault.

Before you declare an exception to Hanlon's Razor, hear my story.

Long ago, Coinbase filled a buy order I placed. Then they filled it again. They credited the BTC twice but debited the USD only once. Like a good citizen of the Earth I filed a ticket letting them know their error. I got the same treatment you did. I even emailed Brian personally and via a private list I know he's on.

Years later I still have that BTC.

I think your "so long as it's already in their vault" dig is too strong. They haven't scaled as well as they should, that's all.

Re: Update on Bitcoin Cash

#82

Post by Animats »

"We are planning to have support for bitcoin cash by January 1, 2018, assuming no additional risks emerge during that time. Once supported, customers will be able to withdraw bitcoin cash."

They are so going to get sued if the price of Bitcoin Cash crashes by the end of the year. Where do they get off telling customers they can't withdraw an asset for five months?

This is what lawyers call "conversion"[1]. A person who knowingly or intentionally exerts unauthorized control over property of another person commits criminal conversion. The element of knowledge is found when the accused person engages in the conduct and he/she is aware of a high probability that he/she is doing so. An essential element of criminal conversion is that “the property must be owned by another and the conversion thereof must be without the consent and against the will of the party, to whom the property belongs, coupled with the fraudulent intent to deprive the owner of the property.”

It's legally equivalent to theft.[2] The typical example of conversion is renting something and then refusing to return it.

Coinbase execs, you really need to be talking to good securities lawyers.

[1] https://conversion.uslegal.com/criminal-conversion/ [2] https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-1317-n...

Re: Update on Bitcoin Cash

#83

Post by Snackchez »

Maybe I'm just not getting something in my slow brain, hopefully someone here can explain. How does taking out my BTC out of CoinBase ensure I will receive an equivalent amount of BCH?

I bought 200$ worth of BTC in the past from CB, and promptly moved to an Exchange. Does that mean I will get whatever amount of BTC I purchased back then in BCH? If so, why? I understand there was a fork, but I don't get why I'm entitled to the same amount of BCH... what if there are more forks in the future, I'll just keep getting more of those offshoot coins as well?

Re: Update on Bitcoin Cash

#84

Post by gragas »

Honestly, I don't understand why everyone trashes Coinbase.

I work very closely with numerous crypto exchanges for a living (I write code which interfaces with them). Outside of work, I've personally chosen to open a Coinbase account and trade on GDAX.

Coinbase is, in my opinion, the most reputable exchange out there by far.

Re: Update on Bitcoin Cash

#85

Post by cbr »

Animats wrote: post #82

"We are planning to have support for bitcoin cash by January 1, 2018, assuming no additional risks emerge during that time. Once supported, customers will be able to withdraw bitcoin cash." They are so going to get sued if the price of Bitcoin Cash crashes by the end of the year. Where do they get off telling customers they can't withdraw an asset for five months? This is what lawyers call "conversion"[1]. A person w…

Before the fork they wrote:

    Q: Do I need to withdraw my BTC from Coinbase?

    ... If you wish to access your coins on the UAHF
    chain ... you should withdraw your BTC from Coinbase
    to an external wallet address under your control by
    July 31.
https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/284421...

Re: Update on Bitcoin Cash

#86

Post by [deleted] »

Snackchez wrote: post #83

Maybe I'm just not getting something in my slow brain, hopefully someone here can explain. How does taking out my BTC out of CoinBase ensure I will receive an equivalent amount of BCH? I bought 200$ worth of BTC in the past from CB, and promptly moved to an Exchange. Does that mean I will get whatever amount of BTC I purchased back then in BCH? If so, why? I understand there was a fork, but I don't get why I'm entitl…

[deleted]

Re: Update on Bitcoin Cash

#87

Post by fatal510 »

Snackchez wrote: post #83

Maybe I'm just not getting something in my slow brain, hopefully someone here can explain. How does taking out my BTC out of CoinBase ensure I will receive an equivalent amount of BCH? I bought 200$ worth of BTC in the past from CB, and promptly moved to an Exchange. Does that mean I will get whatever amount of BTC I purchased back then in BCH? If so, why? I understand there was a fork, but I don't get why I'm entitl…

Because BCH used the current state of BTC as the starting point when they forked. Whatever existed in BTC now exists as BCH. And yes you will keep getting more free coins whenever there is a fork in a currency you control.

Re: Update on Bitcoin Cash

#88

Post by bayonetz »

What an inconvenient waste of time trying to be proactive and moving my BTC out of Coinbase ahead of the fork -- just like Coinbase said to. Would have been nice if they could have decided this before hand...

Re: Update on Bitcoin Cash

#89

Post by davchana »

Snackchez wrote: post #83

Maybe I'm just not getting something in my slow brain, hopefully someone here can explain. How does taking out my BTC out of CoinBase ensure I will receive an equivalent amount of BCH? I bought 200$ worth of BTC in the past from CB, and promptly moved to an Exchange. Does that mean I will get whatever amount of BTC I purchased back then in BCH? If so, why? I understand there was a fork, but I don't get why I'm entitl…

Imagine you had USD 200 noted in a public ledger (BTC in address you own private keys). Somebody decides to copy that ledger and names it VSD. Its gets public support and so now you have VSD 200 at same address, accessible with same private key, and this point onwards both USD & VSD are going their seperate ways. Whatever you do to one will NOT effect the other because the ledgers are different now.

There can be as much copies of ledger (offshoot coins, forks) as anybody wishes, important is how it grows from there. Most probably it will just die within few mining blocks and thus will not carry any monetary value. And yes, anytime one forks USD to VSD/WSD/YSD/XSD/ZSD they are essentially copying the ledger from that snapshot, with your address having same balance as its fork-parent.

Re: Update on Bitcoin Cash

#90

Post by kanzure »

Animats wrote: post #82

"We are planning to have support for bitcoin cash by January 1, 2018, assuming no additional risks emerge during that time. Once supported, customers will be able to withdraw bitcoin cash." They are so going to get sued if the price of Bitcoin Cash crashes by the end of the year. Where do they get off telling customers they can't withdraw an asset for five months? This is what lawyers call "conversion"[1]. A person w…

> Where do they get off telling customers they can't withdraw an asset for five months?

When they say it will take them time to implement, it's an honest statement. They literally have to implement software, do lots of code review, check their accounting, pentesting, or at least they should be doing these things, and 5 months is an unusually short timeline. Even if they took 10% as fee to hire extra developers to work on this project, 5 months is not guaranteeable at all.

The short timelines proposed for hard-forks is one of the reasons why so many bitcoin developers have voiced caution about hard-fork proposals: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segwit_support (far right columns)

Cryptsy was quickly installing random altcoins on their servers until one of the 200 coins they installed ended up being malware (a reverse shell or whatever) and poof goes their exchange, plus or minus some other possible fraud occurring. There is value to caution and review when upgrading software systems.... much less financial systems. With backwards-compatible upgrades, you can be more certain about the net impacts. For example, if the changes were compatible with the pre-existing bitcoin rules, then none of this new coin stuff would have happened, and the whole industry could benefit from the compatible upgrades.

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