Archer v. Coinbase "Not your keys, Not your coins"

[hugeblack]

California's First Appeals Court upheld a previous decision not to provide users with Bitcoin Gold created at Bitcoin hardfork :

Coinbase cited a number of reasons for not supporting the Bitcoin Gold fork in the way it had supported forks like Bitcoin Cash in the past, including the inability to review the closed-source Bitcoin Gold code

In other words, your keys, Not your coins and therefore if you keep your coins in a wallet with private keys that you do not control, you are subject to them TOS rules, and the law cannot protect you.


Archer had 350 Bitcoin stored on Coinbase at the time of the fork, which would have generated Bitcoin Gold worth approximately $159,000 at its peak value.


Source ---> https://decrypt.co/39574/not-your-keys-not-your-coins-enshrined-in-us-case-law-says-lawyer

[jackg]

I don't think it's unreasonable to not want to open closed source applications anywhere near your main stockpile of crypto for users' funds.

Bitcoingold making it closed source also makes it look really suspicious too - that btg are up to something...

[zasad@]

I consider the court's decision to be completely correct if there were no such obligations in the agreement between the exchange and the user.
   
How Many Bitcoin Forks Are There?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5221882

Imagine what exchanges would have to do if they were forced to pay out coins to users after each hard fork
It's good that the time of forking famous coins has passed.

[coolcoinz]

I think that it's shady that they kept his BTG because we don't know if those coins were or weren't sold by coinbase. It would be free money for the company if they were to take those coins at any point and sell them without telling their clients. We're talking about millions of USD here not just this guy's coins.
At the same time if they were forced to fork BTG by court they'd have to install the software for every single BItcoin fork possibly compromising their security. People would start to demand Coinbase pays them their Bitcoin God or whatever...

[jackg]

I think that it's shady that they kept his BTG because we don't know if those coins were or weren't sold by coinbase. It would be free money for the company if they were to take those coins at any point and sell them without telling their clients. We're talking about millions of USD here not just this guy's coins.
At the same time if they were forced to fork BTG by court they'd have to install the software for every single BItcoin fork possibly compromising their security. People would start to demand Coinbase pays them their Bitcoin God or whatever...

I think this would neutralise their defense entirely though. If you say you don't want to run something because it's closed source and you don't trust it and then ran it anyway and got what you wanted from it then you're going back on your word and that can be used in evidence against you imo.

I think if they ever do this, a case like this will reappear under there being grounds of new evidence (if its not a thing in the US they're probably still accountable to European law).

[hatshepsut93]

I think that it's shady that they kept his BTG because we don't know if those coins were or weren't sold by coinbase. It would be free money for the company if they were to take those coins at any point and sell them without telling their clients. We're talking about millions of USD here not just this guy's coins.
At the same time if they were forced to fork BTG by court they'd have to install the software for every single BItcoin fork possibly compromising their security. People would start to demand Coinbase pays them their Bitcoin God or whatever...

But they didn't take those coins for themselves, they decided not to touch them, which is different. It's possible that in the future, when Coinbase will move their bitcoins to new wallets, all the forks from the old wallets can be safely claimed without risking them to malicious wallets.

Bitcoin is built on libertarian principles, so it shouldn't be viewed as a negative thing that you are forfeiting the ownership of your forks if you store your coins on centralized exchange - after all, you are entering a voluntarily contract with them.

[bL4nkcode]

I think that it's shady that they kept his BTG because we don't know if those coins were or weren't sold by coinbase. It would be free money for the company if they were to take those coins at any point and sell them without telling their clients. We're talking about millions of USD here not just this guy's coins.

Its clearly say that coinbase won't support the fork coin before the fork takes place, if he send his bitcoin out of coinbase in the first place this wouldn't happen.

[stompix]

I think that it's shady that they kept his BTG because we don't know if those coins were or weren't sold by coinbase.

They weren't.

https://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/2020/a157690.html

Plaintiff failed to establish Coinbase took any such action here.  In support of its summary judgment motion, Coinbase submitted evidence it had not taken any affirmative action with respect to Bitcoin Gold, and that plaintiff’s Bitcoin Gold remains on the public network created by a third party.  Though plaintiff “disputed” those statements, he provided no admissible evidence to contradict them, citing only to Coinbase’s representations that the Bitcoin Gold was securely stored on its website.

They have not used the coins but still keep access to them, it would be also pretty easy to see if they have moved the forked coins in the chain, their wallets are already known by everybody.
The course said in its decision as clear as one could:

There is no requirement that investors keep their coins in exchanges; they can always withdraw the coins to their own private wallets.

But it's way easier to simply keep your coins on an exchange rather than going through all that, so he took the lazy route, now after that took the hot coffee lawsuit path, and now he ended with nothing other but costs.

[Lucius]

If Coinbase has made it clear that it will not allow its clients to take possession of BTG after the fork, then why the lawsuit at all? It is still not clear to some people that what is in the custodial wallet is not 100% theirs, but that they have given their property to others for safekeeping. This comes at a price not only in terms of the possible loss of these funds, but also in situations like this where someone wants to profit from the Bitcoin fork - and doesn't even realize that the way he stored BTC is completely wrong.

I have access to my PKs, but I’ve never even tried to get to all those forks (except BCH) because I consider it just bad copies, which don’t even have any value (unless you have hundreds of BTCs).

[webtricks]

I think that it's shady that they kept his BTG because we don't know if those coins were or weren't sold by coinbase. It would be free money for the company if they were to take those coins at any point and sell them without telling their clients. We're talking about millions of USD here not just this guy's coins.
At the same time if they were forced to fork BTG by court they'd have to install the software for every single BItcoin fork possibly compromising their security. People would start to demand Coinbase pays them their Bitcoin God or whatever...

I don't see Coinbase or any centralized exchange liable to pay all forked coins, no matter what they do with forked coins. Forks like Bitcoin Gold (BTG) have zero impact on Bitcoin and its market. Go and conduct quick survey on Twitter and ask 'which coin do people consider real bitcoin'? Bet me, BTG won't get even 1 vote in hundred. Also, to pay the forked coins to the users, Exchange have to integrate forked coin on their platform which indirectly imply that Exchange is supporting that coin.

Also, not to forget, Coinbase has clearly stated in ToS:

5.11 Advanced Protocols. Unless specifically announced on the Site or via an official public statement of Coinbase, we do not support metacoins, coloured coins, side chains, or other derivative, enhanced, or forked protocols, tokens, or coins which supplement or interact with a Digital Currency we support (collectively, "Advanced Protocols"). You should not use your Coinbase Account to attempt to receive, request, send, store, or engage in any other type of transaction involving an Advanced Protocol. Our platform is not configured to detect and/or secure Advanced Protocol transactions.

[stomachgrowls]

I consider the court's decision to be completely correct if there were no such obligations in the agreement between the exchange and the user.
   
How Many Bitcoin Forks Are There?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5221882

Imagine what exchanges would have to do if they were forced to pay out coins to users after each hard fork
It's good that the time of forking famous coins has passed.

It would really be a big load of work into their part if this were considered on giving out those forked coins.I havent read up their terms towards Forks and other related thing on what would be their stance in that matter.

This is why its really important to know on what would be the upcoming forks and why the hell you would consider on putting up your coins on an exchange? Just like my local wallet provider on where they dont bother nor

care to give out those coins back into its users just like what happened on BCH which they do keep all of those coins for themselves and sadly no users didnt thrive on getting those coins yet it would really be a long,hassle,costly process for sure.

[figmentofmyass]

I don't think it's unreasonable to not want to open closed source applications anywhere near your main stockpile of crypto for users' funds.

closed source or not, i don't know if i buy the argument that exchanges should be liable for forks. they agree to hold custody of your BTC. the paramount concern should be secure custody of the deposited currency. there could be literally millions of shitcoin forks and airdrops---are they responsible for every one? where does it end, and what if there is no replay protection for a given fork?

if the plaintiff won in this case, it would set a chilling precedent where exchanges would have to start weighing the risks of customer lawsuits for not recovering forks against the risks of compromising their wallet security protocols. as someone who uses centralized exchanges, i would strongly prefer they err on the side of security and caution, rather than on the side of awarding everybody their shitcoin forks. anyone concerned about forks and airdrops is fully capable of requesting a withdrawal, and IIRC coinbase reminded users to do so before the BCH and BTG hard forks.

[Karartma1]

Never used coinbase here but I am with the company this time. It was such a a big pain to follow and implement all those useless forks (ok, many profited from them but that's not the point). The thing is simple, if one decides to use coinbase or any other centralised service this is what he gets. Their house, their rules (or their keys their coins, hence their responsibility).

[gentlemand]

Wasn't there some shitfork where Coinbase categorically stated it would never be accessed and for their punters to cast it out of their minds, and it subsequently did move?

Anyway it's stupid of anyone depositing there to assume that Coinbase will be willing to grind through all the junk that derives from your original deposit. If you feel that strongly about it no one was stopping you from moving it to somewhere under your control.

Take some goddamn responsibility for yourself. That was the original idea.

[DooMAD]

if the plaintiff won in this case, it would set a chilling precedent where exchanges would have to start weighing the risks of customer lawsuits for not recovering forks against the risks of compromising their wallet security protocols.

Not to mention it would open up a new type of attack vector where people could create dozens upon dozens of copycat chains and then sue when exchanges can't keep up with them all.

[smyslov]

I consider the court's decision to be completely correct if there were no such obligations in the agreement between the exchange and the user.
   
How Many Bitcoin Forks Are There?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5221882

Imagine what exchanges would have to do if they were forced to pay out coins to users after each hard fork
It's good that the time of forking famous coins has passed.

With that decision holders should make sure that they have their coins in their custodial wallet at the time of the fork, and with every fork exchanges are going to make a huge profit as well, unless their is a TOS that they are going to credit their accounts with that new coin if they have a coin that is due for a fork in their account, some exchanges do that but they always announce that is to create deposit at that time of the fork.

[Karartma1]

Take some goddamn responsibility for yourself. That was the original idea.

Most of the people I introduced to Bitcoin now turned defidiots, icomonsters and such (90% of them).
Why? Because most of them don't understand Bitcoin! They only want to get rich quick.
Dear gentlemand, only the minority shares our crusade over being the master of our financial wealth. Most of the people deserve to be on the legacy banking system which will keep ripping them off.

[Saisher]

It applies to fork but not if an exchange was hacked, there are exchanges that will credit you but there are many forks that announced that it's better to put your coins in a wallet where you have control of your private keys, at the time of your fork, always imposed the idea not your keys not your coins at almost every circumstances.

[gentlemand]

Most of the people I introduced to Bitcoin now turned defidiots, icomonsters and such (90% of them).
Why? Because most of them don't understand Bitcoin! They only want to get rich quick.

I support their right to sell out.

What irritates me about this case is that the whinee wants something they could've and should've done for themselves. If they can't see that expecting Coinbase to do the same when it's a shit ton of hassle for no gain and possibly a security risk then they're a stupid, mindless slut.