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> 10 new "bitcoins" could fork every day. Are we really going to expect coinbase to support them all? That's absurd.

Of course it's absurd, and nobody expects them to support 10 forks a day. If that was actually happening, Coinbase would be in a much better position to say no.

But this is a single fork, and one where the new currency has a lot of value, enough that customers are threatening to sue.

Anyone can sue but therr is no case. You are responsible for who you let hold your coins. If someone gives everyone who is holding a coin a new coin whoever is holding your coin doesn't have to accept it; Unless you agreed beforehand. In this case they told you before they will not accept it and you still left the coins with them.

>You are responsible for who you let hold your coins

The SEC has said that ICO tokens are securities. Do you really think intermediaries and wallets have no legal restrictions or obligations dictating what happens to them?

You can't categorically say that the fact they stated they won't accept BCC makes it completely legal for them to withhold millions of dollars worth of crypto. Terms of service ≠ securities law.

As one of the btc nouveaux rich, help me understand something I see reoccurring among my other btc-rich friends. Generally, when you're up big (and in some cases extremely wealthy), you diversify your investments in order to preserver your wealth. However, almost without exception my btc friends are such believers that they are holding on for the ride forever.

Is it just that the risk-averse were initially drawn to btc as a speculative vehicle? Or is it a matter of principle to hold forever?

I've seen the same -- I know someone who got in early to BTC, then moved it all into Ethereum early, such that he has enough to comfortably retire today. But he won't cash any of it in except for a small amount each month to live on, while he lives rent free with others.

When I explain the logic of hedging and mitigating risk and locking in gains, he was insistent that the right strategy is to hold because it's going to go up some more, and he doesn't need the money now for any of his current objectives.

Come to think of it, I should at least consider that he's making it up, but I've met him several time and he's well versed in crypto and way ahead of the curve in learning about this stuff. Who knows?

> Come to think of it, I should at least consider that he's making it up, but I've met him several time and he's well versed in crypto and way ahead of the curve in learning about this stuff. Who knows?

If you poll people after a presidential election, a higher percentage of people claim to have voted for the winning candidate than voted for the winning candidate.

It's a lot easier to be well-versed in crypto and claim you won some big bets, than it is to be well-versed in crypto and actually have won enough big bets to "comfortably retire". The former requires hindsight, and the latter requires immense luck and timing.

Would he have to be well-versed to have enough BTC to retire? Surely you could just get on board the hype train at the right station, when it was cheap enough to buy a few, and maybe at the urging of a colleague, and go from there.

None of the few people I know with BTC are especially well-versed in it.

This isn't that terrible. However its much much less risk and at worst only tiny bit less upside to put 34% in Ethereum, 33% in Bitcoin, and 33% in a basket of all else possible.

I'd suggest S&P index funds for the remaining third. If it's FU money already, taking out a third and putting into a known-decent investment because you don't need it right now should be a good way to ensure that you can actually retire whenever you'd like to.

I think the parent comment is just a hypothetical situation, and blhack isn't actually a bitcoin millionaire.

Just to clarify, yeah. Definitely not a bitcoin millionaire.

Personally, I'm not "extremely wealthy", but I'm certainly holding a larger percentage of my net worth in bitcoin than is prudent. However, I sold enough to make back my initial investment long ago; if it crashes to zero tomorrow I won't be ruined.

I'm not holding bitcoins as a matter of principle. I have a number in mind, and if I hit it I will have enough money to retire at 35. At that point I plan to sell ~90% of my bitcoins.

I could sell some now, and make a significant amount of money. But I already have plenty of money saved; a little more isn't going to change my life. For my bitcoin investment it's FU money or bust, and any amount I sell now just lowers the chances that I'll ever get to FU money.

Wow, I'd love some advice on getting there. I've found myself in cycles of debt for the past many years.

> ... initially drawn to btc as a speculative vehicle? Or is it a matter of principle to hold forever?

I got involved with btc when it was in the single digits, the crowd was very different then - cryptoanarchists. So your call to "diversify your investments" sounds to me much more like "diversify your politics", which is obviously a silly thing to tell somebody - especially somebody whose politics is any anarcho flavor. While I can only speak for myself, I do think this is true for many others: I was already living pretty comfortably and a few million isn't enough of appreciably change one's quality of life as a software developer.

As someone that deals with political parties and regulatory regimes in many countries at once, diversify your political isn't silly at all. Or at least I feel like being unsubscribed from one countries politics has only given me advantages, even if it is less common to not be married to a political flavor.

> ...diversify your political isn't silly at all.

It is, as most political differences are rooted in mutually exclusive ideas. If you are advocating for simply being open to considering alternative positions and measuring them against your own present position - then I agree with you, that is nice. But I would describe that as "diversify your politics", I'd describe that as being intellectually honest.

One way to diversify your politics is to get in bed with multiple mutually exclusive political parties. That way, no matter who wins, you'll have friends in high places.

> is it a matter of principle to hold forever?

There was a reply to this, now deleted:

> this is a pretty common (and self-destructive) phenomenon amongst unsophisticated investors

On the contrary, it's much more common for unsophisticated investors to sell their winners too early.

Dumb money is more emotional. Dumb money is risk averse and can't tolerate losses, so holds on to losers forever. Dumb money harvests winners after a 50% or 100% gain and reinvests in losers.

Smart money is coldly rational instead of emotional. Smart money isn't afraid of small losses. Smart money sells losers quickly and takes many small losses. Smart money holds one or two winners for a long time for 1000% and 10000% gains.

I'm sure some long-term bitcoin holders are ideological, but most are coldly rational smart money.

No. Smart money understands why something is valuable and to what extent along with weighing the alternatives.

Dumb money invests emotionally without comprehending why a thing is traded for other things.

> As one of the btc nouveaux rich, help me understand something I see reoccurring among my other btc-rich friends. Generally, when you're up big (and in some cases extremely wealthy), you diversify your investments in order to preserver your wealth. However, almost without exception my btc friends are such believers that they are holding on for the ride forever.

That's the idea.

However, you have to understand that if say SNAP stocks made someone rich, then diversifying makes sense, but if you got rich by some investment in some company Cayman Islands (but with a real business model), then you wouldn't just bring back the money or part of it purely for the sake of diversification.

In other words, diversification away from bitcoin isn't in the same boat as diversifying away from real estate or some stock.

From your friend's perspective, if they sell $100K worth of bitcoin, then is it possible that they might end getting on the radar of the govt and could be on hook for more than $100K?

In addition to that, bitcoiners also believe that bitcoin hasn't reached it's peak, so when it reaches it's peak, they wouldn't have to sell their bitcoins (because every business would accept bitcoin). You don't even have to go to 'every business' part. Even if half of the businesses accept bitcoin, then they don't need to sell their bitcoins.

Finally, if your nouveaux rich friends expect a Venezuala style situation, then, holding it further is the rational choice from their perspective.

> From your friend's perspective, if they sell $100K worth of bitcoin, then is it possible that they might end getting on the radar of the govt and could be on hook for more than $100K?

You really have to be on the radar if you plan on reasonably enjoying that kind of wealth. There are plenty of legit ways of minimizing the tax burden of that kind of investment.

Calling the top and bottom is a fools game. Diversification simply helps protect an entire asset class/sector from ruining you.

If you currently hold bitcoins which you mined, then they are a highly liquid assets because tomorrow you could flee the country and still have this wealth go with you. now I don't think most people think that they need to flee the country any time soon, but either way, it ISN'T the same thing as diversifying your non-crypto assets.

I am merely trying to explain to whomsoever wants to know why these people won't sell their crypto even to diversification, please don't start yelling at me.

> 10 new "bitcoins" could fork every day.

I think you're vastly underestimating how difficult it is to mine a new block on-demand.

It simply is not worth throwing that computing power at a DDOS attack. Moreover, if I _had_ that computing power, I'd rather just mine a regular block and get that sweet miner's reward.

You could always make a forked version with a lowered difficulty. Doesn't sound unreasonable

In fact, Bitcoin Cash does have modified retargeting that drops difficulty much faster. (they could just have well dropped difficulty by 100 times at the fork, as well)

So you have useless tokens. Value is perception.

And should Coinbase then be obligated to distribute those useless tokens?

No of course not. If the tokens are useless then nobody will blame Coinbase for not supporting them. But we're talking about BCH here, which is bigger than all other coins save Bitcoin and Etherium. There's a LOT of money at stake here.

At what point do you know if it is useless or not? Who decides? How long should Coinbase wait to decide to support it..before it becomes useful or after?

There's a really easy technical solution to this - let me have a hot wallet with coinbase and when i want to withdraw my bitcoins i can choose to have them hand off the private key for the account to me with bitcoins as of the block I deposited it

There's logic in these arguments; however, they ignore securities laws.

If BTC is a security, which the regulators probably think it is, then yes—you have to have a mechanism to bring concepts like splits, tenders, dividends to holders of the security if you are going to hold them for their benefit.

Developers considering forks will likely be required to follow yet unclarified rules around how much, how often, waiting and disclosure periods, etc.

(It's useful to consider how rules and systems have evolved governing how often Apple can split its stock or how Facebook investors are notified about tender offers, etc.)

This article is an entertaining read on that considers some of the issues discussed in this thread:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-02/bitcoin-e...

It's interesting to think about a fork as a stock split, because there is no entity to decide on a split happening.

It's really a 3rd party issuing tokens based on proof of bitcoin ownership.

Definitely going to be some interesting times for financial regulators!

the cftc has ruled that bitcoin is a commodity.

The funny thing is that Bitcoin, because of its decentralized nature, doesn't have an entity tied to it (like Apple and AAPL). So who has the authority to "split" bitcoin? To "spin off" bitcoin? And under what obligation are the exchanges required to accept those modifications/additions to bitcoin?

It's more like I announce tomorrow that I am going to issue a Pear stock at 1:1 for each existing AAPL stocker holder. Would Stock Brokers like Scottrade need to accept Pear stock on behalf of their customers that owns AAPL stock? Under what authority can I "spin off" an AAPL stock?

I don't think Coinbase is under any obligation to honor any Bitcoin spin-off/fork/split, unless it is done by an authority of bitcoin (like Apple and AAPL), which for decentralized crypto currency like bitcoin means no one.

It would require enough mining power to keep the chains alive, this is probably the only chance of keeping a fork of bitcoin alive, and even this is tenuous. Bitcoin Cash has a large support base however very little of that seems to be in the form of miners and you can have all the supporters and users in the world, but if you have no miners then you have no network. Given that they will use the same technology and have the same size block reward it doesn't seem to make sense to mine the currency that is worth less. When difficulty adjusts downwards you may get more block rewards initially but unless the coins hit parity there will always be a benefit in mining the more valuable coin.

It also doesn't make sense to mine a currency that has no users...or people taking it as payment.

If there is a user base, miners will materialize.

> 10 new "bitcoins" could fork every day

Not really. You are forgetting how the difficulty works (or simply don't understand bitcoin).

You'd have to have a significant percentage of the bitcoin mining infrastructure. If you have 1% of the bitcoin mining infrastructure it would take 100x the time to mine a block, or 1000 mins, or basically half a day, that would take a week of not getting bitcoin simply to confirm the new chain. As it is this new coin accounts for like 5% of the bitcoin mining power.

To do 10 new forks every day would take a 70% of the bitcoin mining power to sustain for just a week.

This is assuming that forks retain the difficulty target, which they don't have to. In fact, the Bitcoin Cash fork doesn't.

You can encode an immediate diff reduction as part of the hard fork. The block produced with too low a diff will make it invalid on the original chain, thus forking. It's trivial to create as many hard forks as you want.

No it wouldn't. All you have to do is change the proof of work algorithm.

Bitcoin Cash literally did thus, by reducing the the difficulty.

Yes we expect Coinbase to support them all.

Public companies have complicated stock actions like spinoffs (i.e. "Forking" the company), rights offerings, scrip offerings, stock dividends, etc. Do you think ETrade gets to not give their users the results of such actions because it would be complex to implement?

Not just anybody can "fork" a company. Anyone and everyone can fork a blockchain multiple times.

That's immaterial, because a company cannot force customers to forfeit assets by giving them a 10 day ultimatum.

Don't store your coins on an exchange then.. like you've been told over and over and over again

Oh yeah, that's absolute shit and there's been a precedent set that'll end with Coinbase owing a lot of money.

I'm just pointing out that they shouldn't have to support anything (so long as a proper warning is given if possible).

If it is so simple, why is this the only fork which has happened to BTC in the past 9 years?

It's not.

Same reason it took someone three years to create an altcoin. Doing so had no benefit.. until it did.

Because forking isn't the hard part. Actually maintaining and creating a better block chain is.

Either way, that's anecdotal.

But the currency exchange booth in the mall is not the New York Stock Exchange. Coinbase is more the former than the latter.

The blockchain itself is the "exchange" in the sense of being the arbiter of trades; if you want something to support all these actions, it should be implemented somehow into the distributed consensus mechanism of the blockchain itself. Or a... meta-blockchain, I guess. A distributed-consensus DAG+constraint system representing the relationships of various blockchains to one-another, without requiring "centralized" side-chaining in a chain that might be the very one you're trying to fork away from.

False. The blockchain is the DTCC. Coinbase is the exchange.

All of those actions are contractually specified. If Coca-Cola decided to go off-script and send a rubber ducky to each shareholder, ETrade would not be responsible for receiving 3 million rubber duckies and sending one to each shareholder that they hold stock for.

Property dividends are a thing. I would be quite surprised if ETrade got away with swiping property dividends from its clients.

Except bitcoin don't have a "company" that pays dividend per say. Owning bitcoin doesn't give ownership to anything beyond bitcoin itself. I cannot pay a random dividend to APPL stock holders because I am not AAPL. Why would Coinbase has to accept this random "dividend" from another random entity?