If you don't have significant liabilities you can't really go bankrupt.
(I didn't look to see if that was the case, just making the point in general)
(I didn't look to see if that was the case, just making the point in general)
Edit: looking at the 10K, other than customer assets (where they have a net holding), they have like $6 billion in cash and equivalents against less than $5 billion of debts and other obligations).
So if they shut it all down, there would be funds left over.
The dead reply to my comment at the top of the thread makes a good point that loss of the custodial holdings in a hack would bankrupt them.
No transactions? No income. No trust/willingness for people to continue doing transactions? No future income.
Every company that ever went bankrupt had more assets than obligations before they went bankrupt.
Coinbase's quick ratio [1] adjusted for custodial assets, as of 31 March 2022, was 6.6 [2][a]. That's good. Don't adjust for custodial funds, and it's 0.15. Virtually bankrupt. With $6.2bn cash on the balance sheet and $830mm cash burned by operations in Q1, they have over 2 years of runway assuming Q1's terribleness continues. That's good. But were they to suffer a hack, that margin of safety could rapidly collapse. And in that case, customers could be left behind secured lenders. (Where USDC holders would wind up is a mystery.)
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/q/quickratio.asp
[2] https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001679788/89c60d8... page 5
[a] (6,116,388, cash and cash equivalents + 346,048, accounts receivable + 1,333,333, crypto assets held) / (10,921,823, current liabilities - 9,742,961, custodial funds due to customers)
Grant Thornton audits Coinbase last I checked. Hopefully they do a better job than EY. I doubt a "stablecoin" holding would count as cash equivalents, but not all cash equivalents are equal and the definition has changed over the years. Commercial paper, 1-3 month maturing Treasury notes, certificates of deposit, money market accounts, and savings account funds can all be counted as cash equivalents. For example, if you hold a two month commercial paper of another cryptocurrency company as Coinbase, this might qualify as a cash equivalent. Cash equivalents are not all equally liquid or risky. Even if all of the cash and cash equivalents are there and solvent, the definition of a cryptocurrency in a bankruptcy might not be settled in a court of law in such a way that it favors account holders of Coinbase held cryptocurrency over stockholders or bondholders.
Yeah, that's what I said, fraud.
Do you have an example where it was wrong without fraud?
There is - as some people seem likely to discover - a difference.
I might tone it down just a bit to "Somewhat unlikely to happen. Today."
You can calculate your annualized failure rate. That's a best-case on the odds your funds will continue to exist next year. Move fast / break things / fail fast / developer sprints / etc. speeds this process up even further. Crypto companies also have a giant target painted on their backs for hackers (including rogue state-level actors, some of whom just had large sums confiscated by Western institutions).
Tulips, anyone?
I’m not saying it’s risk free, but what exchange or broker is? Does anyone else match Coinbase for security? Gemini seems at best equivalent.