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Comment by otoburb | Hacker News Reader

Coinbase didn't need Mt. Gox to become what they are today. I'm not sure this line of reasoning holds much water.

Perhaps if we were to follow Vessennes' absurd chain of reasoning to its logical conclusion, CoinLab itself should be countersued by Mt. Gox creditors for failing to become as successful as Coinbase given their head start in the US.

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I think Coinbase is successful because it's the "default" exchange for noobs in the US. Mt. Gox was the default exchange until it failed and if it had never failed (which is a longshot assumption, granted) then it would probably still be the default, largest, and most valuable US exchange today. (Of course, non-US exchanges like BitMEX are far larger because they offer more "exciting" products.)

CoinLab itself should be countersued by Mt. Gox creditors for failing to become as successful as Coinbase given their head start in the US.

CoinLab's deal with Mt. Gox was never consummated so they did not have any head start.

Coinbase is successful because it was the fist exchange that did things by the book and has a well deserved reputation for competence and law abiding conduct.

Coinbase did need something like Mt. Gox to become what they are today, but not in the sense you imply. The whole Mt. Gox episode opened people's eyes up to the fact that large institutional frauds could take place with their Bitcoin wealth, and that there indeed was a need for a well managed reputable provider for these services. Bad actors can come in many sizes, and a bad actor of Mt. Gox scale also brought about plenty of controversy and media attention that was heaped on this subject. It benefited Coinbase in no small part to capitalize on this already acknowledged need for a business.

IIRC, Brian Armstrong (CEO coinbase) was at the top of the MtGox volume leaderboard, because he relied them for Coinbase's retail exchange.

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