3 ms·
As somebody who doesn't have a background in finance, what are the legal obligations of an exchange to stay online? How can a user of the service be certain tha
by shiado 9y ago
As somebody who doesn't have a background in finance, what are the legal obligations of an exchange to stay online? How can a user of the service be certain that an exchange is offline for technical or non-technical reasons? Let's imagine the likely scenario when the price suddenly drops like a rock and the exchange goes offline completely (for technical or non-technical reason). Could a user make a claim that Coinbase is liable for their losses because they were unable to access their coins?
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoIn this case, it's completely up in the air - bitcoin isn't an official financial product, doesn't fall under any formal juristiction, etc. At best any gains get taxed now, but besides that, exchanges can't give any guarantees about uptime or e.g. getting your money back if they're not available.
- gamblor956 9y agoA financial institution has fiduciary obligations to its clients to maintain the assets (here, the Bitcoin, ether, etc.) entrusted to them. However, financial institutions are not currently obligated to maintain their clients' ability to transact those assets, let alone within a specific time-frame. Many people have sued their brokerages for not letting them sell stock in a timely fashion to take advantage of price changes; essentially all of them have lost or settled for pennies on the dollar.
- stef25 9y agoI'm expecting this all to go wrong, up to the point that I'll just let my coins ride it all out. The first gamble is bitcoin, the second gamble is the exchanges.