[2014-12-14]Bitcoinist- Is Coinbase Giving the Best BTC Approach to Newbies?

[Blawpaw]

Are Companies Like Coinbase and BitPay Giving the Best Bitcoin Approach to Newbies?


http://bitcoinist.net/companies-like-coinbase-bitpay-giving-best-bitcoin-approach-newbies/

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[DooMAD]

No, any centralised company offering to store people's bitcoins for them are doing their users a disservice in not educating them correctly in how to use bitcoin safely and securely.  Stop letting other companies look after your bitcoin for you, idiots.

[Chef Ramsay]

No, any centralised company offering to store people's bitcoins for them are doing their users a disservice in not educating them correctly in how to use bitcoin safely and securely.  Stop letting other companies look after your bitcoin for you, idiots.

They're in business to offer their services like a bank does, just a different market. Nearly all people that work for a living keep their funds in a bank and their retirement in some sort of broker's hands. Face it, it will only be the techies that store their coins in cold storage off the reservation so to speak. In order to get new people feeling safe in this market and shedding us of the bad PR of the past (gox and stuff), it's a must for the likes of coinbase and circle to have the reputations of credit unions in terms of users storing their money, coins or whatever. Agreed, most people keep their gold and silver on hand but this stuff is way different when the average new person is extremely busy w/ work, family, hobbies and whatever else. Just saying.

[DooMAD]

No, any centralised company offering to store people's bitcoins for them are doing their users a disservice in not educating them correctly in how to use bitcoin safely and securely.  Stop letting other companies look after your bitcoin for you, idiots.

They're in business to offer their services like a bank does, just a different market. Nearly all people that work for a living keep their funds in a bank and their retirement in some sort of broker's hands. Face it, it will only be the techies that store their coins in cold storage off the reservation so to speak. In order to get new people feeling safe in this market and shedding us of the bad PR of the past (gox and stuff), it's a must for the likes of coinbase and circle to have the reputations of credit unions in terms of users storing their money, coins or whatever. Agreed, most people keep their gold and silver on hand but this stuff is way different when the average new person is extremely busy w/ work, family, hobbies and whatever else. Just saying.

But as Blockchain.info have just proven, the bad PR will only continue if people keep trusting third parties.  You can't (and shouldn't) compare them with banks.  The argument that we need to move on from gox by repeating the same mistake with a different company makes no sense.  Coinbase, Circle and others could well be ticking timebombs.  Regardless of how busy people are, it doesn't take 5 minutes to hammer home the point that if you don't have sole control over the private keys, you don't have control over your bitcoins.  Get a desktop or mobile wallet and make a few backups.  It's not like it takes a huge amount of time to do that.

[Atdhe]

As Chef said. Face it. Most people will and want to trust 3rd parties. The people who do not are already in. With btc people have at least the option and can switch to manage their funds. And I believe they will.

I alos think much more people blew it by themselves (lost passwords, leaked access to wallets) than by third party.

I do not like human nature at all as well, but it will not change only because we will say it will change. 3rdparties are necessary for BTC development.

[DooMAD]

I have to say this thread isn't doing much for my hopes of the future.  All I'm hearing is that we should encourage complacency because people are generally either too lazy or too stupid to learn how to use this technology in the way it was designed to be used.  I can't in all good conscience back down from my stance that repeating the mistakes of the past is not how we should be looking to go forward.  I'm not saying third parties don't have a role to play, but if you're pinning all your hopes on them for mass adoption, I think you're going to be disappointed and the negative headlines will continue.

[Atdhe]

Well my personal hopes or despair; or even hopes of people on this forum - are so small compared to the world, that they can be thrown away right away imo.

So I am not pinning my hopes into anything, truly. I am just betting on Bitcoin and part of the bet is not just the organic help of core bitcoiners, but corporations as well. Most people are and will be always utterly stupid. But even if those people use btc, it will help btc to become real money. It is a kind of paradox, but life and business is full of those paradoxes. Things never occur in straight way. Let's do revolution. Let's push it hard. The change is here. It never occured like that. And if the essence has to prevail and not vanish, the idealists hit the ground of reality in the end.

And I am optimistic here. many bitcoiners adopted and became core capitalists who make money with btc. Yes, it is pathetic and so on, but that is the stage where humanity now stands. Every revolution in the last 200 years made it there and failed, because people were stubborn. This time it might be different, because the inner corruption that is always happening as people are becoming selfish, can not change the bitcoin.

I believe in blockchain. People are already lost.

[Chef Ramsay]

No, any centralised company offering to store people's bitcoins for them are doing their users a disservice in not educating them correctly in how to use bitcoin safely and securely.  Stop letting other companies look after your bitcoin for you, idiots.

They're in business to offer their services like a bank does, just a different market. Nearly all people that work for a living keep their funds in a bank and their retirement in some sort of broker's hands. Face it, it will only be the techies that store their coins in cold storage off the reservation so to speak. In order to get new people feeling safe in this market and shedding us of the bad PR of the past (gox and stuff), it's a must for the likes of coinbase and circle to have the reputations of credit unions in terms of users storing their money, coins or whatever. Agreed, most people keep their gold and silver on hand but this stuff is way different when the average new person is extremely busy w/ work, family, hobbies and whatever else. Just saying.

But as Blockchain.info have just proven, the bad PR will only continue if people keep trusting third parties.  You can't (and shouldn't) compare them with banks.  The argument that we need to move on from gox by repeating the same mistake with a different company makes no sense.  Coinbase, Circle and others could well be ticking timebombs.  Regardless of how busy people are, it doesn't take 5 minutes to hammer home the point that if you don't have sole control over the private keys, you don't have control over your bitcoins.  Get a desktop or mobile wallet and make a few backups.  It's not like it takes a huge amount of time to do that.

I suspect the main goal of the VC money going into these various upstarts is to allow the average person the safety of a third party as you've maintained for yourself. Like, bring the horse close to water and make it as easy as possible for it to take a drink or in our case, buy/use/maintain their finances that are put into Bitcoin. I'm not trying to dispute what you've said but I think it should be common knowledge (around here) that the average person has a room temperature iq and if us as liberty-minded people can't get them to want more of that then we certainly are doomed for failure in getting them to bank themselves and all that that entails. I'd like to embrace the advances in ecosystem technology going forward not hold up my nose at it.