Coinbase the most anti-Bitcoin organisation. Make #DeleteCoinbase great again

[DoubleEdgeEX]

Coinbase go the Facebook route by offering all kinds of data to the government or other institutes. They can come up with excuses and privacy regulation but when a governmental inquires they will open the books without hesitation. It´s a pity but understandable from a business side of views.

[fonship]

I have been coinbase user since 2016. I have never faced any issue as a customer, apart from the app not working when people need it the most 
But they have been doing shady stuff for some time now. I never trusted them but now they just going beyond my distrust in them.
I have moved out my funds and in the process of winding up my account as soon as I can.

#deletecoinbase as soon as you can.

[fillippone]

Wow.
It shouldn’t surprise me too much, I saw it coming, but also shock me seeing it: Coinbase is selling blockchain analytics software to the US Secret Service

Quick Take

• Coinbase is providing its blockchain analytics software to the U.S. Secret Service
• The law enforcement agency awarded the contract to Coinbase in May and it ends in 2024
• Last month, The Block broke the story that Coinbase wants to sell its analytics software to two government  agencies — the DEA and the IRS

They are trading your privacy for their survivorship.
You are not Coinbase Customer, your are their product.[/list]

[o_e_l_e_o]

They've already partnered with the IRS and the DEA. It's clear they are keen to sell their blockchain analysis product to anyone who will pay for it, regardless of what the means for their users or the wider crypto space. Remember that the people who developed Coinbase Analytics are the same people who worked for Hacking Team and sold surveillance equipment and software to dictators and human rights abusers. They have no morals.

The only thing surprising to me is that Coinbase are only charging the Secret Service $183,750 for a 4 year contract. For a company with annual profits of over 500 million dollars, the less than $50,000 a year deal works out at less than 0.01% increase to their profits. It's nice to see they will sell their users out for chump change.

Coinbase are anti-bitcoin and anti-privacy. Delete Coinbase.

[JayJuanGee]

They've already partnered with the IRS and the DEA. It's clear they are keen to sell their blockchain analysis product to anyone who will pay for it, regardless of what the means for their users or the wider crypto space. Remember that the people who developed Coinbase Analytics are the same people who worked for Hacking Team and sold surveillance equipment and software to dictators and human rights abusers. They have no morals.

The only thing surprising to me is that Coinbase are only charging the Secret Service $183,750 for a 4 year contract. For a company with annual profits of over 500 million dollars, the less than $50,000 a year deal works out at less than 0.01% increase to their profits. It's nice to see they will sell their users out for chump change.

Coinbase are anti-bitcoin and anti-privacy. Delete Coinbase.

Surely appears to be something like a deal with the devil, and which is the devil?

[pixie85]

I'm also a curent Coinbase user anmd have been using them to fork coins like BSV in the past since I did not trust the software that they provided. Coinbase was always doing great and keeping my coins pretty safe.

I haven't stored anything big with them but I value my privacy and will never send them any of the Bitcoins that I'm holding offline. I'll have to find another less shady platform. The plan is to stop using them completely by the end of the month.

[JayJuanGee]

I'm also a curent Coinbase user anmd have been using them to fork coins like BSV in the past since I did not trust the software that they provided. Coinbase was always doing great and keeping my coins pretty safe.

I haven't stored anything big with them but I value my privacy and will never send them any of the Bitcoins that I'm holding offline. I'll have to find another less shady platform. The plan is to stop using them completely by the end of the month.

Maybe I do not sufficiently understand your assertion that you would have thought that Coinbase provided much if any kind of security or confidence in terms of potentially splitting shitcoins, such as Bcash SV, especially given how they had approached the Bcash forkening in the fall of 2017... at first (around early August 2017) they said that they were not going to give the Bcash, and then (around October 2017) they said that they were going to give credit for the forked coins (ones held on Coinbase as of August 1, 2017) sometime after December 31, 2017.  Then they ended up doing a surprise issuance of the Bcash on around December 20, 2017 and also fucked around with freezing the Bcash ticker price at around $9k while "innocently" proclaiming that the ticker just "coincidentally" got stuck there.  That was some truly manipulative  and shady shit that should have caused any potential coinbase customer to lose confidence in Coinbase's future treatment of forks..   Of course, if you were not aware of their bullshit and shady behavior in late 2017, as outlined above, then possibly you could have naively had confidence in their being a BIG business that should not (in theory) screw you in terms of forkenings... and even after all of their bullshit in late 2017, I recall ambiguous statements from them too, in regards to whether or not they would honor future forkenings and even their playing around with pre-announcement pumpenings of shitcoins that they might list in the future or their ongoing technical incompetence and refusal to improve aspects of their platform or their ways of performing bitcoin transactions.. so I am NOT sure how anyone can garner much if any semblance of confidence from those kinds of ongoing nonsensical crazy-ass coinbase statements and actions.. even some of the refusal of the CEO (brian armstrong) to use the word bitcoin.. hahahahaha.. ongoingly lost, distracted, perhaps incompetent and manipulative as fuck messages coming from coinbase for anyone paying any kind of attention to the matter.

[posi]

I'm also a curent Coinbase user anmd have been using them to fork coins like BSV in the past since I did not trust the software that they provided. Coinbase was always doing great and keeping my coins pretty safe.

I haven't stored anything big with them but I value my privacy and will never send them any of the Bitcoins that I'm holding offline. I'll have to find another less shady platform. The plan is to stop using them completely by the end of the month.

I'm also once a user of coinbase before and the last time I use coinbase during the 2017 ATH which was also the year they tight their KYC requirement/process, my aim was to sell my BTC at a high price but due to coinbase KYC unable to do it until the market correction and for this reason I choose not to use it.
Nevertheless, the KYC and the centralized issue is not the faulty of coinbase but the government of the country where coinbase operate.

[o_e_l_e_o]

The plan is to stop using them completely by the end of the month.

Once you delete your account, you should also email them and request that they delete all data that they hold on you. Their compliance with this will vary depending on where you live, and they will almost certainly keep some data for a number of years for "compliance" reasons, but no reason to let them hold on to everything indefinitely.

That was some truly manipulative  and shady shit

It's OK though - they performed a thorough investigation in to themselves and thankfully found themselves to be innocent of any wrongdoing. I'll bet they were nervous while they were investigating themselves about what they might find out about their own conduct, but thankfully, that's all cleared up. Nothing to see here. 

From supporting SegWit2x, to spamming the network and taking years to implement actual SegWit or transaction batching, Coinbase are through and through anti-bitcoin in addition to being massively anti-privacy.

[20kevin20]

The typical problem humans have when they are able to build something big: hunger for control and power.

I am having the same concerns regarding Binance as well. The fact that CZ is expanding so widely and at such a fast pace puts his entire holding and true interest under a big question mark for me: What happens if the government wants give him a very good offer in the exchange of everything he holds about his customers?

And this is not even the worst part: if there was to be an "internet war" between choosing Coinbase/Binance and Bisq to survive and evolve, I'd bet +60% of the people would choose the former. It's one of the first names you hear about when you create a wallet. I had a Coinbase wallet with a balance on it back in 2013-2014 and if I now try entering my wallet they forcefully ask me for the nonsense KYC - as if that'd prove the fact that the guy in my pictures is the same guy who created that wallet 7 years ago.

This isn't something very new - Amazon has filed a patent more than half a decade ago to help with the identification of BTC users. These news come slowly every now and then, but if you take a piece of paper and put all these things on it you'd find out probably two thirds of the entire currently existing Blockchain industry is against Bitcoin's fundamental ideas.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I'd bet +60% of the people would choose the former.

I think you are being incredibly generous. I'd put that figure at well over 90%. Most people do not care about their privacy, like, at all. I know there are plenty of us here who do, but as bitcoin expands and more and more people get involved, then the proportion of us who take privacy seriously is continuously diluted. If people are willing to have Google or Amazon record every word they say, then they aren't going to think twice about Coinbase sticking their noses in to their financial history.

probably two thirds of the entire currently existing Blockchain industry is against Bitcoin's fundamental ideas.

Yup. And it's not just exchanges either, although pretty much every centralized exchange is becoming more like a fiat bank as time goes on. The biggest payment processor - BitPay - is also thoroughly anti-bitcoin, pro-KYC, privacy invading, etc. The most commonly used wallets - Blockchain.com, Coinbase, Coinomi, Trust wallet, coins.ph - are either custodial, closed source, or both. Even the majority of altcoins in existence are centralized scams.

Unfortunately, where there is money to be made, principles and ideals rapidly get thrown to the wayside.

[20kevin20]

I think you are being incredibly generous. I'd put that figure at well over 90%.

I'd rather still have a little hope that it's not that bad yet.

Most people do not care about their privacy, like, at all.

Well, they have nothing to hide, do they?

Yup. And it's not just exchanges either, although pretty much every centralized exchange is becoming more like a fiat bank as time goes on. The biggest payment processor - BitPay - is also thoroughly anti-bitcoin, pro-KYC, privacy invading, etc. The most commonly used wallets - Blockchain.com, Coinbase, Coinomi, Trust wallet, coins.ph - are either custodial, closed source, or both. Even the majority of altcoins in existence are centralized scams.

I always thought that's why Bitcoin was so rejected by most governments and companies at first while now they seem to be the friendliest. The dots don't connect anymore, it's like they've all magically changed and suddenly want to support us.

It started to be obvious that this is their current strategy of fighting Bitcoin: taking it over in terms of privacy and financial freedom, and people don't give a damn and still look up to so-called "partnerships" with PayPal and so on as if we're heading towards a good path.

My friends are "buying" Bitcoin through Revolut now, they say it's much easier than having to learn everything about wallet creation and how the system works - and this is how the average person thinks.

All of the above only further confirms the fear I expressed months ago in a quite desperate attempt to open at least a few minds. A quote from my post that perfectly fits this thread:

(..) From the idea that Bitcoin could turn the economical and governmental systems of the world upside down, today I see it as nothing else but an obstacle the governments overcame long ago and for which they surely have a plan of attack so that it would never be a threat for them be it in the present or short and long term future.

(..) today we have laws that appear as if they are opposing more and more the fundamental ideas of cryptocurrencies - almost as if the intention behind these regulations was to destroy them while using this entire time the "cryptocurrencies are used in criminal activities" excuse.

This has changed, in my opinion, Bitcoin's destiny. (..) today I feel taken over by the world governments' regulations that ruthlessly entered my personal, private life.

The so-called "support" of cryptocurrencies by the states has proven, in my opinion, to be exactly the opposite. To be more precise, "sustaining" them has led to the resistance in front of genius Satoshi Nakamoto's essential ideas he began with. (..)

[gentlemand]

My friends are "buying" Bitcoin through Revolut now, they say it's much easier than having to learn everything about wallet creation and how the system works - and this is how the average person thinks.

Revolut is definitely the most odious route so far and I'll bet others are eyeing it closely.

I wonder whether doing something similar has been discussed at Coinbase. It would certainly cure a lot of head aches for them. Most here of course would squeak with indignation but I wonder what the majority of their customers would think.

Perhaps they'll further differentiate Coinbase, Coinbase Pro and the custodial side of things.

[Shasha80]

This is why centralization of exchanges is bad, what coinbase does by working with the IRS and DEA is evidence of centralized exchanges
can be bad for Bitcoin users. Therefore the popularity of coinbase decreases, since knowing what coinbase is doing.I decided to move all
of my assets in Coinbase. And I deleted all of my data that was on Coinbase, then I didn't will use coinbase forever. #DeleteCoinbase

[Yudhisthir]

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/71261/coinbase-is-selling-blockchain-analytics-software-to-the-us-secret-service

There's no privacy in centralized services. Every of your info goes directly to US secret services if you used Coinbase. That's true for any financial institution. Coinbase furthermore profits from it's analytic software and user data as they sell it for profit. This could be similar for other Exchanges differing just on which secret organization they sell to.

[nancy]

Everyone should avoid coinbase. Its my best tip for newcomers. There are a lot of places where you can my buy crypto from your card even in USA. For example, soon ownr wallet wil receive state permits for this

[fillippone]

I think you are being incredibly generous. I'd put that figure at well over 90%.

I'd rather still have a little hope that it's not that bad yet.

Most people do not care about their privacy, like, at all.

Well, they have nothing to hide, do they?

I have to agree with @o_e_l_e_o here.
I have been discussing privacy issues with a lot of people, both online and in real life. The absolute lack of consciousness on why privacy is important has always stroked me.
The obnoxious “ I have nothing to hide” Is of course a non-sense. It is like saying: “I don’t care about free speech as I haven’t anything to tell”.
Well, I bet that those rights are understood only when those are gone.

I suggest a nice read about privacy:

A Treatise On Bitcoin And Privacy Part 1: A Match Made In The Whitepaper

How one’s focus can shift in just two weeks! While today everybody in the Bitcoin space seems more concerned with price fluctuations in response to the global financial panic (understandably so), it’s important to remember perennial issues that never go away, like the importance of maintaining your privacy when you transact in bitcoin. Throughout this month especially, we’ve been hearing reports of KYC/AML-compliant exchanges freezing user accounts due to suspected use of CoinJoin software (more on that later), followed by yet another case of a famous and respected early Bitcoin proponent promoting his new illiquid altcoin as something that “will replace Bitcoin, which isn’t private enough!”

If you want to take a short break from global pandemics, financial meltdowns and price volatility, here’s an attempt at analyzing claims, facts and context of this latest “Bitcoin drama.” To begin with, in Part 1 of this two-part series, we’ll start by looking at the fundamental relationship between Bitcoin and privacy by going back to the beginning with the whitepaper. Then, in Part 2, we’ll focus on some the ways that Bitcoin privacy is being maintained and improved upon — and strike down a few “red herrings.”

A Treatise On Bitcoin And Privacy Part 2: Don’t Be Misled By Red Herrings

In Part One of this treatise, we examined the fundamental relationship between Bitcoin and privacy by going back to the beginning with the whitepaper. In spite of some excellent privacy preserving options  that have been available to users since those early days, we seem to have taken a few wrong turns. But to fix it, in order to make Bitcoin’s privacy “great again,” we must be able to distinguish between real privacy and red herrings that can only lead us further off the path.

[pixie85]

Maybe I do not sufficiently understand your assertion that you would have thought that Coinbase provided much if any kind of security or confidence in terms of potentially splitting shitcoins, such as Bcash SV, especially given how they had approached the Bcash forkening in the fall of 2017... at first (around early August 2017) they said that they were not going to give the Bcash, and then (around October 2017) they said that they were going to give credit for the forked coins (ones held on Coinbase as of August 1, 2017) sometime after December 31, 2017.  Then they ended up doing a surprise issuance of the Bcash on around December 20, 2017 and also fucked around with freezing the Bcash ticker price at around $9k while "innocently" proclaiming that the ticker just "coincidentally" got stuck there.  That was some truly manipulative  and shady shit that should have caused any potential coinbase customer to lose confidence in Coinbase's future treatment of forks..   Of course, if you were not aware of their bullshit and shady behavior in late 2017, as outlined above, then possibly you could have naively had confidence in their being a BIG business that should not (in theory) screw you in terms of forkenings... and even after all of their bullshit in late 2017, I recall ambiguous statements from them too, in regards to whether or not they would honor future forkenings and even their playing around with pre-announcement pumpenings of shitcoins that they might list in the future or their ongoing technical incompetence and refusal to improve aspects of their platform or their ways of performing bitcoin transactions.. so I am NOT sure how anyone can garner much if any semblance of confidence from those kinds of ongoing nonsensical crazy-ass coinbase statements and actions.. even some of the refusal of the CEO (brian armstrong) to use the word bitcoin.. hahahahaha.. ongoingly lost, distracted, perhaps incompetent and manipulative as fuck messages coming from coinbase for anyone paying any kind of attention to the matter.

I did not have an account with them in early 2017 and I did my Bcash split using Electron Cash, wasn't even aware of that shady behavior on their part.

They sayd they would support BSV split so I went with them as I wanted to get my SV as soon as I could without having to play around with software that looked even more shady than coinbase's ticker freezing. The fork wasn't done as it should have been because I remember that it took them many weeks to actually credit BSV and then soon after they delisted it, so I had to move my SV to another exchange to finally get rid of it.

I had some Bcash on Yobit at the same time and they forked much faster than coinbase despite their somewhat bad reputation.

Once you delete your account, you should also email them and request that they delete all data that they hold on you. Their compliance with this will vary depending on where you live, and they will almost certainly keep some data for a number of years for "compliance" reasons, but no reason to let them hold on to everything indefinitely.

Thanks, I'll do that

[audaciousbeing]

Even if the deal should fall through, I am sure that a lot of people having concerns with Coinbase on this move have either not have anything to do with Coinbase or even moved on from them a long time ago since when it has been established that they are pro government and I won't even blame them because it's simply business. IRS on the other hand making this move really should be commended because it shows they are moving with the trend of things and blinded with how things were done in the past.

I know that some people who are deeply invested in crypto and at the same time want to do right by government and its agencies won't have any issue with this move. Quite a number of people wants to trade, make returns and pay their dues to government without any concerns or guilty of being involved in any shady activities would appreciate this move.

[JayJuanGee]

Even if the deal should fall through, I am sure that a lot of people having concerns with Coinbase on this move have either not have anything to do with Coinbase or even moved on from them a long time ago since when it has been established that they are pro government and I won't even blame them because it's simply business. IRS on the other hand making this move really should be commended because it shows they are moving with the trend of things and blinded with how things were done in the past.

I know that some people who are deeply invested in crypto and at the same time want to do right by government and its agencies won't have any issue with this move. Quite a number of people wants to trade, make returns and pay their dues to government without any concerns or guilty of being involved in any shady activities would appreciate this move.

I doubt that people would really be so concerned if Coinbase were merely trying to be a fully compliant exchange - so long as they were being upfront with their users.  Coinbase does a lot of tricky things by either saying or implying that they are doing one thing while they end up doing other things, and sure their ongoing seemingly passive aggressive (and other times direct) hostility towards bitcoin does not win them friends, either.

Gemini seems a bit more straight-forward, including that they strive to do things by the books and attempting to get involved in higher level financial matters to be an officially accepted exchange for wallstreet, even though they seem to be adding a few shitcoins too, including linking their stable coin to ethereum.. but Gemini does not seem to receive as many criticisms from the regular bitcoiners, at least, not historically.