How would this even work in the event of a major hack or theft. I doubt aon has a stack of bitcoins lying around to pay out.
Say a 100,000 btc were stolen, I am assuming aon would provide coinbase with the money to buy those coins, the problem with that is a buy order that large would create a rally and the btc would cost more than when they were stolen.
Or of course the value could plummet after the hack and a dump (lets say 5,000 btc hack, not enough to spur a huge rally when bought back), and then would aon only provide enough money to purchase those btc again (less of a payout by them to coinbase)
These factors lead me to believe their policy is bullshit, and it is something like they are insured for up to $5,000,000 or something, and any loss larger than that, oops were bankrupt.
You make great points. I am not entirely sure, but here are a few of my thoughts:
1) Aon will only reimburse Coinbase USD in the event of a hack or theft. IMO, CB doesn't actually care about losing its BTC at the end of the day, it cares about losing its USD investment into the BTC ecosystem. As long as they get the market value (most likely more contractually) for their stolen coin, they won't lose a wink of sleep.
2) The policy is BS on the part of the customer. As we have seen lately, CB is really good at saying things they don't mean. Their website has lots of keywords floating around meant to attract customers. They use words like "insured" or "FDIC-wallets" or "fully backed by AAA rated insurance" or "regulated and licensed." These words attract the masses who are ignorant about BTC in general, not the individuals who know whats going on and have been around.
You're right, it is BS. Per the usual, don't keep your coins on the exchange. I see these exchanges as pop up shops until most of the coins are mined. Unless they actually contribute to the ecosystem later (trading platform, remittance, etc.) I predict a large chunk of these exchanges will fold logically when the time comes.
