4 ms·

This is nothing against Coinbase or other centralized wallet services for that matter, but Coinbase is practically being forced to ask their users for a blood s

This is nothing against Coinbase or other centralized wallet services for that matter, but Coinbase is practically being forced to ask their users for a blood sample during user verification these days. This level of user verification, necessitated by KYC, AML policies and so on, is extremely burdensome for end users. In fact, I've heard Coinbase is now requiring their users to declare exactly _where_ bitcoins are to be sent when a withdrawal request is made. Furthermore, Coinbase is having to shut down customer accounts that are known to be associated with online gambling. Native wallets don't come with these "features". That's the benefit of being in control of your own money.

aaron-lebo 12y ago
You are right, but if Bitcoin ever goes mainstream that kind of regulation that impacts both services and users is going to happen. It never was going to overthrow the flank the financial system like some people hoped. If Bitcoin ends up relegated to native wallets it probably will look like TOR - something that tech savvy people can use for certain activities, but not something that really caught on in widespread use. Being able to be in control of your own money is great, if you can do it, but I tend to think most people don't want or can't handle that level of responsibility. Kind of at the heart of Bitcoin is a very libertarian philosophy on life and government. Our political system shows us that the vast majority of people aren't looking for that, and by extension, it probably applies to financial matters as well.