Why is everyone so gullible?

[Bit_Happy]

Well gox didn't fool me, I stopped using gox from June 2011, when they lost their entire customer DB with passwords. The best decision I've ever made.

Congrats on your good, clear thinking about Gox. Back then we had no other choice with decent volume.
I was glad when Gox came back, and my confidence in "them" was probably the worst advice I ever offered in public....sorry.

[kokojie]

Well gox didn't fool me, I stopped using gox from June 2011, when they lost their entire customer DB with passwords. The best decision I've ever made.

Congrats on your good, clear thinking about Gox. Back then we had no other choice with decent volume.
I was glad when Gox came back, and my confidence in "them" was probably the worst advice I ever offered in public....sorry.

Yes it was a difficult time, but since Bitcoin price went down hard at that time, I had no desire to buy or sell, so I just kept my stash, and stopped trading all together. Until Coinbase came along, and made it easy for people in the US.

[DannyHamilton]

Until Coinbase came along, and made it easy for people in the US.

So how long before they begin engaging in fractional reserve?

If they are hacked and lose a significant portion of the bitcoins that they hold, will they make the information public?

How can you be certain that nobody in the entire company will ever disappear taking a substantial percentage of the funds along with them.

I understand that many people trust them, the question I have is: "What makes them more trustworthy than MtGox?"

[kokojie]

Until Coinbase came along, and made it easy for people in the US.

So how long before they begin engaging in fractional reserve?

If they are hacked and lose a significant portion of the bitcoins that they hold, will they make the information public?

How can you be certain that nobody in the entire company will ever disappear taking a substantial percentage of the funds along with them.

I understand that many people trust them, the question I have is: "What makes them more trustworthy than MtGox?"

They literally can't engage in fractional reserve, unless people use Coinbase as a wallet. If people use it like how I use it, they can't do fractional reserve.

When I sell Bitcoin on coinbase, the money directly goes to my bank account in a few days. Coinbase has no withdrawal fees on Bitcoin withdrawal, also Coinbase does not offer limit orders, so there's zero reason to keep your coins there. For fiat, you literally can't keep fiat in coinbase, it always has to be in your bank account.

As for trustworthiness, being a US company founded by financial industry veterans, and multiple high profile VC backing, seems pretty trustworthy to me, to handle my money for a few days per transaction. Also their cold storage has been audited by trusted 3rd party.

[DannyHamilton]

Until Coinbase came along, and made it easy for people in the US.

So how long before they begin engaging in fractional reserve?

If they are hacked and lose a significant portion of the bitcoins that they hold, will they make the information public?

How can you be certain that nobody in the entire company will ever disappear taking a substantial percentage of the funds along with them.

I understand that many people trust them, the question I have is: "What makes them more trustworthy than MtGox?"

They literally can't engage in fractional reserve, unless people use Coinbase as a wallet. If people use it like how I use it, they can't do fractional reserve.

You mean like the way people used MtGox as a wallet?

Doesn't Coinbase encourage people to use them as a wallet? I recently made a purchase from a merchant that uses Coinbase to process transactions.  The merchant was unable to deliver and processed the refund through Coinbase.  Coinbase required me to set up a wallet with them to claim my refund.

How long until they start offering off-blockchain transactions between Coinbase wallet users for micro-transactions and instant transfer?

When I sell Bitcoin on coinbase, the money directly goes to my bank account in a few days. Coinbase has no withdrawal fees on Bitcoin withdrawal, also Coinbase does not offer limit orders, so there's zero reason to keep your coins there.

People choose to keep their bitcoins there for convenience if they trust them.  Perhaps you'll start to see that "directly to my bank account in a few days" grow to "several days", and then "a week", and then "a few weeks".  Didn't MtGox eventually encounter delays with withdrawals?

As for trustworthiness, being a US company founded by financial industry veterans, and multiple high profile VC backing, seems pretty trustworthy to me,

Right.  Just like Enron, the entire banking industry leading up to 2007, and Arthur Andersen.

Also their cold storage has been audited by trusted 3rd party.

Interesting.  I guess I hadn't kept up on the news about this.  Can you provide a link?  I'd like to read about it and understand what steps they've taken.

[kokojie]

Until Coinbase came along, and made it easy for people in the US.

So how long before they begin engaging in fractional reserve?

If they are hacked and lose a significant portion of the bitcoins that they hold, will they make the information public?

How can you be certain that nobody in the entire company will ever disappear taking a substantial percentage of the funds along with them.

I understand that many people trust them, the question I have is: "What makes them more trustworthy than MtGox?"

They literally can't engage in fractional reserve, unless people use Coinbase as a wallet. If people use it like how I use it, they can't do fractional reserve.

You mean like the way people used MtGox as a wallet?

Doesn't Coinbase encourage people to use them as a wallet? I recently made a purchase from a merchant that uses Coinbase to process transactions.  The merchant was unable to deliver and processed the refund through Coinbase.  Coinbase required me to set up a wallet with them to claim my refund.

How long until they start offering off-blockchain transactions between Coinbase wallet users for micro-transactions and instant transfer?

When I sell Bitcoin on coinbase, the money directly goes to my bank account in a few days. Coinbase has no withdrawal fees on Bitcoin withdrawal, also Coinbase does not offer limit orders, so there's zero reason to keep your coins there.

People choose to keep their bitcoins there for convenience if they trust them.  Perhaps you'll start to see that "directly to my bank account in a few days" grow to "several days", and then "a week", and then "a few weeks".  Didn't MtGox eventually encounter delays with withdrawals?

As for trustworthiness, being a US company founded by financial industry veterans, and multiple high profile VC backing, seems pretty trustworthy to me,

Right.  Just like Enron, the entire banking industry leading up to 2007, and Arthur Andersen.

Also their cold storage has been audited by trusted 3rd party.

Interesting.  I guess I hadn't kept up on the news about this.  Can you provide a link?  I'd like to read about it and understand what steps they've taken.

Audit is here: http://antonopoulos.com/2014/02/25/coinbase-review/

You don't seem to understand Coinbase's paradigm, it's fundamentally different from mtgox. Mtgox has never offered direct buy/sell from bank account with PRICE LOCKING, you are lucky to fund/withdraw your money in a week, at best, with fees, and the price is probably changed significantly when you actually get your money into your account. So usually you just keep your fiat in mtgox if you don't want to pay lots of fees and experience lots of delays and price swings.

Coinbase does not even allow you to keep fiat in your coinbase account, all buy/sell must be done from your bank account. You can only keep Bitcoin in coinbase, you could use coinbase as a wallet for storage, that's up to you, I don't. Coinbase works just the same without using them as a wallet.

[greenlion]

People are not gullible simply because they are willing to accept higher levels of risk than you are. The tone of this overall conversation seems to suggest that there is some objective rationally-derived level of risk acceptance that acts as a cutoff for being a moron, and somehow whoever the poster is gets to be the arbiter of that cutoff.

This is very reminiscent of some very basic interpersonal cognitive bias, whereby in hindsight we tend to interpret bad outcomes for somebody else strictly to stupidity rather than bad luck.

[beetcoin]

People are not gullible simply because they are willing to accept higher levels of risk than you are. The tone of this overall conversation seems to suggest that there is some objective rationally-derived level of risk acceptance that acts as a cutoff for being a moron, and somehow whoever the poster is gets to be the arbiter of that cutoff.

This is very reminiscent of some very basic interpersonal cognitive bias, whereby in hindsight we tend to interpret bad outcomes for somebody else strictly to stupidity rather than bad luck.

well, i'd have to say that the title of this thread is kind of cringey, but with mtgox.. the writing was on the wall, and yet people still continued to trade on there. it might be that people just weren't keeping themselves updated on mtgox's reputation.. and that kinda is on them.

[redhawk979]

Until Coinbase came along, and made it easy for people in the US.

So how long before they begin engaging in fractional reserve?

If they are hacked and lose a significant portion of the bitcoins that they hold, will they make the information public?

How can you be certain that nobody in the entire company will ever disappear taking a substantial percentage of the funds along with them.

I understand that many people trust them, the question I have is: "What makes them more trustworthy than MtGox?"

They literally can't engage in fractional reserve, unless people use Coinbase as a wallet. If people use it like how I use it, they can't do fractional reserve.

You mean like the way people used MtGox as a wallet?

Doesn't Coinbase encourage people to use them as a wallet? I recently made a purchase from a merchant that uses Coinbase to process transactions.  The merchant was unable to deliver and processed the refund through Coinbase.  Coinbase required me to set up a wallet with them to claim my refund.

How long until they start offering off-blockchain transactions between Coinbase wallet users for micro-transactions and instant transfer?

When I sell Bitcoin on coinbase, the money directly goes to my bank account in a few days. Coinbase has no withdrawal fees on Bitcoin withdrawal, also Coinbase does not offer limit orders, so there's zero reason to keep your coins there.

People choose to keep their bitcoins there for convenience if they trust them.  Perhaps you'll start to see that "directly to my bank account in a few days" grow to "several days", and then "a week", and then "a few weeks".  Didn't MtGox eventually encounter delays with withdrawals?

As for trustworthiness, being a US company founded by financial industry veterans, and multiple high profile VC backing, seems pretty trustworthy to me,

Right.  Just like Enron, the entire banking industry leading up to 2007, and Arthur Andersen.

Also their cold storage has been audited by trusted 3rd party.

Interesting.  I guess I hadn't kept up on the news about this.  Can you provide a link?  I'd like to read about it and understand what steps they've taken.

Audit is here: http://antonopoulos.com/2014/02/25/coinbase-review/

You don't seem to understand Coinbase's paradigm, it's fundamentally different from mtgox. Mtgox has never offered direct buy/sell from bank account with PRICE LOCKING, you are lucky to fund/withdraw your money in a week, at best, with fees, and the price is probably changed significantly when you actually get your money into your account. So usually you just keep your fiat in mtgox if you don't want to pay lots of fees and experience lots of delays and price swings.

Coinbase does not even allow you to keep fiat in your coinbase account, all buy/sell must be done from your bank account. You can only keep Bitcoin in coinbase, you could use coinbase as a wallet for storage, that's up to you, I don't. Coinbase works just the same without using them as a wallet.

Oh yes, everyone should feel much better after Andreas looked at it. Its not like there has been a string of disasters where he "consults".

[Beliathon]

*Of course, some 'radicals' want to totally ignore fiat, but the world isn't ready for that yet.

As with all progress, the world will be dragged along kicking and screaming. There ain't no stoppin' this train we're on.

P.S. Beliathon, where do you find your energy, fella?

I murder and devour the heart of one politician or corporate lawyer each week. In all seriousness, the truth is it's own reward.

I had no desire to buy or sell, so I just kept my stash, and stopped trading all together. Until Coinbase came along, and made it easy for people in the US.

Ditto!