Bitcoin Forum

Users are starting a class action lawsuit against Coinbase so they can get their BCH. Anyone think this could result in Coinbase supporting BCH and allowing trading to open? Might be the easiest way to settle with these customers.

https://news.bitcoin.com/coinbase-customers-could-instigate-class-action-lawsuit-over-bitcoin-cash/

Im sorry but this is stupid. There are so many other exchanges/wallets that that they could easily transfer over their funds to and get their BCH, and on top of that they were given warnings well in advance and Coinbase stated their stance in the issue and that they had no plans on having BCH on their platform.

It's customers/users fault, because they've been told to move their bitcoin out of coinbase, and coinbase has sent an email to notify everyone who has an account. And it's clear statement from them, long before bcash split happen.
If you wish to have access to both BTC and BCC, please be sure to send your BTC off the platform by July 31.

Don't care about legal scholar who analogized the situation to a brokerage firm not giving stock splits to their customers.
It's entirely different if you have been warned.

I agree that it is stupid and the users had plenty of warning. I have a coinable account and was getting bombarded with emails of this nature for weeks before the fork. It is a mess, and I wonder if this really will wind up in the courts.

It could be a groundbreaking case in legal ownership of crypto assets.

It still doesn't seem like a very good move on Coinbase's part. Where is (was) the logic in not supporting BTC? It just seems way lame now & not a good way to keep customers

Im going to assume you mean BCH not BTC. The logic in it is that Coinbase and many other exchanges stated their positions on it. They do not support it as in they don't not believe in values or goal BCH is trying to achieve, and they voice their opinions by not putting it their exchanges.

The situation would be completely different if it were just another Altcoin or ICO, but it isnt. It's a direct fork off of the Bitcoin chain in an attempt to become the new BTC.

They have been warned days prior to the fork. And now they are complaining? They should have moved their coins to a exchange that put noticed to support BCC/BCH. Exchanges are un-regulated, so I don't think Coinbase is at fault at this.


Exactly. The stands is that it doesn't have the support of the majority, which is true by the way. And they would rather stick to bitcoin which is very clear from the beginning. Coinbase decided not to back bitcoin cash because "it is hard to predict how long the alternative version of bitcoin will survive."

no because this is propaganda started with bitcoin.com which is a Roger Ver thing to spread crap all over the media.
in fact if you bring that thing to court the judge will have a good laugh because it is total bullshit. Coinbase clearly announced they won't support bitcoin cash and give enough time for their users to withdraw if they are unhappy.

and besides you and the ones writing that article seem to have forgotten that when you are opening an account with a third party and click that little button called "i accept the ToS" you are giving up your rights to say things like this. your money is in their control and they can do with it whatever they want.

Coinbase was always a good wallet for me. But  with the fees and their handling with BCH took me away to another wallet. It may be coinbases politics against BCH, what is ok. But they should let custumers choose theirselves.

That's really ridiculous idea to think on. Crypto world is decentralisation system where there is no rule. You can not really force here to anyone to accept something if perform action which they don't like it.

 So simply we can say no it's not possible. Why would they.

I don't think the customers can force coinbase to list or accept bitcoin cash! Coinbase as a USA company has not break any know law on this and they sent message to all they user before August first splitting issue and you were warned to move your coins to another wallet.

Are you not get a notice about how the network of bitcoin cash right now? You are not able to make any transaction to the exchange site. So, your complaint will be useless, the decision will be in the coin base's hand. You can't do anything for that.

you just said a joke
BCC is nothing now.

Coinbase did warn and notify all of their users that they will not be supporting bitcoin cash few weeks before the split. Even sent emails to their users. If the users really wanted to get hold of their bitcoin cash, they should have transferred their bitcoins to another wallet where they had access their private keys. But people...

This is absurd. There could be millions of hard forks just like Bitcoin Cash. Exchanges can't possibly be expected to support them all, especially when there are threats of replay attacks and general network disruption. Hard forks break the rules of Bitcoin; they are not Bitcoin. I can't imagine a legitimate legal basis to say that an exchange owes you anything but your bitcoins on deposit.

Unlike others, BCH came up with initial good price but we don't have predictions on how longer users convene BCH. However it all depends on exchange price in market.
If BCH demads higher price, traders will defenitely buy and trade this coin. This process would need the mmersive exchangers.

yes you are right I meant BCH !
I do understand there is a philosophical divide here (for lack of a better way to phrase it..) -- and that makes sense up to the fork. I wonder though, now that it clearly exists & is being traded-- will exchanges be forced by the market--not a class action suit per se, just to be competitive-- to support it?

I don't think they need to be competitive in this case. Coinbase is one of the most (if not the most) popular exchange around right now. I feel as if they'd be looked down on if they compromised their beliefs for a few angry people.

I wouldn't be surprised though and I think it might be likely that this class action lawsuit is the plan of a few people with malicious intent, supported and backed by other people who are not knowledgeable enough and were told that they are entitled to money.

But regardless, I can see smaller exchanges adding BCH later simply so they can cash in on the trade fees if they haven't done so already, but Coinbase will be fine without it.

Even if they were legally obliged to allow their customers to withdraw their BCH, they still couldn't force Coinbase to support BCH trading. It's up to Coinbase which currency to trade and which not. You can't coerce a business to sell a product they don't see fit.

you can not make any transfer with BCC, how do you say coinbase? coinbase doesn't busy with shitcoin.

Exactly. Now complaining to Coinbase because they didn't get their BCC although prior to August 1st there are official announcement, not just in Coinbase but on other exchanges too. See how lazy other people are.

Even they will support BCC, I think no way people can redeem their respective BCC. The announcement is clear. Those people who are complaining must understand this.

This might be true, but Polo for instance changed the TOS and one of the most important changes was specifically to state they reserved the right to support or not forks... This change took place a few days before Aug 1st, so someone is wanting to avoid this kind of hassle...

I suppose they would support it, they were supporters of eger, they would have to pay extra costs, they did not give me a private key when I wanted it, so I left out the usage altogether.

Indeed, coinbase has decided to not support bitcoin cash as it may has some problems and it has been proven so far. Even for some big exchanges still halt bcash transactions due to unstable or whatever with this new altcoin. And there is a news about coinbase plans to allow bitcoin cash withdrawals in January 2018, so all of them who demand for it will be happy, or at least.
Bitcoin exchange Coinbase has reversed its decision to support bitcoin cash. The company now plans to allow customers to withdraw their new cryptocurrency by January 1, 2018.
https://news.bitcoin.com/coinbase-bitcoin-cash-withdrawals-january-2018/

Wow, that's big news. So it sounds like Coinbase will support trading and I assume others will be able to buy/sell/transfer BCH in Jan 2018.

For now it's only withdraw not buy/sell at coinbase itself.
Who knows what will be the price of BCH by Jan 2018 though.

People are butthurt after seeing the gains created out of thin air on Bitfinex and Bittrex. Seems that Coinbase has given in (just like with ETC) and will pay out customer BCH eventually. Apparently this is now slated for January 2018.

Legally, I really don't think they are obligated to do that. This is just a PR move after seeing how other exchanges treated the situation, and after receiving endless complaints from customers.

I don't think coinbase can be force to support bitcoin Cash. I also read on reddit that coinbase has issue out statement that probably by January 2018 they will support bitcoin Cash! Now is the best time to buy and hold bitcoin Cash till January 2018 and sold.

Its funny that they say will release the coin on January 1st cause the coin could quite possibly be completely useless by then. It'll be interesting to see how it changes till then.

True.  In the meantime, they can have fun and incessantly manipulate the market with their holdings or something.

I wouldn't care if I were holding in Coinbase.  I'm planning to HODL my BCH until the next big pump, so I haven't sold.
When you made your post, the network was fine.  As of this post, 58 block have been mined on the Bitcoin Cash chain (https://cash.coin.dance/blocks).  Most exchanges are now allowing deposits and withdrawals, albeit with several confirmations.

this has got ethereum classic written all over it.

initial instability --> difficulty adjustment, profitable mining --> initial dump from ETH (BTC) holders --> accumulation --> pump

and if ETC is anything to go by it's not going to be dead, either. the question is, where will the value come from to hold up BCH in this case? either Bitcoin's network, or a whole lot of new crypto money...

Coinbase and GDAX already changed their minds. Today, they just announced that they are working on supporting Bitcoin cash on January 01, 2018.

Here's the link: https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@cryptowarrior88/headlines-for-the-world-of-cryptocurrencies-august-4-2017

It's the perfect move. By giving a definite deadline for allowing withdrawal no court will even think about making a case out of it. January 1st may be an eternity and in the crypto world, but it's the blink of an eye in the legal system. In addition they don't have to entirely give in to coercion while also not having to resort to "stealing" user's BCH. Not bad.

I wonder though why some BCH supporters are so keen on getting their coins out sooner? I mean BCH is a long term investment, no? They would hodl anyway, yes?

Nope, most people believe it will crash and they want to get it asap to sell it

Yes, I also read the news that Coinbase has changed its mind in the past few days, they will support Bitcoin Cash. I have a Coinbase account and they have emailed the situation to me. They say that both Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash remain safely stored on Coinbase, customers with balances of bitcoin at the time of the fork now have an equal quantity of bitcoin cash stored by Coinbase. I think they have encountered a heated argument so decided to consider, refer from the customer. I do not know if this information is true or not but I still hope they will officially support Bitcoin Cash

I see what you are saying. But my point is this-- for every customer of Coinbases who holds Bitcoin & didn't get it moved before 8/1-- the value of their wallet just went down (since value was split in the creation of BCH) from what it was before.

AND, they continue to miss out on the BCH portion of those original bitcoin they didn't get.

To a more experienced trader, of course, this would have been a conscious choice in supporting/not supporting the hard fork, so they aren't going to hold that against coinbase, and may even support/admire them for their stance.

But to the new trader--which i think is probably a fair portion of coinbase's customers (and why Coinbase has become such a popular exchange)-- it's much more likely not to be the case, and while those new investors may have supported Coinbase's conservative stance before the split (appreciating safety and the impulse toward stability--which, at least now,  is how Coinbase is characterizing things)--- post 8/1, what those investors are seeing is just a devalued digital wallet and a missed opportunity at ongoing wealth creation.

While a class action suit seems unlikely at best, I can't imagine that reality wouldn't lose Coinbase some percentage of users, and (perhaps more importantly) leave a lingering impression for future new investors (which, practically speaking, is going to be many more than there are now--so that is the true market for Coinbase's, or any other exchange's, growth).

So-- to support or not support?

The news now seems to be that Coinbase will support BCH. Which I guess also suggests that consensus/shared principles are not the only means for initiating a whole new hard fork. This is more like a blitzkrieg style coup for seizing power and forcing change in a certain direction. And it seems to have worked?

or do i have something wrong in the above?

The information is true, since we received an official email from coinbase. They are taking their time to  make sure everything is safe for adding BCC to their service, but i don't know why it will take them more than four months to do so. BCC might die or be less valuable by then.

Coinbase has been forced!  ;D

It is good to see that coinbase finally approving bitcoin cash and informing that they will be credited everyone who stored their coins during the fork,it is a complete turn of events from what they said earlier,they might have felt that they will be loosing customers if they stood by their first decision and might face legal charges if people go after them,it will hurt their pockets if that happens and so is the reason they changed their decision.

Well, they've been forced (from a PR perspective) to give people Bcash based on customer bitcoins stored with their service. But that doesn't mean they will necessarily add markets for it. Coinbase is very slow to add new coins. They've also given themselves a lot of time (5+ months) to see how the market reacts in general, decide whether it's worth it to add markets (fees generated and user demand vs. resource usage and image), and carefully implement proper wallet protocol for the new coin (and exchange infrastructure if they do decide to add markets).

How you can say that it is totally useless because it's fair to make you say that. Because no one coin is useless because every coin having worth because now a days the future is known for crpyto world. Because now future is in the hands of crypto world so i would like to say that respect is the best world for crypto world and their coins.

I don't think so. There's been ample notifications way before aug1 for coinbase users that if they want bcc, transfer their bitcoins to other wallets that supports bcc. Coinbase isn't the only exchange wallet and users were given options. If they don't want to support bcc, then won't

Absolutely,if coin base had not given notification,then legal actions could be taken against coin base.But they had already announced that they would not support BCC and if their customers need BCC,then they would have to withdraw their bitcoins and store them in separate wallets to claim BCC.So nothing could be done.

At this point, I think the will of the people have been supported even though I think Coinbase does not have any responsiblity but we are way past that now and the next is what I will refer to as Zero sum game where the outcome on January 1st will be at Coinbase disadvantage for caving in the first place because if the price of BCH should increase more than what it was as at 1st of August, then they will be paying more and if the value has gone down, I am sure they will be paying as well for delaying up to that length before crediting their customers.