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This is fine if you want to sit on some Bitcoin as an investment, like literally have bitcoin sitting in your Coinbase wallet, but I’m not sure how great it is

This is fine if you want to sit on some Bitcoin as an investment, like literally have bitcoin sitting in your Coinbase wallet, but I’m not sure how great it is for anything else. You still can’t really buy bitcoin quickly on Coinbase and transfer it to a online poker site for example (directly, without raising possible issues). Now add JPMorgan into the mix.

sdan 6y ago
Afaik, bitcoin addresses are easily interchangeable, so you can make a unique one every-time someone transfers it to the poker site. So how can CB find out if you're using it on poker?
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  Maybe things have changed, but I recall Coinbase catching poker site transfers. Most people usually pull it out of Coinbase to another wallet and transfer from there to avoid any issues. But you sure as hell aren’t going to be able to transfer poker money into Coinbase and then dump it into your Chase account. At least I don’t think you can.
  - chii 6y ago
    doesn't this sort of financial restrictions kinda destroy the purpose of using bitcoins? Are they doing this to comply with regulations? Or is it a malicious chilling effect banks implement but still be seen as allowing for bitcoins?
    - runawaybottle 6y ago
      It’s probably as simple as online poker being in a legal gray area in America, unfortunately. I guess it follows that if you directly deposit from Chase to those sites, Chase would close you down too.
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  They have a list of suspicious addreses. If you attempt to transfer to one of those addresses they immediately close your account.
  - monokh 6y ago
    This might be true for a service with a basic setup of providing the same address for deposits. If they did it the right way, they would provide a unique address each time. Such a list of addresses is only known to the key holder unless they were to share it. https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawiki https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawi...
  - waste_monk 6y ago
    Do they e.g. stop you from transferring it to a new wallet, and then to a forbidden address? or rather, how many edges does the money have to traverse before it's no longer under their monitoring?
- treebornfrog 6y ago
  It looks like some exchanges and fiat-to-crypto on ramps are using chain analysis to track which addresses you are sending to (1). (1) https://twitter.com/RonaldMcHodled/status/1222172084610027523 https://twitter.com/RonaldMcHodled/status/122217208461002752...
  - cft 6y ago
    Trivial to evade: Just transfer to your own wallet (e.g. Electrum) then back to yourself (from Electrum to Electrum again), and then to the poker site. They won't be able to prove that the intermediary (second Electrum address) was you.
    - ur-whale 6y ago
      The example you give to try and evade coinbase checks is trivial to track, and the big US exchanges use chain analytics tech. to do this. Just try it, and you'll see what happens to your account. To do what you suggest is of course possible, but requires far more "exertion" than what you suggest and certainly more than the average user is technically capable of.
    - selsta 6y ago
      The amount of hops is irrelevant for blockchain analysis.
      - xur17 6y ago
        But they can't assume it's under your control indefinitely. If I buy some Bitcoin, and use it to pay for something online, the seller could sell it to someone else who uses it on a poker site. Am I responsible for their use?
        selsta 6y ago
        Are blockchain analysis companies able to detect what you are describing? Yes. Is it possible that exchanges say we ignore everything after n amount of hops? Also yes. It depends on what exchanges specify.
- wcoenen 6y ago
  > So how can CB find out if you're using it on poker? The poker site can generate independent addresses A1, A2, A3, ... to receive deposits. But then they also need to handle withdrawals. A withdrawal transaction might for example consume the amount in A1 plus part of the amount on A2, sending the leftover change to another new address. Now A1 and A2 have been observed to be under the control of the same entity. All addresses of the poker site can be linked together like this, by tracing the "taint" from a single known address. The poker site can try to split their addresses into subsets that are isolated from each other (selerate "wallets"), but then a blockchain analyst can simply keep doing deposits/withdrawals to find them all.
mianos 6y ago
If you are holding significant Bitcoin over a long period I don't think it's recommended to have it sitting in an exchange wallet. Most of the top tier exchanges have very good security these days but there is an extra risk as opposed to holding it on a paper or hardware wallet.
- ur-whale 6y ago
  > If you are holding significant Bitcoin over a long period I don't think it's recommended to have it sitting in an exchange wallet You are correct (not your keys, not your bitcoins), but the vast majority of Bitcoin purchasers these days are physically incapable of doing anything else given how complicated it is to properly manage your own private keys.
  - andy_ppp 6y ago
    Yes you could definitely make the argument that holding your own bitcoin wallet is less safe than having it on an exchange for 99% of users. I'd even count myself in that group.
Reelin 6y ago
> transfer it to a online poker site for example (directly, without raising possible issues) If we think of Bitcoin as an electronic cash equivalent, isn't this a bit like worrying that you can't get away with making a withdrawal at the counter followed by a purchase from your drug dealer on the sidewalk out front? What's far more concerning is the (even remote) possibility that any of the tracing services achieves technological success.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  Sure, but I guess my point is if you are not using Bitcoin to circumvent soft laws (online poker) or investing, every other use case just doesn’t make sense. You’re converting cash to coin and then back to cash, and it’s all tracked like a bank statement. What’s the general use case of that? I thought we were supposed to not have a central authority approving transactions?
  - GoblinSlayer 6y ago
    If you send coins to a cold wallet, you will be more or less free from approval, and even pseudonymous if you're careful.
ur-whale 6y ago
One of the early hope for Bitcoin was that Bitcoins would be 100% "fungible", as in : one coin is exactly like another. Unfortunately, because the Bitcoin blockchain is fully transparent (all transactions can be seen by everyone) that assumption has turned to be largely incorrect: where you coin comes from matters a great deal, and if it came from a suspicions source, it is "tainted". There are numerous effort to fix this gaping flaw (Monero, ZCash, the various mimblewible based coins, and even some efforts in that direction on the Bitcoin chain like coinjoin), but tracking where from an where to money flows on the Bitcoin chain is still very easy today. Coinbase is taking full advantage of that to rub the regulator the right way.

sdan 6y ago

Afaik, bitcoin addresses are easily interchangeable, so you can make a unique one every-time someone transfers it to the poker site. So how can CB find out if you're using it on poker?

runawaybottle 6y ago
Maybe things have changed, but I recall Coinbase catching poker site transfers. Most people usually pull it out of Coinbase to another wallet and transfer from there to avoid any issues. But you sure as hell aren’t going to be able to transfer poker money into Coinbase and then dump it into your Chase account. At least I don’t think you can.
- chii 6y ago
  doesn't this sort of financial restrictions kinda destroy the purpose of using bitcoins? Are they doing this to comply with regulations? Or is it a malicious chilling effect banks implement but still be seen as allowing for bitcoins?
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    It’s probably as simple as online poker being in a legal gray area in America, unfortunately. I guess it follows that if you directly deposit from Chase to those sites, Chase would close you down too.
ketamine__ 6y ago
They have a list of suspicious addreses. If you attempt to transfer to one of those addresses they immediately close your account.
- monokh 6y ago
  This might be true for a service with a basic setup of providing the same address for deposits. If they did it the right way, they would provide a unique address each time. Such a list of addresses is only known to the key holder unless they were to share it. https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawiki https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawi...
- waste_monk 6y ago
  Do they e.g. stop you from transferring it to a new wallet, and then to a forbidden address? or rather, how many edges does the money have to traverse before it's no longer under their monitoring?
treebornfrog 6y ago
It looks like some exchanges and fiat-to-crypto on ramps are using chain analysis to track which addresses you are sending to (1). (1) https://twitter.com/RonaldMcHodled/status/1222172084610027523 https://twitter.com/RonaldMcHodled/status/122217208461002752...
- cft 6y ago
  Trivial to evade: Just transfer to your own wallet (e.g. Electrum) then back to yourself (from Electrum to Electrum again), and then to the poker site. They won't be able to prove that the intermediary (second Electrum address) was you.
  - ur-whale 6y ago
    The example you give to try and evade coinbase checks is trivial to track, and the big US exchanges use chain analytics tech. to do this. Just try it, and you'll see what happens to your account. To do what you suggest is of course possible, but requires far more "exertion" than what you suggest and certainly more than the average user is technically capable of.
  - selsta 6y ago
    The amount of hops is irrelevant for blockchain analysis.
    - xur17 6y ago
      But they can't assume it's under your control indefinitely. If I buy some Bitcoin, and use it to pay for something online, the seller could sell it to someone else who uses it on a poker site. Am I responsible for their use?
      - selsta 6y ago
        Are blockchain analysis companies able to detect what you are describing? Yes. Is it possible that exchanges say we ignore everything after n amount of hops? Also yes. It depends on what exchanges specify.
wcoenen 6y ago
> So how can CB find out if you're using it on poker? The poker site can generate independent addresses A1, A2, A3, ... to receive deposits. But then they also need to handle withdrawals. A withdrawal transaction might for example consume the amount in A1 plus part of the amount on A2, sending the leftover change to another new address. Now A1 and A2 have been observed to be under the control of the same entity. All addresses of the poker site can be linked together like this, by tracing the "taint" from a single known address. The poker site can try to split their addresses into subsets that are isolated from each other (selerate "wallets"), but then a blockchain analyst can simply keep doing deposits/withdrawals to find them all.

mianos 6y ago

If you are holding significant Bitcoin over a long period I don't think it's recommended to have it sitting in an exchange wallet. Most of the top tier exchanges have very good security these days but there is an extra risk as opposed to holding it on a paper or hardware wallet.

ur-whale 6y ago
> If you are holding significant Bitcoin over a long period I don't think it's recommended to have it sitting in an exchange wallet You are correct (not your keys, not your bitcoins), but the vast majority of Bitcoin purchasers these days are physically incapable of doing anything else given how complicated it is to properly manage your own private keys.
- andy_ppp 6y ago
  Yes you could definitely make the argument that holding your own bitcoin wallet is less safe than having it on an exchange for 99% of users. I'd even count myself in that group.

Reelin 6y ago

> transfer it to a online poker site for example (directly, without raising possible issues) If we think of Bitcoin as an electronic cash equivalent, isn't this a bit like worrying that you can't get away with making a withdrawal at the counter followed by a purchase from your drug dealer on the sidewalk out front? What's far more concerning is the (even remote) possibility that any of the tracing services achieves technological success.

runawaybottle 6y ago
Sure, but I guess my point is if you are not using Bitcoin to circumvent soft laws (online poker) or investing, every other use case just doesn’t make sense. You’re converting cash to coin and then back to cash, and it’s all tracked like a bank statement. What’s the general use case of that? I thought we were supposed to not have a central authority approving transactions?
- GoblinSlayer 6y ago
  If you send coins to a cold wallet, you will be more or less free from approval, and even pseudonymous if you're careful.

ur-whale 6y ago

One of the early hope for Bitcoin was that Bitcoins would be 100% "fungible", as in : one coin is exactly like another. Unfortunately, because the Bitcoin blockchain is fully transparent (all transactions can be seen by everyone) that assumption has turned to be largely incorrect: where you coin comes from matters a great deal, and if it came from a suspicions source, it is "tainted". There are numerous effort to fix this gaping flaw (Monero, ZCash, the various mimblewible based coins, and even some efforts in that direction on the Bitcoin chain like coinjoin), but tracking where from an where to money flows on the Bitcoin chain is still very easy today. Coinbase is taking full advantage of that to rub the regulator the right way.