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Comment by holtalanm | Hacker News Reader

That is not the issue at all.

The issue is that Coinbase is _withholding_ the BCC from its customers. Technically, Coinbase has been awarded the BCC for all of the wallets they are in control of, but are refusing to distribute it.

It really is akin to a brokerage refusing to award shares to customers due to a company split/stock split.

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Does it depend on whether Coinbase is a fiduciary? Gemini, for example, represents that they are[1], but I find no such claim by Coinbase.

Edit: A fiduciary would (AIUI) not be allowed to keep shares from a spinoff, which this seems like. But I'm no expert.

[1] https://gemini24.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204734485-Is-...

They clearly stated, well in advance, through multiple channels, their intention not to support BCC. They specifically told people to take their BTC off CoinBase if they wanted BCC.

I don't think they could have been any clearer.

>well in advance

As a customer, the first notification of this was sent to me was around ten day before the fork, I don't think that would be considered as 'well in advance'.

Doesn't matter. The fork occurred, so they can either give the duplicated amounts to their customers or keep them to themselves and who knows, sell all of the BCC somewhere else for all we know. To me, the latter just seems to be unrightful profit for coinbase.

It seems clear that Coinbase must have a major fundamental financial problem.

How does that follow?

If Coinbase is actually holding BTC for every claimed BTC of their customers, then it's trivial to calculate how many BCH the customer held at the time of the fork and create a way to claim them or transfer them. It could be a one-time option, if Coinbase doesn't want to deal with BCH.

Unless they aren't holding as much BTC as their customers think they are. In which case, it gets complicated.

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