4 ms·

But why were you ever telling people to store anything on coinbase? That is downright terrible advice to be giving anyone. One of Bitcoin's selling points is t

But why were you ever telling people to store anything on coinbase? That is downright terrible advice to be giving anyone. One of Bitcoin's selling points is that it's decentralized. By keeping coins in a cloud operated wallet that you don't fully control, you're willfully giving up control over your own wealth, and needlessly putting your coins at risk.

matt4077 9y ago
You're comparing coinbase to an idealised version of a private wallet–which doesn't exist. In reality, a lot of money was probably lost to hard drive failures and other human errors. We just never read about it in the news, because each individual case is too small to warrant news coverage.
- AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
  There are several reputable apps for both iOS and Android that provide secure, easy to use wallets, which do not centralize the storage of a user's coins whatsoever. I've told friends for years about Bread[0], a wallet app for both smartphone platforms that I've used before with great success. [0] https://breadapp.com/ https://breadapp.com/
  - ceejayoz 9y ago
    That's just changing the threat from "compromised exchange" to "compromised phone". I'd trust Coinbase to get it right before I'd trust the average Android phone not to be hacked. Only 0.5% of Android devices are running the latest OS. https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html# https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html#
    - edejong 9y ago
      It’s all about opportunity, risk and reward. Hack a phone and you win some bitcoins. Quickly patched. Hack an exchange and you’re rich beyond belief.
      - ceejayoz 9y ago
        You've left out "use an existing Android botnet to siphon off private keys in a way that's far less likely to attract law enforcement attention".
    - AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
      What are you talking about? This is not about the exchange being compromised at all. In any event, I don't think it's much more difficult to get your phone getting hacked than it is to get your Coinbase account hacked. That's not what this is about. This is about the cloud wallet service provider having the ability to basically do whatever it wants with your funds (including using them to pad their fractional reserves), charge you whatever fees it wants for whatever dumb reason they can think of, and do all the other things the banking system does today to peoples' wealth. If this is what you want to do with your Bitcoin, then you're better off putting your money into fiat because that's a system that was actually designed to be used in our current currency/banking scheme.
      - ceejayoz 9y ago
        > What are you talking about? This is not about the exchange being compromised at all. Yes, it is. The question is "which place to store your coins is riskier?" I'm of the opinion that a decently run exchange with a full security team in place is going to be better at managing security than virtually any individual attempting to do it at home. You, for example, suggested an Android app as a wallet, which seems to conflict with the best practice of storing wallets on an air-gapped offline system or on a dedicated hardware device.
        AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
        > The question is "which place to store your coins is riskier?" Where did you get that idea from? Not from my OP, that's for sure: > One of Bitcoin's selling points is that it's decentralized. By keeping coins in a cloud operated wallet that you don't fully control, you're willfully giving up control over your own wealth, and needlessly putting your coins at risk. Please, do not misrepresent my views. I do not have much of an opinion on the security of wallets, because I know that unless you go cold storage, any other wallet approach is about as safe as the one in your back pocket. You can't seem to stop injecting your own totally unrelated arguments and also seem to refuse to actually comprehend the complaint I aired in my OP. The concern I raised was one of centralization. The Bitcoin white paper is pretty explicit when it comes to explaining its rationale, and in fact mentions negating centralization in the very first sentence of the abstract[0]: > A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. [0]https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf So there's really no reason to continue to ignore what I am actually saying, because it's a valid concern that strikes at the core tenants of Bitcoin's intended use case. Your concern, on the other hand, is splitting hairs on a subject that does not at all address the actual, fundamental issue of using a Coinbase wallet. This has nothing to do with Coinbase the exchange, this is about the Coinbase service which offers wallets, to which they and only they control the private key.
ceejayoz 9y ago
It's pretty terrible advice to tell non-technical users to manage their own wallet. Keeping it secure is a non-trivial (understatement!) task.
- AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
  What kind of non-technical person is trying to buy and manage a bitcoin wallet in the first place? If the user is only willing to learn enough to keep the coins in Coinbase, then this person has no business dealing with Bitcoin at all.
  - ceejayoz 9y ago
    > What kind of non-technical person is trying to buy and manage a bitcoin wallet in the first place? I've had half a dozen non-technical friends ask me about getting into Bitcoin in the last month or so. Media attention, get-rich-quick, scams, etc. are all attracting hordes of people, to the point where the Coinbase app was #1 on the App Store for a while. Even the people running exchanges are getting hacked. What chance does a normal user have?
    - AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
      > If the user is only willing to learn enough to keep the coins in Coinbase, then this person has no business dealing with Bitcoin at all.
      - ceejayoz 9y ago
        "It's the financial system of the future!" "Only techies can use it!" Pick one.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        theseatoms 9y ago
        By 1950s standards, most Americans are "techies". We learn what we have to in order to survive in a given environment.

matt4077 9y ago

You're comparing coinbase to an idealised version of a private wallet–which doesn't exist. In reality, a lot of money was probably lost to hard drive failures and other human errors. We just never read about it in the news, because each individual case is too small to warrant news coverage.

AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
There are several reputable apps for both iOS and Android that provide secure, easy to use wallets, which do not centralize the storage of a user's coins whatsoever. I've told friends for years about Bread[0], a wallet app for both smartphone platforms that I've used before with great success. [0] https://breadapp.com/ https://breadapp.com/
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  That's just changing the threat from "compromised exchange" to "compromised phone". I'd trust Coinbase to get it right before I'd trust the average Android phone not to be hacked. Only 0.5% of Android devices are running the latest OS. https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html# https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html#
  - edejong 9y ago
    It’s all about opportunity, risk and reward. Hack a phone and you win some bitcoins. Quickly patched. Hack an exchange and you’re rich beyond belief.
    - ceejayoz 9y ago
      You've left out "use an existing Android botnet to siphon off private keys in a way that's far less likely to attract law enforcement attention".
  - AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
    What are you talking about? This is not about the exchange being compromised at all. In any event, I don't think it's much more difficult to get your phone getting hacked than it is to get your Coinbase account hacked. That's not what this is about. This is about the cloud wallet service provider having the ability to basically do whatever it wants with your funds (including using them to pad their fractional reserves), charge you whatever fees it wants for whatever dumb reason they can think of, and do all the other things the banking system does today to peoples' wealth. If this is what you want to do with your Bitcoin, then you're better off putting your money into fiat because that's a system that was actually designed to be used in our current currency/banking scheme.
    - ceejayoz 9y ago
      > What are you talking about? This is not about the exchange being compromised at all. Yes, it is. The question is "which place to store your coins is riskier?" I'm of the opinion that a decently run exchange with a full security team in place is going to be better at managing security than virtually any individual attempting to do it at home. You, for example, suggested an Android app as a wallet, which seems to conflict with the best practice of storing wallets on an air-gapped offline system or on a dedicated hardware device.
      - AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
        > The question is "which place to store your coins is riskier?" Where did you get that idea from? Not from my OP, that's for sure: > One of Bitcoin's selling points is that it's decentralized. By keeping coins in a cloud operated wallet that you don't fully control, you're willfully giving up control over your own wealth, and needlessly putting your coins at risk. Please, do not misrepresent my views. I do not have much of an opinion on the security of wallets, because I know that unless you go cold storage, any other wallet approach is about as safe as the one in your back pocket. You can't seem to stop injecting your own totally unrelated arguments and also seem to refuse to actually comprehend the complaint I aired in my OP. The concern I raised was one of centralization. The Bitcoin white paper is pretty explicit when it comes to explaining its rationale, and in fact mentions negating centralization in the very first sentence of the abstract[0]: > A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. [0]https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf So there's really no reason to continue to ignore what I am actually saying, because it's a valid concern that strikes at the core tenants of Bitcoin's intended use case. Your concern, on the other hand, is splitting hairs on a subject that does not at all address the actual, fundamental issue of using a Coinbase wallet. This has nothing to do with Coinbase the exchange, this is about the Coinbase service which offers wallets, to which they and only they control the private key.

ceejayoz 9y ago

It's pretty terrible advice to tell non-technical users to manage their own wallet. Keeping it secure is a non-trivial (understatement!) task.

AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
What kind of non-technical person is trying to buy and manage a bitcoin wallet in the first place? If the user is only willing to learn enough to keep the coins in Coinbase, then this person has no business dealing with Bitcoin at all.
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  > What kind of non-technical person is trying to buy and manage a bitcoin wallet in the first place? I've had half a dozen non-technical friends ask me about getting into Bitcoin in the last month or so. Media attention, get-rich-quick, scams, etc. are all attracting hordes of people, to the point where the Coinbase app was #1 on the App Store for a while. Even the people running exchanges are getting hacked. What chance does a normal user have?
  - AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
    > If the user is only willing to learn enough to keep the coins in Coinbase, then this person has no business dealing with Bitcoin at all.
    - ceejayoz 9y ago
      "It's the financial system of the future!" "Only techies can use it!" Pick one.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - theseatoms 9y ago
        By 1950s standards, most Americans are "techies". We learn what we have to in order to survive in a given environment.