What if Coinbase and other Wallet services take all of our coins and run away?

[taxmanmt5]

In the future there will be billions of dollars stored in Wallets, what if one day they decide to stop and shut down their services and transfer all the money to their own wallet and confirm the transactions and convert all of their coins(Bitcoin and any other Altcoins) to USD and disappear?
How can we get our money back? whom can we sue? how can we prove how much coins we had in their wallet?  

Well, In case Coinbase or any reputable company tires to scam people, they can do it but that's the only one time profit they will make. Think of a company who took 10 years to develop a repo and they can't think of losing it all for few billion dollars etc. I think Coinbase is very unlikely to do this sort of thing ever.

[1715281968]

1715281968

[1715281968]

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[Nekrasova]

Many of investors will go bankrupt

[boy130]

It is very unlikely this would happen when the founders and operators of the exchange are publicly known. Most of the time exchanges don't participate in an exit scam, they instead get conveniently 'hacked' by some unknown party. This may be a ploy by the exchanges to siphon of some of the funds, but for the most part it is likely a genuine hack. That being said, there is a disturbing number of hacks in this arena, one might suspect that there is something fishy going on, but it is difficult to determine why, since exchanges do tend to be quite profitable, so it's a wonder why they would need to orchestrate such a thing.

For safety sake, I would recommend just keeping the bare minimum in exchanges, certainly there is more risk of you losing your funds from an exchange than from holding your coins in a hardware wallet. And remember, activate ALL the secondary security features, they might be additional hassle for now, but they will save your ass when you get phished or your account is cracked.

[cissrawk]

The coin price will be red and big dump will happen, the only way you get back your coin is report it to lawyer and police, and hope you will get refunded.

[galkinig]

In the future there will be billions of dollars stored in Wallets, what if one day they decide to stop and shut down their services and transfer all the money to their own wallet and confirm the transactions and convert all of their coins(Bitcoin and any other Altcoins) to USD and disappear?
How can we get our money back? whom can we sue? how can we prove how much coins we had in their wallet? 

You will not be able to get your money back if they run away. It has happened in the past with a number of exchanges.

[Xester]

If they will run away then our coins are lost. It is hard for us to get those coins any longer except if we join forces and trace them. But this possibility have a very small probability since those wallet services company have register themselves in the Securities and Exchange Commission. They also have the permit to operate business so they cannot run without being chased by the law.

[DonateBB]

This can happen but it is not easy for them to do this. I think the law will intervene. But rest assured. They are not scammers. I think you should be confident and invest in them.

[Cryptoman69]

If we just keep our thinking, hard to believe that speculation will happen that might have happen. In the process of primarily accessing for "example" any address as we have only a private key is perhaps the strongest we can handle without any access to our safeguard addresses.

[Betwrong]

In the future there will be billions of dollars stored in Wallets, what if one day they decide to stop and shut down their services and transfer all the money to their own wallet and confirm the transactions and convert all of their coins(Bitcoin and any other Altcoins) to USD and disappear?
How can we get our money back? whom can we sue? how can we prove how much coins we had in their wallet?  

Well, In case Coinbase or any reputable company tires to scam people, they can do it but that's the only one time profit they will make. Think of a company who took 10 years to develop a repo and they can't think of losing it all for few billion dollars etc. I think Coinbase is very unlikely to do this sort of thing ever.

I agree with you on the reputation part and also this is not only about the reputation since they can go to jail for doing things like that. Basically putting questions like the OP's leads one to living in constant fear and uncertainty. To me this question is similar to "What if all the cops with all their weapons turn into gangsters ?" You can't question everything or otherwise your life might turn to be a total nightmare.

[MohammadMDP]

All of you just answered based on low possibility or the company's reputation or being a hard thing to do, or they will go to jail and stuff.
I don't know why do you think it is a very hard thing to do?!!
if the company is based inside the U.S, the FBI for example can get them only if they remain in the country.
It's so easy for Coinbase to do that, presume I'm the owner, I get out of the country today and go to a country like Russia or Iran, then I transfer all the coins in our database of wallets to my own physical wallet, then I convert them all to different currencies and store them in a Swiss bank, and then I shut the website down or just leave it be after clearing the database. now who can catch me? what can they do? easy money in one day.
I had to wait years to gather that much money, but now I have it in a day, and now I can start another business in another country without any trouble.

and about the "Hold your own wallet some place safe" thing, isn't that prehistoric?!!!
in the past people were putting their money under their pillow! and the banks were invented to change that and keep people's money somewhere safe for them and guarantee their money by official documents.

and now again, you are telling me I should hold my own money in my own wallet in my pocket or under my pillow??!!!
while there are so many benefits and services banks provide for us (like Bank Checks, Loans, setting withdraw limitations, and so many other services)
what does a wallet of bitcoin in your pocket do for you??!!!

what if you loose it? what if your hard drive break, and so many other what-ifs.

I think Crypto Currency is an idiotic idea in the first place. 

[gentlemand]

Then you're up shit creek.

Very few wallets control your coins these days, and any that do should be avoided completely.

As for places like Coinbase and Xapo you can sugarcoat it all you want, but no matter what the arrangement some other bastard has full control over your money and are permitting you access to it.

Of course places that well known and capitalised are not going to do a runner but there's no predicting what the future holds. If the American government can confiscate everyone's gold, which would've been a fully manual process all those years ago, imagine how much easier it would be with millions of people all herded into a couple of services.

[MohammadMDP]

Then you're up shit creek.

Up shit creek without a paddle!  

cause if you loose your money in a bank, at least you have a paddle of suing.  

but in Crypto Currency, how on earth can you prove that you had a wallet, and how much coins that wallet had?
even if the Blockchain has the history of that wallet address, how can you prove that wallet is yours??! 

[gentlemand]

Up shit creek without a paddle!  

cause if you loose your money in a bank, at least you have a paddle of suing.  

If, say, Coinbase lost everything in a hack on their side they do claim to be insured for that. I really, really would not want to see that insurance put to the test though.

[arienna23]

That's a fear I have sometimes too. But coinbase is not some scam company. It has reputed and known founders. But still, if you want to keep your coins safe, store your coins in a hardware wallet.

[Kokondao]

Maybe it's one that we often question and we fear, and we can be sure we will lose our money, but I am sure all there must be handling from the authorities

[jseverson]

but in Crypto Currency, how on earth can you prove that you had a wallet, and how much coins that wallet had?
even if the Blockchain has the history of that wallet address, how can you prove that wallet is yours??! 

Well corporations that handle sizable amounts of data typically back up everything regularly as part of a standard operating procedure. If a hack steals everything and erases everything to the point of zero recovery, then the hacked company is either completely and utterly incompetent, or the "hack" was internal. I would find the latter scenario infinitely more likely in this case. Regulators are going to be way up in their ass either way.

That being said, I don't think it's going to be a problem of proving how much belonged to you as much as them paying out the said amount.

[MohammadMDP]

That's a fear I have sometimes too. But coinbase is not some scam company. It has reputed and known founders. But still, if you want to keep your coins safe, store your coins in a hardware wallet.

That's the same thing as "hide your money under your pillow", what's the point? isn't a bank account better?
Crypto Currency is just a bullshit a few people made to scam the people's money out.

It's only useful for pirates, smugglers, thieves, drug dealers, scammers, who don't want their money to be traceable so that they can skip the money laundry. 

[hase0278]

How can we get our money back?

If that happens we couldn't get our money back, and this is the same reason as to why many users suggest to not store big amounts  of bitcoins and any other cryptocurrencies on exchanges  if they will not be converted to fiat or to btc.

whom can we sue?

We can sue exchange owners, staffs or admins case they do that(if their real identities are already revealed).

how can we prove how much coins we had in their wallet? 

We can prove how much coins we had in our wallet by using the blockchain technology(specifically block explorers).

[traderethereum]

In the future there will be billions of dollars stored in Wallets, what if one day they decide to stop and shut down their services and transfer all the money to their own wallet and confirm the transactions and convert all of their coins(Bitcoin and any other Altcoins) to USD and disappear?
How can we get our money back? whom can we sue? how can we prove how much coins we had in their wallet? 

actually, it's simple. first, we cannot take our money back because they steal all of their customer's money and we don't have any chance to chase them. I don't think that we can get our money back because once they disappear, it needs a long time before they can get caught by the law but I don't think that they will be easy to catch. everything on the internet can get disappear so quick because they can move into another country without any contradiction and they can free to live in that country without thinking about any law.

[Moiyah]

Whoa, I cannot imagine that scenario will come and they'll take away all of our coins. But still, nothing is impossible and that even a secured exchange can be hacked.  We cannot retrieve everything if they will stole our tokens.

Whether or not Coinbase will get hacked or not, will just simply run away with your money or not, it's still best to hold your bitcoin on your own wallet whereas you control the private keys. That way, you truly have ownership to your bitcoin.

This is one of the Best thing we can do. Transferring it into our own wallet. At least, we can assured that it will not get stolen and can be stored their in a perennial time.