Bitcoin Forum

https://cointelegraph.com/news/wikileaks-shop-reports-suspension-of-coinbase-account-due-to-terms-of-service-violation

This is a really weird story. I can't believe Wikileaks is still using a centralised service considering their own history of shutdowns as if they expected Coinbase to be any different to Paypal.

And I also thought Putin was paying the bills anyway these days.

Putin?  I think you're mixing up your whistle blowers......

But yeah, screw coinbase.

That's what one half of the media are telling you. Have you noticed how the other half (as well as the ostensibly independent Wikileaks themselves) are also parroting a different story in unison?

What's the evidence for any of these 2 polarised views? Have you seen any evidence, or are you just blindly repeating what you heard from one bias?


It is a weird story, that's a fact.

Wikileaks are just 1 of several significant organisations well known on the world stage that don't seem to get called out by the media for being so strangely inept. It's very difficult to believe that they're essentially an independent intelligence agency that are incapable of conducting very basic due diligence about financial institutions they deal with. They should by now understand the finance industry even if they didn't in 2010/11 (the last time Wikileaks had their fingers burned, which led to them Bitcoin adoption in the first place).

And this implies something else; I was led to believe that Wikileaks was based in Iceland. How did their Coinbase account help them in that region? I'm pretty sure there is no BTC exchange handling Icelandic Kroner. How can they possibly ever get any money from their Coinbase account to fund the actual organisation in Iceland?

Coinbase is a part of the status quo.They are too big and  have a lot to lose,if they don`t play by the regulatory rules.I thought that Wikileaks is a non-profit organization,why would they have a shop?
Putin won`t pay the bills,unless he has any benefit from Wikileaks,and Wikileaks is practically dead for almost one year.The aren`t  any breaking news about them,they don`t make "shocking" discoveries anymore.

All non-profit organizations need funds to keep afloat, shops & donations are simply a way of raising them, it's common practice. Wikileaks don't make "shocking discoveries" per say, they publish that which is given to them once the sources are confirmed. Once they publish, other more mainstream outlets do the same. It's called journalism with balls for the common good.

Daft to use Coinbase though.

Even if Russia or any other actors are funding them, they still need to accept donations or raise funds through other public means just to keep looking like an independent organization.

Many people are wondering why Wikileaks were using centralized service, well the answer is simple, it's why many of us use them - it's just very convenient and less risky than some other methods.

There's nothing "convenient and less risky" about having your funds frozen or blocked. People need to realize that the most "convenient and less risky" method is to use it as it was intended & designed for - by using your own wallet locally. All remote online wallets are a danger & a risk, as this clearly demonstrates. Anything centralized should be avoided.

This concerns a smaller fraction of the crowd. As long as 8 out of 10 sheeples don't experience any serious consequences of making use of centralized exchanges, they won't bother to switch. The only thing they care about is having the coins in their account so they can unload them at any time, or transfer it to another user instantly and for free through the same platform.

Can't agree more, but we can't do anything about it as long as people don't bother to care about the underlying problem of centralized platforms. It's always action = reaction. If people personally don't experience any problems when using an exchange or online wallet platforms, they won't see anything dangerous in it. People must either have their accounts blocked, or lose funds in order to wake up, that's always how things go, and even then, certain people will keep making the same mistake. Bitfinex is the perfect example of how an exchange not deserving to exist today, has managed to regain its dominance within this market.