9 ms·

Coinbase blocks WikiLeaks Shop

120 points by malvosenior 9y ago

m52go 9y ago
If you want full control, you've got to be in full control. But you can't do that if you delegate that control to a third party. That's the whole point of bitcoin. Instead of complaining, WikiLeaks can set up their own payment processing server and do away with Coinbase altogether. Can't do that with a bank account!
- mankash666 9y ago
  Or they can stop colluding with Russia under the pretext of freedom
  - corndoge 9y ago
    [citation needed]
  - vuln 9y ago
    > Or they can stop colluding with Russia under the pretext of freedom Could you provide a source? I'd love to know more.
    - Retroity 9y ago
      Don't worry guys, the DNC said so, so it must be true!
      - roywiggins 9y ago
        "It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is – a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia. In January of this year, our Intelligence Community determined that Russian military intelligence—the GRU—had used WikiLeaks to release data of US victims that the GRU had obtained through cyber operations against the Democratic National Committee. And the report also found that Russia’s primary propaganda outlet, RT, has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks." - Mike Pompeo, current CIA director and nominee for Secretary of State I'm all for skepticism of what people say, especially people in positions like CIA Director, but when a Republican CIA director agrees with the DNC about what happened, it seems not entirely unreasonable to give it some credence. He is in the absolutely perfect position to say otherwise, if he believed otherwise, and is in the perfect position to reevaluate the previous intelligence report. He's the director of the CIA! If he thinks there's evidence backing another narrative, he can just come out and say so.
        fareesh 9y ago
        Even if Satan himself proved he was real and aided Wikileaks by publishing true information, I'd be all for it. What's being suggested is that they selectively publish true information by not publishing certain things that don't suit a particular agenda. This accusation is being asserted without evidence, and can therefore be dismissed without evidence.
        jamespo 9y ago
        Indeed, just a coincidence since http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/11/01/russias-fsb-to-wikileaks-we-could-destroy-you/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/11/01/russias-fsb-to-wikileaks... wikileaks hasn't posted anything meaningful about Russia
        IncRnd 9y ago
        Pretty sure that wikileaks has disclosed information on Russia. Your link was from 2010, eight years ago. https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/russia/ https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/russia/
        darawk 9y ago
        > This accusation is being asserted without evidence, and can therefore be dismissed without evidence. What? There's plenty of evidence. Wikileaks consistently published information damaging to Hillary Clinton in the run-up to the election, and published zero information damaging to Trump.
        jarfil 9y ago
        Unless you can prove that WikiLeaks received some information damaging to Trump and then REFUSED to publish it, all you're saying is that nobody sent them such information.
        belorn 9y ago
        Assange intention has been rather clear after the statement Hillary gave as the Secretary of State during cablegate and the involvement of US diplomats in the Swedish investigation. I don't get it why people think that he is supposed to be unbiased in his view of her and trump. What is a normal reaction to be publicly declared a murderer and enemy combatant (with an implied statement to be droned) for publishing documents from people involved in the US military that wanted to give the public information? In the context of what he perceive she has done against him, what is the likeliest outcome if he comes into contact with damaging information and a request to publish it? "No thank you, only if you provide equally damaging information on her opponent or else it will look bad?".
    - thegeekpirate 9y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Allegations_of_Russian_influence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Allegations_of_Russi...
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    It's just so sad that you aren't going to get your war in Syria! This discussion is a microcosm of why: Wikileaks simply releases items of interest, while their competitors in the official Western media have to always worry about whether their reporting contributes to More War Always. Thus despite all the braying about Wikileaks' motives, the average thinking human automatically believes them more than the "Russia is teh devil" media firms.
- merinowool 9y ago
  But it is good to know what is coinbase's moral compass.
  - olfactory 9y ago
    Indeed. I’ll be moving my coins out ASAP now.
  - trumped 9y ago
    Coinbase has been fishy from the start... For example, I placed buy orders for some Bitcoins when they dropped sharply years ago (Coinbase just started at that time) and they canceled those orders after I placed them. Now what they do is that they bring the servers down when it happens. They did the same with Bitcoin Cash, or maybe worst... (see stories about when they first introduced bitcoin cash)
    - bhouston 9y ago
      Is coinbase becoming hegemonic over cryptocurrencies? So much for decentralization.
      - darawk 9y ago
        Not at all. There's plenty of alternatives to Coinbase: https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/volume/24-hour/ https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/volume/24-hour/
    - sp0rk 9y ago
      > Now what they do is that they bring the servers down when it happens. That's a pretty bold allegation. Do you have any evidence that this is the case.
      - trumped 9y ago
        No. It was just such a common occurrence that I could not come to a different conclusion. If you need many examples, look for Reddit threads that talk about Coinbase created right after Bitcoin dips.
- return1 9y ago
  how hard is it to create a payment gateway? open source projects?
  - m52go 9y ago
    Yes, for example, BTCPay Server: https://github.com/btcpayserver/btcpayserver https://github.com/btcpayserver/btcpayserver
matt4077 9y ago
Fun to see how bitcoin has come full circle in reinventing everything its cheerleaders initially railed against: fraud, then centralization, regulation, and now “censorship”. I guess the lesson here should be about the primacy of law, and how you won’t succeed in using technology to undermine it.
- olliej 9y ago
  The problem I suspect is that a are real company (eg incorporated legal presence - not dismissing other companies, just distinguishing them as things that have government identity), and so must abide by the laws set by their host country (USA), and the policies of banking corps, etc that they interact with. Assuming they need a bank (liquidity, etc) they need to follow their bank’s rules. Given all us banks hammering WL it would be unsurprising if they were pressured to do that. That said I despise Wikileaks for a number of reasons, but don’t feel like starting the firestorm that is arguing about them in a comment forum :)
- sp527 9y ago
  > I guess the lesson here should be about the primacy of law, and how you won’t succeed in using technology to undermine it. What? I think the lesson is that centralization and regulation are necessary to prevent undesirable outcomes amongst large groups of people. That's literally the reason we invented governments... Sure governments are fallible, but they're still a more effective tool in ensuring stability than most other paradigms we can think of (and certainly more so than anarchy).
- roywiggins 9y ago
  It's not really Bitcoin's fault that people are using Coinbase. But the fact is, there's always a price to decentralization. Centralized services are fast and can be cheaper! It's not a huge surprise that something that seems bulky and annoying to deal with has sprouted companies like Coinbase.
  - wybiral 9y ago
    How do you convert non-bitcoin currency into bitcoin without a trusted entity? If masses are expected to do so then there will likely be a sort of centralized "trusted few".
largehotcoffee 9y ago
I cannot recommend Coinbase at all. I operate an adult comic book publisher and they shutdown our account without notice and blamed the bank they work with (despite the fact that we were not converting our BTC to USD). All support tickets took weeks to get a reply and it was always unhelpful. For a company like ours the whole appeal of Bitcoin is the anonymity, so our readers don't have to worry about buying lewd comics and having it show up on their statements. Coinbase tarnishes what Bitcoin stands for and they do not protect artists/publishers. Do not use Coinbase.
- Zak 9y ago
  I had my personal account blocked from buying without explanation and customer service was a brick wall. They did answer, but refused to provide any explanation, recourse or escalation. Had they wanted additional verification of my identity, citizenship or ownership of my bank account, I was ready to provide it.
- return1 9y ago
  What is the use of coinbase? you can accept payments directly
  - maxpupmax 9y ago
    I think that the barrier to entry to accepting bitcoin or cryto payments in general directly can be fairly high, depending on the ecosystem. It's been intimidating to me. I'd love to see a collection of crypto tutorials to get started accepting payments and buying coins in any ecosystem. Maybe another commenter has a good source?
omgbananas 9y ago
https://globee.com/ https://globee.com/ accepts multiple cryptocurrencies and pays out in either fiat or Monero (the closest thing to digital cash there is). They are based in South Africa with different laws. Last year they went in 50/50 with the Monero community and worked on https://www.projectcoralreef.com/ https://www.projectcoralreef.com/ which is the implementation of many famous music artists accepting Monero in their online stores.
onetimemanytime 9y ago
Wikileaks, rightly or wrongly, has essentially been declared an enemy of USA. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cia-wikileaks/cia-chief-calls-wikileaks-a-hostile-intelligence-service-idUSKBN17F2L8 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cia-wikileaks/cia-chief-c... I do not blame Coinbase
- pera 9y ago
  Declared by whom? Your cited article says: > Pompeo, in an address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, called WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange “a fraud” and “a coward.” > “It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia,” Pompeo said. I wouldn't taken this particular statement as the official position of the whole U.S. Federal Government towards the Wikileaks organization.
  - onetimemanytime 9y ago
    The CIA director, a former Congressman and a Republican said that. I mean, you want to know what the Center for Disease Control and EPA think of Wikileaks?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
monochromatic 9y ago
Why do you even need a payment processor to accept money via BTC? Can't it be sent directly from one address to another?
- m52go 9y ago
  Yes but processing is useful for invoicing, e-commerce, etc.
pokemongoaway 9y ago
Exchanges like Coinbase are going to continue to lock themselves down. Then regulators are going to get into bed with their favorite companies. Then They're going to make love and use tax dollars to send guns to the exchanges that do not meet "sane requirements."
arcaster 9y ago
This is why we need decentralized exchanges... It was only a matter of time before Coinbase started acting like traditional payment processors / PayPal...

120 points by malvosenior 9y ago

If you want full control, you've got to be in full control. But you can't do that if you delegate that control to a third party. That's the whole point of bitcoin. Instead of complaining, WikiLeaks can set up their own payment processing server and do away with Coinbase altogether. Can't do that with a bank account!

mankash666 9y ago
Or they can stop colluding with Russia under the pretext of freedom
- corndoge 9y ago
  [citation needed]
- vuln 9y ago
  > Or they can stop colluding with Russia under the pretext of freedom Could you provide a source? I'd love to know more.
  - Retroity 9y ago
    Don't worry guys, the DNC said so, so it must be true!
    - roywiggins 9y ago
      "It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is – a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia. In January of this year, our Intelligence Community determined that Russian military intelligence—the GRU—had used WikiLeaks to release data of US victims that the GRU had obtained through cyber operations against the Democratic National Committee. And the report also found that Russia’s primary propaganda outlet, RT, has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks." - Mike Pompeo, current CIA director and nominee for Secretary of State I'm all for skepticism of what people say, especially people in positions like CIA Director, but when a Republican CIA director agrees with the DNC about what happened, it seems not entirely unreasonable to give it some credence. He is in the absolutely perfect position to say otherwise, if he believed otherwise, and is in the perfect position to reevaluate the previous intelligence report. He's the director of the CIA! If he thinks there's evidence backing another narrative, he can just come out and say so.
      - fareesh 9y ago
        Even if Satan himself proved he was real and aided Wikileaks by publishing true information, I'd be all for it. What's being suggested is that they selectively publish true information by not publishing certain things that don't suit a particular agenda. This accusation is being asserted without evidence, and can therefore be dismissed without evidence.
        jamespo 9y ago
        Indeed, just a coincidence since http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/11/01/russias-fsb-to-wikileaks-we-could-destroy-you/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2010/11/01/russias-fsb-to-wikileaks... wikileaks hasn't posted anything meaningful about Russia
        IncRnd 9y ago
        Pretty sure that wikileaks has disclosed information on Russia. Your link was from 2010, eight years ago. https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/russia/ https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/russia/
        darawk 9y ago
        > This accusation is being asserted without evidence, and can therefore be dismissed without evidence. What? There's plenty of evidence. Wikileaks consistently published information damaging to Hillary Clinton in the run-up to the election, and published zero information damaging to Trump.
        jarfil 9y ago
        Unless you can prove that WikiLeaks received some information damaging to Trump and then REFUSED to publish it, all you're saying is that nobody sent them such information.
        belorn 9y ago
        Assange intention has been rather clear after the statement Hillary gave as the Secretary of State during cablegate and the involvement of US diplomats in the Swedish investigation. I don't get it why people think that he is supposed to be unbiased in his view of her and trump. What is a normal reaction to be publicly declared a murderer and enemy combatant (with an implied statement to be droned) for publishing documents from people involved in the US military that wanted to give the public information? In the context of what he perceive she has done against him, what is the likeliest outcome if he comes into contact with damaging information and a request to publish it? "No thank you, only if you provide equally damaging information on her opponent or else it will look bad?".
  - thegeekpirate 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Allegations_of_Russian_influence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Allegations_of_Russi...
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- jessaustin 9y ago
  It's just so sad that you aren't going to get your war in Syria! This discussion is a microcosm of why: Wikileaks simply releases items of interest, while their competitors in the official Western media have to always worry about whether their reporting contributes to More War Always. Thus despite all the braying about Wikileaks' motives, the average thinking human automatically believes them more than the "Russia is teh devil" media firms.
merinowool 9y ago
But it is good to know what is coinbase's moral compass.
- olfactory 9y ago
  Indeed. I’ll be moving my coins out ASAP now.
- trumped 9y ago
  Coinbase has been fishy from the start... For example, I placed buy orders for some Bitcoins when they dropped sharply years ago (Coinbase just started at that time) and they canceled those orders after I placed them. Now what they do is that they bring the servers down when it happens. They did the same with Bitcoin Cash, or maybe worst... (see stories about when they first introduced bitcoin cash)
  - bhouston 9y ago
    Is coinbase becoming hegemonic over cryptocurrencies? So much for decentralization.
    - darawk 9y ago
      Not at all. There's plenty of alternatives to Coinbase: https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/volume/24-hour/ https://coinmarketcap.com/exchanges/volume/24-hour/
  - sp0rk 9y ago
    > Now what they do is that they bring the servers down when it happens. That's a pretty bold allegation. Do you have any evidence that this is the case.
    - trumped 9y ago
      No. It was just such a common occurrence that I could not come to a different conclusion. If you need many examples, look for Reddit threads that talk about Coinbase created right after Bitcoin dips.
return1 9y ago
how hard is it to create a payment gateway? open source projects?
- m52go 9y ago
  Yes, for example, BTCPay Server: https://github.com/btcpayserver/btcpayserver https://github.com/btcpayserver/btcpayserver

matt4077 9y ago

Fun to see how bitcoin has come full circle in reinventing everything its cheerleaders initially railed against: fraud, then centralization, regulation, and now “censorship”. I guess the lesson here should be about the primacy of law, and how you won’t succeed in using technology to undermine it.

olliej 9y ago
The problem I suspect is that a are real company (eg incorporated legal presence - not dismissing other companies, just distinguishing them as things that have government identity), and so must abide by the laws set by their host country (USA), and the policies of banking corps, etc that they interact with. Assuming they need a bank (liquidity, etc) they need to follow their bank’s rules. Given all us banks hammering WL it would be unsurprising if they were pressured to do that. That said I despise Wikileaks for a number of reasons, but don’t feel like starting the firestorm that is arguing about them in a comment forum :)
sp527 9y ago
> I guess the lesson here should be about the primacy of law, and how you won’t succeed in using technology to undermine it. What? I think the lesson is that centralization and regulation are necessary to prevent undesirable outcomes amongst large groups of people. That's literally the reason we invented governments... Sure governments are fallible, but they're still a more effective tool in ensuring stability than most other paradigms we can think of (and certainly more so than anarchy).
roywiggins 9y ago
It's not really Bitcoin's fault that people are using Coinbase. But the fact is, there's always a price to decentralization. Centralized services are fast and can be cheaper! It's not a huge surprise that something that seems bulky and annoying to deal with has sprouted companies like Coinbase.
- wybiral 9y ago
  How do you convert non-bitcoin currency into bitcoin without a trusted entity? If masses are expected to do so then there will likely be a sort of centralized "trusted few".

largehotcoffee 9y ago

I cannot recommend Coinbase at all. I operate an adult comic book publisher and they shutdown our account without notice and blamed the bank they work with (despite the fact that we were not converting our BTC to USD). All support tickets took weeks to get a reply and it was always unhelpful. For a company like ours the whole appeal of Bitcoin is the anonymity, so our readers don't have to worry about buying lewd comics and having it show up on their statements. Coinbase tarnishes what Bitcoin stands for and they do not protect artists/publishers. Do not use Coinbase.

Zak 9y ago
I had my personal account blocked from buying without explanation and customer service was a brick wall. They did answer, but refused to provide any explanation, recourse or escalation. Had they wanted additional verification of my identity, citizenship or ownership of my bank account, I was ready to provide it.
return1 9y ago
What is the use of coinbase? you can accept payments directly
- maxpupmax 9y ago
  I think that the barrier to entry to accepting bitcoin or cryto payments in general directly can be fairly high, depending on the ecosystem. It's been intimidating to me. I'd love to see a collection of crypto tutorials to get started accepting payments and buying coins in any ecosystem. Maybe another commenter has a good source?

omgbananas 9y ago

https://globee.com/ https://globee.com/ accepts multiple cryptocurrencies and pays out in either fiat or Monero (the closest thing to digital cash there is). They are based in South Africa with different laws. Last year they went in 50/50 with the Monero community and worked on https://www.projectcoralreef.com/ https://www.projectcoralreef.com/ which is the implementation of many famous music artists accepting Monero in their online stores.

onetimemanytime 9y ago

Wikileaks, rightly or wrongly, has essentially been declared an enemy of USA. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cia-wikileaks/cia-chief-calls-wikileaks-a-hostile-intelligence-service-idUSKBN17F2L8 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cia-wikileaks/cia-chief-c... I do not blame Coinbase

pera 9y ago
Declared by whom? Your cited article says: > Pompeo, in an address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, called WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange “a fraud” and “a coward.” > “It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia,” Pompeo said. I wouldn't taken this particular statement as the official position of the whole U.S. Federal Government towards the Wikileaks organization.
- onetimemanytime 9y ago
  The CIA director, a former Congressman and a Republican said that. I mean, you want to know what the Center for Disease Control and EPA think of Wikileaks?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

monochromatic 9y ago

Why do you even need a payment processor to accept money via BTC? Can't it be sent directly from one address to another?

m52go 9y ago
Yes but processing is useful for invoicing, e-commerce, etc.

pokemongoaway 9y ago

Exchanges like Coinbase are going to continue to lock themselves down. Then regulators are going to get into bed with their favorite companies. Then They're going to make love and use tax dollars to send guns to the exchanges that do not meet "sane requirements."

arcaster 9y ago

This is why we need decentralized exchanges... It was only a matter of time before Coinbase started acting like traditional payment processors / PayPal...