Please invest responsibly – an important message from the Coinbase team | Hacker News Reader

Please invest responsibly – an important message from the Coinbase team

blog.coinbase.com

103 pointsmgdo101 comments

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By the way, you really think Coinbase's BTC is insured even after the massive gains in BTC's price?

What do you think will happen if Coinbase's cold storage gets emptied?

If you're storing your coins on Coinbase, you're doing it wrong. Get your coins under your control.

seems unlikely

imagine the premiums

Some of it is insured (but unclear whether that includes cold or just hot funds).

My real question is how the insurance is denominated. Does it pay out in dollars or bitcoins? Did their insurance premium just go up 10x?

  All digital currency that Coinbase holds *online* is fully insured.

The way they word it, only their hot wallet is insured which is ~<2% of holdings. They definitely like to make it confusing.

https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/166237...

Indeed, no mention of insurance on the offline storage page: https://www.coinbase.com/security?locale=en

FWIW this applies to any coins you don't personally hold the private key for not just BTC on Coinbase.

He who holds the keys holds the coins.

Bingo. Because the keys are the coins.

Yes! 1000x yes.

If Bitcoin price tanks, it is 100% certain that Coinbase will either go down, or will lack requisite fiat. Better to have Bitcoin in your own wallet, and have more options to exchange for other cryptocurrencies.

The parent is commenting on coinbase’s ability to keep bitcoins safe.

It is basically not possible for coinbase to “lack requisite fiat” as the requisite fiat to run an exchange is zero. Coinbase simply matches buyers and sellers. Not sure how a price crash would change anything.

> If you're storing your coins on Coinbase, you're doing it wrong. Get your coins under your control.

And what if you lose the USB key, hard drive, etc or it becomes damaged? Oops.

Secure and reliable storage is a problem that must be solved.

just encrypt your btc keys with another secret key(symmetric key e.g. aes, blowfish or something else). Store them on different cloud providers, encrypted btc keys on google drive and the other secret key (password protect it) then store it on one drive or icloud or private repository on github. The hacker must hack both sites to take your keys(very unlikely to succeed) and they are both securely stored online. Also make sure you're not using the same password for both sites :)

The attacker only has to hack your email account then reset the password on the two target sites...

And then all they have is an encrypted file assuming good password hygiene.

So then why not just email the keys to yourself and leave them in your inbox?

Hardware wallets work by giving you a 24 word seed to recover it if lost, stolen, or broken.

People store them in safety deposit boxes or do a variety of security rituals to keep them safe. It's not as difficult as you make it out to be.

"'Please invest responsibly' because we can't guarantee you'll be able to cash out. We may also say something is fixed when it isn't."

https://twitter.com/briankrebs/status/939202667993272320

Despite the sizable and ongoing increases in our technical infrastructure and engineering staff, we wanted to remind customers that access to Coinbase services may become degraded or unavailable during times of significant volatility or volume. This could result in the inability to buy or sell for periods of time. Despite ongoing increases in our support capacity, our customer support response times may be delayed, especially for requests that do not involve immediate risks to customer account security. You can read more in our Coinbase User Agreement.

This is the problem they should be solving, not avoiding with blog posts

I agree they should solve the problem. It's pretty embarrassing.

Do you think it might be reasonable that they do both? The time to publish a blog post is probably about 4 employee-hours, including management review. Getting more servers, provisioning them, adding them to pools, rebalancing, and deploying code takes more time and engineers.

Well, interviewing competent, trustworthy people who provide valuable services to your business takes more time than server provisioning. I haven’t done the math, but I’d estimate I spend 20-25 hours of reading resumes, interviewing, and follow-ups per successful hire. And that’s multiplied by the 6-8 other people involved.

Edit: Elsewhere I read coinbase said they would hire 400 support folks — so 25 hours x7 involved staff, x400=70,000 hours

I'm sure they're doing everything in their power to increase their availability. I like that they're giving a heads up to their users in the interim.

Just a wild guess but I'd imagine they're probably doing both

Because we all know that an entire company can, at a given time, either write blog posts or solve infrastructural issues, never both.

+1. I hate unreasonable armchair CEOs.

You're completely missing my point

Its not that they can do one or the other (they can), its that they aren't doing the latter.

This problem with getting frozen up whenever theres major volatility has existed for years on Coinbase

Then please say that instead of making unnecessary snarks about blog posts. Any company with even a small marketing / PR team probably has people whose job IS writing blog posts, and who can't go around solving infra problems.

Not sure where this hostility is coming from

I'm sorry you're having a bad day, please dont take it out on me

As a former developer at a social media company that saw both the need for improved availability and messaging to users, I have no complaints about this post. Unlike most social media platforms, CoinBase users can easily move their money/BTC to another rival exchange, so CoinBase is right to address the concerns of people, not just their technical shortcomings.

Users can easily rile each other up in a tizzy when one user comes up with a (sometimes) plausibly sounding conspiracy theory and others latch onto it. Some on HN were doing this yesterday. I think it's fair that CoinBase remind their users that they are still growing and trying to keep up pace with the demand to buy into the BTC market, which has been experiencing a hockey-stick growth for over a year now.

Their support org is far too small for their user base

Yes, "don't take positions that require our exchange to be up" isn't exactly what you want from a provider of financial services.

Seems like the responsible thing to do would be to stop accepting new customers until the infrastructure catches up?

That’s not how you make money.

But it may be a good way to not lose money.

That is kind of what they're doing right now. It's impossible to get verified for an account.

I've seen this pop up a few times now... what verification? Coinbase hasn't asked me for any proof of who I am at all.

Really? I signed up a few weeks ago to check it out, I had to upload the front and back of my driver's license.

Yeah. I signed up this morning and bought a few ETH.

Have you actually bought bitcoin? When I signed up I needed to upload a picture of me holding my state ID to buy and sell.

I bought a few ETH this morning. I linked a bank account, is that the difference?

What state/country are you in?

West Virginia, US

I know very little about banking regulations, but I think the KYC laws change based on the state. It’s possible Coinbase has a different process in WV compared to CA.

Yep. Took me 5 minutes and just one txt message verification

Indeed. I signed up for Coinbase last night, moved right to verifying and getting set up on GDAX, uploaded my ID, got the "this will take 5 minutes" thing, waited 30, got bored and left it overnight, and in the morning the verification had simply disappeared and it wanted new pictures. If that was a rejection, I didn't get an e-mail or notification about it. No clue.

Credit card verification withdrawals went through fine, still waiting on the bank account verification deposits to appear as pending with my bank. Same account as the card.

Verification seems to be struggling.

So what does one do when you tried to verify, but coinbase shows this:

Driver's License + Photo Verification Reason:Unknown response status:

Every time I take a photo, I see "we're verifying your ID." Then nothing happens...

Edit: Even worse. Their status page implies things are working now, but they don't. I found that I can retry the upload, but now it says "You have reached the maximum attempts for identity verification, please try again in 24 hours." Wow.

I signed up earlier today and bought some ETH. Coinbase hasn't asked me for any sort of verification, ID, or photo.

It says my transaction will take 8 days, but that's the only waiting I've experienced.

Monitor this page: https://status.coinbase.com/

Also, they've had verification problems on and off for months. Back when I did it, the app didn't work, but the website did.

Correction, should read -"please speculate responsibly".

It's all speculation. Most retail speculators go bust.

If it’s all speculation, where do you suggest I store my wealth? The underlying characteristics of bitcoin lead me to believe it’s the safest asset in existence. It’s volatility is a result of people slowly discovering this.

Ummm stocks, bonds, cash, real estate?

Yes Bitcoin just like all other assets before that went parabolic will not end good.

Storing your life savings in Bitcoin right now is a suicidal idea.

Cash is guaranteed to depreciate at least 2% per year. Real estate is incredibly expensive and only supported by the cheap debt that has flooded our economy. Bonds are just barely above 0%... they have no place to go but down unless you think negative rates are possible. Stocks are incredibly expensive using every metric available. The rules of bitcoin are well understood and no one can manipulate them. I’ll take my chances, thanks.

Pull up long term BTC chart. Step aside and ask your self this : is this a good time to buy this asset or sell it?

I think most people are late to the party and will simply get burnt by the market like so many times before. It's going to be a good show for sure.

I'm watching this develop with my pop corn ready.

If I sold my bitcoin, I wouldn’t feel any better storing it in any of the asset classes you mentioned. Everytime I honestly evaluate what central banks have done around the world, I always arrive back at bitcoin. It’s my safehaven asset.

I wish you well with wherever you’ve chosen to store your wealth.

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/high-interest-savings-to-get/

All of those "high interest" savings accounts are below 2%. Official CPI is 2.5% for 2017 -- and CPI underweights essentials such as housing and healthcare, all of which have gone up much more than 2.5%.

Your savings accounts are all effectively negative yield. Why would I store my wealth there?

You obviously didn't click the link because it specifically shows you accounts up to 5%. I mean, the friggin title is "Best High Interest/Yield Savings Accounts – Up To 5% APY"

Your "5% APY" option is a prepaid debit card that has a maximum balance of 5000 and the advertised rate is only good for a couple of months.

The lesser rates have similar terms - only earn 3.5% on balances up to 10k, you must make 12 purchases from your debit card per month. You must spend more than 1k from your debit card per month. You must log in to your account at least once or month. If you skip any of these things, your interest rate is 0.01%.

This is your suggestion for storing wealth safely?

> This is your suggestion for storing wealth safely?

Says the person who suggests that a highly volatile and risky cryptocurrency with a long history of crashes and manipulation is a "safe haven".

In 2008 the stock market crashed over 50%. Plenty of people would have lost everything had the fed not intervened. Is bitcoin volatile? Of course. But at least the game isn't rigged.

There is absolutely no way you can be sure the price of bitcoin isn’t rigged. The exchanges are all sketchy as heck and are no doubt doing backroom trades to help boost the price.

I've kept around $10k in FDIC insured savings accounts tied to prepaid cards for years. Successfully got 5% risk free for years.

So, yes.

5% risk free is not going to scale to much more than that but if you're saying "stocks are expensive, real estate is expensive," then you aren't going to reach that limit very soon...

I have the rest of my money in various investments, a very small amount (5%) speculational, including a small amount of Bitcoin plus around $90k in my house.

>Storing your life savings in Bitcoin right now is a suicidal idea.

Don't tell (or do tell) this family : https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/10/17/t...

"The Dutch family of five is in the process of selling pretty much everything they own — from their 2,500-square-foot house, to their shoes – and trading it in for the popular cryptocurrency"

Is this satire?

Poe's law strikes again.

They take credit card for bitcoin purchases.

Hard to believe that they are sincere in their desire for responsibility, like a booze company telling you to drink responsibly.

Devils advocate: why not a casino blackjack dealer asking you how sane you feel about your bets?

"Please keep buying our product but don't say we didn't warn you"

I think they have exactly zero obligation to keep people from doing stupid things with their money. Making a blog post about it is nice of them, but probably not necessary.

It would be insane to take credit cards, as people could just file a chargeback if things do not go their way. Are you sure about that?

They do. I signed up a couple days ago and moved a few bucks worth of bitcoin into a wallet, and it was showing a weekly limit of $400 to buy via credit card. Now I'm up to $750.

Kinda clever to reply to the downtime this way - shifting the focus for accountability from the Coinbase team to their userbase.

Would it be better not to say it, rather than acknowledge the likeness to gambling of the btc speculation train?

That guy that bought in at $19340 last night, is only down $4000 twelve hours later.

And he'll by fine again next week. There are a lot of people who bought at $5000 a few weeks ago only to panic sell at 2900, and here we are less than a month later quibbling over the difference between 19k and 15k. Either switch your charts to LOG or zoom out until you feel better.

That's what people said when it went from $1100 to $200 for the next three years. No one has any idea where bitcoin is going to go, saying otherwise is nonsense. Only people with a glimpse, are the manipulators holding onto the majority of it.

BTC may dip temporarily, but with the entry of institutional money, we won't be seeing near the dips you're expecting. I have been watching and participating in this ecosystem from the beginning, take it from me, it's not going anywhere. The only way to lose money operating in this market is to be reckless with leverage, or knowingly sell while you're under, and the same could happen for any asset.

Oh, ok. I'll take it from you.

So given how recent events have unfolded, how is your friend doing?

Poorly, like the rest of you suckers.

Your hypothesis: "it's not going anywhere."

Do you have some argument points to back that up with?

I keep hearing simple assertions about what will happen, confidently proclaimed by two sides of a table.

Do you have any hypothetical scenarios that could wipe BTC off the planet or at least make it impossible to cash back it to fiat?

It's not up to me to prove a negative. Also, my brain is too small to make sweeping confident predictions about a new phenomenon the likes of which defy existing models. Moreover you'd probably poke hypothetical holes in my hypothetical scenarios. It's a flip of the coin, as far as I'm concerned.

Certainly some BTC were almost literally wiped off the planet, aka Mt Gox.

"Please invest responsibly"

Pretty similar to the warnings lottery agencies and alcohol makers put on their products.

I wonder if it's intentional? Kind of a wink-wink thing where just like lotteries and alcohol the unsaid next line is, "but it'll be more fun if you don't..."

Slight sidenote, but this recent interview of Brian Armstrong (Coinbase CEO) on Bloomberg TV left a really good impression. He managed to appear both humble, smart and confident at the same time. Things a lot of people could learn from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqF43uD3kKQ

Tangential: on the way to work today I was pondering the economy after hearing about the recent unemployment numbers on NPR. These days I tend to think about what's going to be the downturn catalyst. Which got me thinking about the recent surge in crypto prices, and how much of it has been fueled by purchases using credit cards, home equity loans, etc. I hope it's not too disastrous in the end but I have my doubts.

Meanwhile, reddit is full of people talking about the loans they're taking out to buy Bitcoin because it's a "sure thing" that it's going to $100k.

"You may not be able to trade while we're down, but we certainly can"

Take your best guess when Bitcoin will fall of the cliff: https://twitter.com/BitcoinPlunge

It would be nice if they supported u2f token

"Please invest responsibly" - coming from the company that lets people buy cryptocurrency with credit cards.

This blog post reads like an attempt to preempt a lawsuit after the price of BTC crashes and people are stuck with rapidly depreciating coins because Coinbase's servers were too overloaded to process a sell order.

That is exactly what it is. It is informing Coinbase's customers that their resources are finite and that they cannot be relied upon to execute trades nor provide support in a heartbeat.

It is important that they say this, as it appears to be true.

PSA: If you're a Coinbase customer, and you have never made a withdrawal, are you aware that there are weekly sell limits, priced in USD, not BTC? It was a surprise to me.

If you're sitting on a little BTC kitty at Coinbase that has grown large, do know that you may not be able to convert it all to USD on a single trade even if Coinbase has liquidity and buyers.

Do they not lay out those limits in a clear way somewhere or had you not looked for the info?

I transferred my BTC to Coinbase a few years ago (because I didn't trust myself to keep my wallet safe), and this is the first time I have heard of this. To be fair my account isn't set up for withdrawal (no bank account connected), so you might be notified about this there.

I meant something like https://support.coinbase.com/customer/en/portal/articles/210...

Which is a top result searching Google for "coinbase transaction limits".

Deposit/withdrawal limits can be increased if you ask them (if you are a high net worth individual.)

It is a surprise if you expect Coinbase to operate like traditional trading platforms/banks. Those tend to have lots of KYC friction to make deposits, little friction to make withdrawals.

I continue to be surprised that Coinbase doesn't allow instantaneous execution, if they really do have buyers/liquidity, and then allow the USD to sit in a cash account and trickle out slowly if necessary.

I was similarly surprised that I'd have to set up a GDAX account just to place a limit order. Making what is essentially a forex exchange with market orders alone is fraught with uncertainty.

My weekly withdraw limit is $50k... I have zero problems with that.

Counterparty risk is through the roof.

I tried moving some prediction market contracts on US Election Day, couldn’t trade anything due to traffic volume. This feels familiar.

Decades of technical and legal work went into our stock exchanges, the bitcoin bucket shops are a few generations behind. It doesn’t matter until suddenly it does.

This will help when CME and CBOE get their contracts launched, right? They can handle the real life traffic for such thing as crude oil. I do not think the bitcoin volume would phase them very much...

Bit coin is a tiny market compared to real markets.

Exactly why it will work much better when the real boys come in to town :)

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