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Turmoil at Coinbase has hit the company's efforts to secure its Bitcoins

11 points by CPLX 6y ago

aazaa 6y ago
> Among the people who resigned this fall - to protest new internal policies - were 4 of the 7 people on the most critical security team, the "key management team," sources told me. > The "key management team" is responsible for securing the cryptographic keys to Coinbase's cold wallets, where most of the company's crypto tokens are held -- somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 billion I was told. Bitcoin's history is littered with exchanges that self-destructed over one kind of problem or another with keys. If true, the reports are very concerning. Contrary to popular misconception, users of Coinbase are NOT insured for losses of funds resulting from loss or compromise of Coinbase's cold storage keys. Should something happen to the keys, Coinbase users will have no recourse for getting back the bitcoin lost on the exchange.
panarky 6y ago
"to protest the new no-politics policy that the company's CEO, Brian Armstrong, put out in September" There's nothing more central to Coinbase's mission than securing the $30b worth of cryptoassets that they custody. So it's oddly appropriate if more than half of the team responsible for the most critical part of their mission resigned to protest Armstrong's new "mission focused" policies.
- disruptalot 6y ago
  I find it odd from the opposite perspective. Why did the most clearly mission critical team in the company find social issues more appropriate at work than their job at hand? Surely if you could pick a single team who's work area doesn't have any relation to politics, it would be this one?
  - panarky 6y ago
    Turns out if management ignores what high-talent employees think is important, those high-talent employees just switch to an employer that doesn't ignore them. The free market at its best.
  - bishnu 6y ago
    If you've devoted yourself to a novel anarchist monetary project, I would imagine you might see your job as political regardless of which aspect you worked on.

11 points by CPLX 6y ago

> Among the people who resigned this fall - to protest new internal policies - were 4 of the 7 people on the most critical security team, the "key management team," sources told me. > The "key management team" is responsible for securing the cryptographic keys to Coinbase's cold wallets, where most of the company's crypto tokens are held -- somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 billion I was told. Bitcoin's history is littered with exchanges that self-destructed over one kind of problem or another with keys. If true, the reports are very concerning. Contrary to popular misconception, users of Coinbase are NOT insured for losses of funds resulting from loss or compromise of Coinbase's cold storage keys. Should something happen to the keys, Coinbase users will have no recourse for getting back the bitcoin lost on the exchange.

panarky 6y ago

"to protest the new no-politics policy that the company's CEO, Brian Armstrong, put out in September" There's nothing more central to Coinbase's mission than securing the $30b worth of cryptoassets that they custody. So it's oddly appropriate if more than half of the team responsible for the most critical part of their mission resigned to protest Armstrong's new "mission focused" policies.

disruptalot 6y ago
I find it odd from the opposite perspective. Why did the most clearly mission critical team in the company find social issues more appropriate at work than their job at hand? Surely if you could pick a single team who's work area doesn't have any relation to politics, it would be this one?
- panarky 6y ago
  Turns out if management ignores what high-talent employees think is important, those high-talent employees just switch to an employer that doesn't ignore them. The free market at its best.
- bishnu 6y ago
  If you've devoted yourself to a novel anarchist monetary project, I would imagine you might see your job as political regardless of which aspect you worked on.