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Most fascinating to me has been Coinbase's position throughout this. Which was essentially they are treating the new Bitcoin cash as a shitcoin, aka not suppor

• pfisch 9y ago
  Yeah that was a pretty crappy attitude considering BCC is trading at $200 right now. I imagine a lot of early bitcoin buyers used coinbase and are sitting on like 10+ btc. Not really cool to be ambiguous about stealing $2000+ from your users.
  • ShabbosGoy 9y ago
    In what way is deciding not to support BCC stealing? It's more akin to a forex brokerage deciding not to support EUR when it first came out over the lira. You can easily use someone else, Coinbase is hardly the only service around.
    • beambot 9y ago
      It's more like HP shares splitting into HP and Agilent, and your brokerage deciding that it won't track your ownership stake in Agilent and not giving you any further access to obtain your Agilent stock. Under these circumstances, you'd have serious reservations about passively parking any assets with that particular broker...
      • cesarb 9y ago
        That's one possible analogy. Another analogy would be: an unrelated third-party decides to give, to everyone who has HP shares, an equivalent number of shares in a new company. In that case, a broker would be under no obligation to give you these new shares. Which analogy is the best one depends on your point of view on this debate.
        • laretluval 9y ago
          > a broker would be under no obligation to give you these new shares. No obligation would exist, but I'd rather take my business to a broker who would do so, given the choice.
          • sowbug 9y ago
            How about a third-party company that awards a free trip to a timeshare resort (some obligations apply) to every HP shareholder?
          • nebabyte 9y ago
            Correct. I have not studied securities law but I don't think Coinbase's users have any recourse claiming their BCC and Coinbase decides their stance is that it was always theirs as they held the relevant private keys.
      • QML 9y ago
        This analogy doesn't work because people could've transferred their Bitcoin to a personal wallet while the same can't be said of stocks.
  • ftlio 9y ago
    If you don't hold your keys, you're subject to the decisions of those who do. Coinbase is a good enough steward of most people's bitcoins that it's a fine trade-off.
  • door 9y ago
    keeping 10+btc in coinbase is immensely stupid. don't keep your bitcoin in exchanges. it defeats three of the main appeals of bitcoin: autonomy, trustlessness, anonymity
    • jhasse 9y ago
      > anonymity Bitcoin itself isn't anonymous at all: All transactions are public. Only via a Laundry you can cover up your tracks. Zerocoin and Zcash were created to fix that.
      • door 9y ago
        transactions are public but if no one knows that a public key is yours it's difficult to trace. and like you said, there's tools to anonymize your bitcoin transactions completely
        • jhasse 9y ago
          As soon as you buy/sell something, someone will know your public key. The laundry scheme isn't tied to Bitcoin, that's why I think it's wrong to say that one of Bitcoins advantages is anonimity.
          • undersuit 9y ago
            >As soon as you buy/sell something, someone will know your public key. So make a new key, and tumble the Bitcoins until you feel safe again.
            • jhasse 9y ago
              Since all transactions are public, he can easily follow the tracks to your new public key.
              • undersuit 9y ago
                Tumbling is supposed to make tracking non-trivial. Anyways you can always convent to another coin, especially one with more anonymity, and then back to Bitcoin. EDIT https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14918545 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14918545 This just started getting popular if you want to talk more about tumbling.
  • dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Not really cool to be ambiguous about stealing $2000+ from your users. Serious question: under what legal theory (not loose analogy) is the BCH corresponding to a wallet held by Coinbase property of Coinbase's users and not Coinbase?
    • wbl 9y ago
      Security laws. Stuff like this happens all the times in spinoffs and the rules are very clear about who is entitled to the proceeds.
      • dragonwriter 9y ago
        > Security laws. That's hardly specific. > Stuff like this happens all the times in spinoffs There's a reason I specifically excluded loose analogies. > the rules are very clear about who is entitled to the proceeds. And the specific rules that specifically apply to a fork of a cryptocurrnecy and a firm providing wallet services like Coinbase are...what, precisely? Perhaps general securities laws are written in a way which encompasses this scenario, but I'm asking about the specific applicable laws that cover the situation at hand.
        • unoti 9y ago
          Sounds a bit harsh. He's suggesting securities law is a good place to start; a reasonable thing that adds something to the discussion. Consider hiring a paralegal to research the issue for you and write you a well-documented brief to meet your standards of proof.
      • nebabyte 9y ago
        That's idiotic, securities do not spontaneously split on their own. In a split, agents agree upon how it should be carried out, specifically to avoid this problem.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
• JustAnotherPat 9y ago
  What's the difference between Bitcoin Cash and a Bitcoin clone that anyone can set up?
  • Zarath 9y ago
    Nonzero miner and community support.
    • thefalcon 9y ago
      That's the crux of it. BCC is truly the end result of the years long civil war within Bitcoin, and so represents a significant minority of users and miners who really wanted larger blocks over Segwit and are willing to put their money where their beliefs are. This hard fork has been a very long time coming, unlike some Bitcoin clone that anyone could set up.
• j_s 9y ago
  Disclaimer/FYI/FWIW: Coinbase was YC S12.
  • j_s 9y ago
    PS: Suprised to see no mention after 14+ hours on the entire sub-discussion that their tech stack appears to still depend on MongoDB (re: "service decay & delays"). Not sure what happened on this month's job thread (too late to delete?); it's not like it's a secret! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14902743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14902743 vs. https://www.coinbase.com/careers/477665 https://www.coinbase.com/careers/477665 King_mansur 17 hours ago [flagged] AvenueIngres 17 hours ago >* Our APIs are currently powered by Rails with a MongoDB backend Everything makes so much sense now (Coinbase's single digit SLA) -- In case you are wondering what technologies we use at Coinbase, we’re built using a combination of Ruby, Node.js, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, Swift (for iOS), and Java (for Android).
• bootsz 9y ago
  Their particular position is one thing, but giving only 4 days notice is quite another. Especially considering any BTC held in their "vault" service takes 48h to transfer into standard wallet. I (and I'm assuming many other folks) would have happily withdrawn if I had the time and wasn't busy doing things over the weekend.
  • fosap 9y ago
    They can have any stand they want. But they deny me my property. Imagine a bank anouncing they would keep all the dividends of one particular stock, because the didn't like it. That's what coinbase is doing. It plain and simply theft.
    • dragonwriter 9y ago
      > But they deny me my property. Is it your property? It's a benefit that people have decided to extend to whoever controls existing Bitcoin wallets. Do you have an agreement with Coinbase that obligated them to transfer to you any such benefit that should accrue to the Bitcoin wallet they control for you?
      • fosap 9y ago
        Of course. The Bitcoins are still mine, even i keep them in a coinbase wallet. (ownsership vs perssesion). Now every btc owner gets bcc. The owner is me, not coinbase. I gave the persession of by btc to coinbase to trade them eventually, not to give up ownership. And as the owner that never 1) gave away usufruct I'm entiled to all profits from them. See the share/divident analogy. 1) At last not legaly binding, that had to be there at the very least in red flashing letters, possibly even then it would have been void.
        • dragonwriter 9y ago
          > The Bitcoins are still mine, even i keep them in a coinbase wallet. Right, that's governed by your contract with Coinbase, and is the service they offer. > Now every btc owner gets bcc. No, everyone controlling a BTC wallet is now also controlling a BCC (or BCH, I've seen both used as the abbreviation) wallet with an equal number of coins. I'm guessing rights to coins on alternative chains that Coinbase ends up controlling due to BTC forks are not covered in your contract with Coinbase.
• btcthrowawayy 9y ago
  FWIW I moved ~80 BTC out of Coinbase almost instantly yesterday. It's not unreasonable to expect some delays accessing their cold storage (which is key split across geographically disparate safe deposit boxes, last I heard) That said, I was around during Mt. Gox's failure (fortunately didn't lose anything then) so I get a little skittish when I hear about a wallet/exchange experiencing withdrawal delays...
  • mikekchar 9y ago
    I'm curious. If you were around during Mt. Gox's failure, why on earth are you holding ~80 BTC in somebody else's wallet? That seems kind of crazy, so I wonder if there is an advantage that I'm missing...
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • btcthrowawayy 9y ago
      Good question. It's a combination of things. First of all, I've always trusted Coinbase a lot more than most other Bitcoin services. They're a US company, a YC company, I've met the founders, I know some of the employees, they at least appear to be very serious about security, etc. Second, those 80 BTC are not all of my Bitcoin. I don't completely trust myself to securely store Bitcoin, so I like having some diversification of risk. But yes, some of it comes down to laziness. I should probably figure out a better way diversify the risk without needing to trust a 3rd party.
• barmstrong 9y ago
  Coinbase CEO here - apologies for the confusion on that. I certainly wouldn't say we are treating it as a "shitcoin". I tweeted out a few thoughts here to share how I think about it: https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/892486687531556865 https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/89248668753155686... Hope it helps. Thx!
  • marcell 9y ago
    That's fine but there is obviously demand for BCH trading and by not supporting it, Coinbase/GDAX is forcing otherwise happy customers onto competing platforms.
    • bayonetz 9y ago
      Definitely wish Coinbase had just taken care of it for me. Instead, I withdrew everything to a personel wallet and will be depositing my BCC to Kraken. I'll probably just deposit my BTC to Kraken as well since I'm going through the trouble. I like that Kraken will give me access to a bunch of other coins to get exposure to. On the plus side, all this is motivating me to deepen my understanding of the cryptocoin tech/ecosystem.
      • GordonS 9y ago
        Did the same, but from. Bitstamp to Kraken (Bitstamp took the same position as Coinbase). Kraken supports USD now, which it didn't used to last time I traded there, so I'll probably just stick with Kraken. I imagine most of the exchanges that didn't support BCH are going to lose a lot of customers over it.
        • bayonetz 9y ago
          Folks like us voicing this stuff may make them rethink things and they retroactively make it right for the people who didn't bother to be proactive. Which would then just add insult to injury for us! Well at least I got some good experience out of it...
• jron 9y ago
  Anyone can create infinite forks similar to BCC/BCH. Should Coinbase support them all?
  • colordrops 9y ago
    No, but they should support forks with significant hashing power and exchange value behind them.
    • kobeya 9y ago
      BCH has ~2% mining power behind it. That's not "significant".
      • colordrops 9y ago
        According to what definition? 2% of BTC mining power is still more than most other coins.
        • makomk 9y ago
          Coinbase doesn't support most other coins either. There are exchanges that are enthusiastic about supporting all of the altcoins out there, but Coinbase isn't one.
          • colordrops 9y ago
            It's already in the top 4 coins in market cap. Seems like a reasonable coin to support at this point.
            • jhall1468 9y ago
              It's been extremely volatile so at this juncture price means little. Give it some time before arguing it has any value, the market hasn't decided yet.
• endlessvoid94 9y ago
  As a non-early adopter of blockchain tech, I appreciated the clarity that Coinbase decided on here. "You don't have to worry about anything." Which, if you aren't familiar with what the word "fork" means in the developer world, was exactly what I wanted to hear from a legitimate company like Coinbase.
  • Belphemur 9y ago
    Kraken made it also quite clear, like 1 BTC in your account = 1 BCC. And BCC will start at 0.01 BTC. To me you don't need to be a developer to understand that.
    • endlessvoid94 9y ago
      "What's the difference? Will this happen again? Do I automatically have any of this newfangled bitcoin cash?"
      • crehn 9y ago
        "Does that mean I got free money? Is it a paper version of Bitcoin? Why can't they create it from scratch? Are they affiliated? Why is it called a fork? Should I buy Bitcoin before a fork? What's the point? Why 1 BTC = 1 BCC? Who decided that? Is it same on other exchanges? Why does BCC start at 0.01 BCC?"
        • nebabyte 9y ago
          "Sure, no, they could, no, software term, if you want to, independence, because of how the software works, see previous, for any that support them, because that's what it's valued at right now. Any other easily-googlable questions? :)"
• bradgessler 9y ago
  I don't see a problem with how this was handled by Coinbase. It's obvious they're a central authority. When people make the choice of Coinbase over managing their own wallet they're sacrificing freedom for a sense of security.
• bdcravens 9y ago
  > They took the position that if you want your "free" Bitcoin Cash, move your BTC out of Coinbase.(1) > when Ethereum split "Coinbase eventually let customers withdraw their share of the new currency, known as "Ethereum Classic," even though it still does not allow it to be bought and sold on the Coinbase site. Note the ETC withdrawal option came after ETC spiked in price and retreated like 80%. Coinbase then ended ETC withdrawals at the end of 2016. I suspect you'll see the same with BCH.
• fpgaminer 9y ago
  Anyone who doesn't understand Coinbase's reluctance to add support for BCH, or any other altcoin, needs to understand this hypothetical scenario: 1) I'm a long time miner who owns a massive wealth of Bitcoins. 2) I fund some developers to create a hardfork. 3) I dedicate a small percentage of my mining power to prop up the new coin. 4) Coinbase adds support for the new coin. 5) I deposit all my new split coins at Coinbase, trade for BTC, and withdraw BTC. 6) Using the rest of my mining power I then reverse the depositing transactions to Coinbase by double spending. 7) Profit. I think it's positively absurd that _any_ exchange is supporting BCH. But to each their own peril.
  • QML 9y ago
    6) says that coins with smaller mining pools are more susceptible to double spending attacks correct?
    • celticninja 9y ago
      Yes, since it is easier to gain 51% of the available mining power. that's why coins live or die by miner adoption.
  • amingilani 9y ago
    It would take a lot of computing power to reverse (at least) 6 blocks worth of transactions.
    • fpgaminer 9y ago
      No, it just takes a miner with >51% mining power. Any of the big pools could do it without flinching.
      • amingilani 9y ago
        Not really, if someone had the insane power of 60% mining power, the probability of mining 6 consecutive blocks would still be 0.60^6 only ~4.67%, but this falls exponentially, so if they wait a few more minutes and have to reverse one more block, that's 2.8% It's just very unlikely this could work. Possible, but very unlikely. Edit: Also, if you have a very large amount of coins, you probably want to sell it off slowly, instead of tanking the market in one go. This makes it even more difficult since if you're caught reversing the first few transactions, your account will be flagged.
• makomk 9y ago
  The original design of Bitcoin Cash would have required active work by Coinbase to ensure they could later distribute balances that accrued at the time of the fork and that some of the coins wouldn't accidentally be transferred along with the corresponding bitcoins. It was changed a few days before the fork so that all they had to do to ensure they could make that promise was to do nothing.
• noddy1 9y ago
  Coinbase has a lot of issues - they need to raise more VC and hire some support temps to get through the current shitstorm. My biggest issue with Coinbase is that they claim insured wallets, but actually only insure the 2% of bitcoins stored in their hot wallets. Cold storage is uninsured. If their cold storage gets lost/stolen/hacked, all holders are going to lose 98% of bitcoins. That's not insurance.
• nebabyte 9y ago
  It's not particularly fascinating for anyone who's kept an eye out for Coinbase's business practices. Most people who've used or heard about using them during any sort of price fluctuations (transactions delayed until the dust settles, after which they "conveniently" made a loss or only a slight win even before fees) would not have been surprised and likely could have guessed that this is how they'd approach the fork. Pretending like you're "staying out of it" works 9 times out of 10 for businesses, but in this case it's pretty transparent that they're banking on the ignorance/apathy of users who decide to leave their funds with CB despite warnings so that CB can trade or even pocket the BCH and profit off of deciding based on future price information. I wouldn't be surprised to see them cross the line into out-and-out fraud someday. Until then, I'd keep my money somewhere else.