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Comment by yohann305 | Hacker News Reader

Not sure if this is related or not, but Coinbase's cryptocurrencies of choice (Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin) just got a huge price bump in the past 2 hours which makes total sense because if this "Coinbase Custody" system is adopted by businesses and institutions, huge amount of money will be poured into these cryptocurrencies which will dwarf the current price.

Am I missing something or it makes sense?

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Who the hell knows with cryptocurrencies. Investor confidence sways easily and government approvals can make or break viability not to mention most of the populace (including the institutions) have no idea how to practically make use of them. It's probably here to stay, but (hopefully) in a different iteration than we're used to today: more eco-friendly and sustainable.

As someone who watches the price of bitcoin in detail every day, the price bump from today is not related to this news.

It's just usual market activity (stop hunting)

Are you saying that if you were a trader or just in the market to buy and sell Bitcoin, and somehow you knew, 100%, 24 hours before anyone else, that Coinbase was announcing this, it would not influence you at all? Because that is what you are saying.

Yes, this is what I am saying. This is minor news. This is old news. It was known that this was coming since at least November:

https://medium.com/@barmstrong/announcing-coinbase-custody-a...

Institutions want investments that confer actual rights, something which these cryptocurrencies do not do.

If you are expecting a large influx of institutional investment money, I expect you will be disappointed.

That's a good criticism of ICOs that fund specific teams, which are somewhat analogous to company shares. Base layer cryptocurrencies on decentralized platforms are more like commodities and foreign currencies, which don't confer rights either but still attract massive investment.

That’s not true. For example, owning bitcoin gives you property rights.

Are you referring to the right to obtain profit from forks?

No, i’m talking about the fact that bitcoin is literally property according to the government.

Also profit != property.

I would say Bitcoin Cash is Coinbases's currency of choice.

They have pushed for on-chain scaling for years and have been very vocal about how horrible Blockstream (small blocks) has been for Bitcoin.

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