Coinbase Holds a Whopping 966,230 Bitcoin ($7B) in Cold Wallet

[jostorres]

I'm not sure they should be advertising this. I just hope they have really really FIERCE security and are guarding their stash like hawks.

I don't really see anything wrong with them showing how much they hold in their cold wallets, that's what you call transparency. Saying that they are advertising their stash is just like saying that Bill Gates shouldn't be showing off his net worth lol.

So, I don't see anything wrong with it. And I'm not surprised that Coinbase owns that much of coins stored in their cold wallet, they are like (one of) the biggest crypto exchanges there is. And apart from being on the list of top exchanges they are the most secure exchange (that I know for sure), and recently they introduced a new feature of covering customer's funds by insurance, and I don't think any exchange have ever done that yet.

[buwaytress]

I'm not sure they should be advertising this. I just hope they have really really FIERCE security and are guarding their stash like hawks.

I don't really see anything wrong with them showing how much they hold in their cold wallets, that's what you call transparency. Saying that they are advertising their stash is just like saying that Bill Gates shouldn't be showing off his net worth lol.

So, I don't see anything wrong with it. And I'm not surprised that Coinbase owns that much of coins stored in their cold wallet, they are like (one of) the biggest crypto exchanges there is. And apart from being on the list of top exchanges they are the most secure exchange (that I know for sure), and recently they introduced a new feature of covering customer's funds by insurance, and I don't think any exchange have ever done that yet.

It is anything but transparency. It's showing off;) They're a business and they want to show people that a lot of rich boys trust their bitcoin with them. BitGo does it too, and regularly runs PR to remind people they're the biggest in the business and guard a huge portion of the world's available bitcoin.

Corporate types don't like transparency. Don't be fooled;)

[Mometaskers]

I agree with the description of it being called bank-like - there are probably national banks in some countries that hold less than BTC7.

As for why they are releasing this I'd say it's to show that they are definitely big and that all those people entrusted their money with them and so should you.

[Vishnu.Reang]

If they hold that much amount in the cold wallet, then my opinion is that they should get some sort of an insurance, or get additional security measures. They should have hidden their holdings, as this news is definitely going to attract hordes of hacker groups. The amount stolen from Mt Gox was BTC650,000. And what Coinbase have in their cold wallets is even higher.

[wxa7115]

The larger their stash of Bitcoins the more trustworthy they are as an exchange. I would trust holding my BTC, ETH, LTC and other cryptocurrencies on Coinbase simply because they have such a large stash.

Most banks operate in the same way.

Why do you think that the number of the bitcoins that they are holding makes an exchange more trustworthy? That only means that there is a lot of people that are holding their coins there nothing more, and if anything that should be consider to be a risk because you can be sure that if we know that hackers know that information as well and they are going to try to get to those coins by all means possible.

And that is a huge issue for this market because if at some point they do steal that huge amount of coins that could immediately crash the market and it will be difficult for it to recover.

[Quidat]

I'm not sure they should be advertising this. I just hope they have really really FIERCE security and are guarding their stash like hawks.

I don't really see anything wrong with them showing how much they hold in their cold wallets, that's what you call transparency. Saying that they are advertising their stash is just like saying that Bill Gates shouldn't be showing off his net worth lol.

So, I don't see anything wrong with it. And I'm not surprised that Coinbase owns that much of coins stored in their cold wallet, they are like (one of) the biggest crypto exchanges there is. And apart from being on the list of top exchanges they are the most secure exchange (that I know for sure), and recently they introduced a new feature of covering customer's funds by insurance, and I don't think any exchange have ever done that yet.

It is anything but transparency. It's showing off;) They're a business and they want to show people that a lot of rich boys trust their bitcoin with them. BitGo does it too, and regularly runs PR to remind people they're the biggest in the business and guard a huge portion of the world's available bitcoin.

Corporate types don't like transparency. Don't be fooled;)

Was suppose to say the same thing where this one doesnt shows off about transparency but rather a literal show off on what they are holding.
This is indeed part of their marketing that telling the world that they are trustable enough for bitcoin users to use up their site or service.
I cant deny though that Coinbase does really have that strong security yet we havent seen this exchange have issues about breaches or security matters.

[wheelz1200]

https://beincrypto.com/coinbase-holds-a-whopping-966230-bitcoin-7b-in-cold-wallet/

According to recent reports, Coinbase has a whopping 966,230 Bitcoin in its cold wallet. The exchange is increasingly becoming like a ‘bank’ which stores a growing number of deposited cryptocurrency assets.

Other exchanges lag behind Coinbase, but still have sizeable cold wallets from its depositors and own funds. BitMEX has around 265,140 BTC ($1.94B) while Bitstamp comes in third with 229,490 BTC ($1.67B). Other top exchanges by assets under its custody are Bitfinex (146,120 BTC), Kraken (136,780 BTC), Bittrex (131,340 BTC), and Coincheck (35,090 BTC)

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I'm not sure they should be advertising this. I just hope they have really really FIERCE security and are guarding their stash like hawks.

It's a shame really.  Coinbase nor any other 3rd party should not be used by people as cold storage.  We've seen it time and time again that these places get "hacked".  Crypto allows people to be their own but but many refuse to do so.  One day personal cold storage without the use of 3rd parties will get so easy to use that those 3rd parties wont be needed for wallet services.  Until that time comes more and more people will lose their bits due to "hacks". 

[sana54210]

They are not really showing off, they are basically telling people that the money they claim to have on their storage is actually there, think about it this way, if you had coins in coinbase and didn't know how much money they have, wouldn't you be a bit worried? I mean if they claim to hold 1 million coins on their storage on behalf of their customers but they just had 100k, wouldn't that be scamming? A ponzi scheme?

It would be, so this is basically a way of them saying "we do actually hold the coins we claim to hold for you, and plus some more" so that people would trust them to be their wallets. Coinbase isn't showing off here, they are building a reputation and trust that they otherwise couldn't get in any other way then showing how much coins they have.

[Hallmader]

They are not really showing off, they are basically telling people that the money they claim to have on their storage is actually there, think about it this way, if you had coins in coinbase and didn't know how much money they have, wouldn't you be a bit worried? I mean if they claim to hold 1 million coins on their storage on behalf of their customers but they just had 100k, wouldn't that be scamming? A ponzi scheme?

It would be, so this is basically a way of them saying "we do actually hold the coins we claim to hold for you, and plus some more" so that people would trust them to be their wallets. Coinbase isn't showing off here, they are building a reputation and trust that they otherwise couldn't get in any other way then showing how much coins they have.

Is it really the only way for them to gain the trust of their users? I don't think so. Neither is it the only way to build their reputation. In the first place, Coinbase doesn't have to build a reputation because they already have it. They don't have to earn the trust of people because they already have it. When they were still growing, did they publish or release the figures of the amount of coins that they have? They didn't. Furthermore, does Binance, Huobi, KuCoin, etc. let the people take a peek at their holdings to build reputation and trust? I don't think so.

[wxa7115]

They are not really showing off, they are basically telling people that the money they claim to have on their storage is actually there, think about it this way, if you had coins in coinbase and didn't know how much money they have, wouldn't you be a bit worried? I mean if they claim to hold 1 million coins on their storage on behalf of their customers but they just had 100k, wouldn't that be scamming? A ponzi scheme?

It would be, so this is basically a way of them saying "we do actually hold the coins we claim to hold for you, and plus some more" so that people would trust them to be their wallets. Coinbase isn't showing off here, they are building a reputation and trust that they otherwise couldn't get in any other way then showing how much coins they have.

Is it really the only way for them to gain the trust of their users? I don't think so. Neither is it the only way to build their reputation. In the first place, Coinbase doesn't have to build a reputation because they already have it. They don't have to earn the trust of people because they already have it. When they were still growing, did they publish or release the figures of the amount of coins that they have? They didn't. Furthermore, does Binance, Huobi, KuCoin, etc. let the people take a peek at their holdings to build reputation and trust? I don't think so.

There are many ways in which you can build and maintain a reputation but when it comes to the number of coins that you are holding there is only one way and we all know it, you need to sign a message from an address that contains the number of coins that you claim to have otherwise people do not really have to believe you, remember this market aims for transparency otherwise Coinbase could be accused of holding less coins than what they claim.

Or they could be accused as well of practicing fractional reserve banking in a market in which most of its participants are against it.

[teosanru]

https://beincrypto.com/coinbase-holds-a-whopping-966230-bitcoin-7b-in-cold-wallet/

According to recent reports, Coinbase has a whopping 966,230 Bitcoin in its cold wallet. The exchange is increasingly becoming like a ‘bank’ which stores a growing number of deposited cryptocurrency assets.

Other exchanges lag behind Coinbase, but still have sizeable cold wallets from its depositors and own funds. BitMEX has around 265,140 BTC ($1.94B) while Bitstamp comes in third with 229,490 BTC ($1.67B). Other top exchanges by assets under its custody are Bitfinex (146,120 BTC), Kraken (136,780 BTC), Bittrex (131,340 BTC), and Coincheck (35,090 BTC)

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I'm not sure they should be advertising this. I just hope they have really really FIERCE security and are guarding their stash like hawks.

I don't think they are advertising about that but such data is quite easily available in any block explorer. Moreover there obviously is a risk associated with such cold wallets but I am pretty sure that they must be holding it in some sort of paper wallet or some trezor. I think there can be one security feature which these sites might use or might even be using which is splitting their private key in 4 parts and giving it to 4 separate persons. This way even if one person is extorted by anyone he cannot obviously get the private key to the wallet. But yes the private key as a whole must obviously be stored somewhere else too because otherwise it would make it very dangerous if the person knowing it dies in any unexpected incident. We already have seen such things happening.

[kotik085]

Staggering numbers and it is impossible to imagine how much money is stored by Coinbase.