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Comment by djbusby | Hacker News Reader

If you watch CoinBase a bunch of folk there have Eth tied into Eth2 (which gets interest) - but many are mad it's locked and not tradable, only buyable until the merge/cutover to PoS based Eth.

Basically Eth re-implemented Interest, called it Gas and are now just calling it Interest again?

Edit: oof, just pointing to what CB is doing.

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Never use Coinbase for anything.

I tried to transfer my regular ETH out today - and they locked transfers on my account "to protect me from scams". After id verification they said that it maybe will be unlocked in the week.

Looks like they are blocking ETH transfers so they can keep (and flip) ETH-PW for themselves.

I had a fun issue with coinbase where they locked my account due to KYC issues. Which is funny, because I've been a customer for a decade. They locked my account and asked me to provide sources of funds. They didn't specify which funds, so I guess they wanted all funds ever? I inquired and two months later I got a cut and pasted response that just repeated the initial request. Coinbase customer support couldn't help, and there was no escalation mechanism. So I just submitted a random collection of funds explanations. 4 months later my account was unlocked.

Super cool. I already used Kraken for everything but now I'll use Kraken while really disliking Coinbase.

I had a situation like that with Robinhood and ended up just writing a long email detailing my job history and previous trading experiences. It was enough to satisfy them and my account was unlocked the same day.

Crypto finance is no different than regular finance. Same products, same mechanisms within those products, etc just without any regulation. And now people are starting to understand why regulations exist.

That's the problem plaguing cryptocurrencies today. These exchanges are literally banks in disguise, all the risks and no guarantees. Cryptocurrencies were supposed to put an end that sort of centralized institution, not reinvent the entire financial system poorly...

Almost all cryptolending is overcollateralized which is unheard of in traditional banking. I mean banks take your house as a collateral, they don't take one house and a quarter of a house as collateral for borrowing a single house.

Yea my point is more along the lines of crypto would call this like “staking” instead of “collateral” and act like they’ve invented a new financial concept.

Yes, for many there are no advantages, but I think this goes too far.

For example, playing people interest to keep a ledger seems kind of new?

Paying people interest created out of thin air is kind of new. Usually there is a borrower on the other side.

You might compare with a stock dividend or with paying employees with company stock. A company can create more stock and pay it out without using any cash.

When converting to cash, it's still the case that for every seller there needs to be a buyer.

I'm not a finance person, but I think that was roughly how traditional banks paid themselves.

False. Crypto finance cant be shut down, your wallet frozen or transaction charged back. Regulations exist to strip you from your rights. China regulated bitcoin mining, well now its banned there.

> Regulations exist to strip you from your rights.

I know it’s easy to think that. But the vast majority of financial regulations exist to protect the little guy from the big guy in any given transaction or financial relationship. I’ll let you discern which one you tend to be as the consumer.

OK, but I don't want the protection. Where's my option to opt out and risk it?

I'm fine with signing a document saying "without KYC and AML, and banking and other regulations evil bastard terrorists may rob me blind." Whatever, lets got on with it, I want my wildcat banking, and yes I understand why other people think I shouldn't.

The protections aren't just for you. They're also for the impact your actions have on everyone else. You may not care about money laundering, but most Americans do, so it's regulated.

> but most Americans do, so it's regulated.

I'm not a cryptocurrency supporter, but I'd like to see any surveys about this because I highly doubt the average American cares or even thinks about money laundering.

If I asked the average American if they were ok with government scrutiny of their bank account I seriously doubt they would agree with you. As some purely theoretical argument about stopping al capone from washing money he's paying to hitmen or something I'd sure they'd agree, but when it comes to the nitty gritty like not being able to open a bank account without an address or a report being written up because they pulled $11k out to buy a used car I think it's doubtful. I'd really like to see your survey showing Americans support AML laws as written.

In fact, Chevron Deference has resulted in many policies being implemented without the majority of even _representatives_ agreeing on a policy, let alone the majority of the public.

I want to be able to fire my guns indiscriminately in the air.

And yet somehow we've survived despite the fact you can legally obtain a gun in most states without an ID, address, or any background check whatsoever and no real monitoring of what you do with it. And buying 10k bullets doesn't even trigger a report.

I can get a gun with just cash in hand without violating the law, but not a freaking bank account. If I can be trusted with a fucking AK/AR without checks and my state will let me conceal a revolver in my waistband without any proof of anything or documents whatsoever, I ought to be trusted to be able to open a damn account with my passport but no address, on the basis of which multiple banks have refused me because apparently not being able to furnish an address didn't let them satisfy their KYC rules. At least one of those banks would have allowed me (by both policy and law) to conceal a gun in the damn bank but not open an account (LMAO)!!!

Just keep all your funds in online crypto exchanges and bounce transactions through mixers. You'll have the zero protections you desire.

I’m not sure, probably nowhere. Not enough people dumb enough to want that to make it happen. Not really relevant though.

Why do you want that?

> Crypto finance cant be shut down

But the comment also states

> China regulated bitcoin mining, well now its banned there.

I think that's an example of shutting down crypto finance. I think I'm not understanding your argument.

Binance tokenized ETH 2.0 stakes as BETH, allowing users to earn the interest but still trade them back to ETH if they want.

Trading data at this time:

  1 BETH = 0,9564 ETH

"Coinbase is making it possible for ETH2 holders to wrap their ETH2 into cbETH, which is a liquid representation of ETH2 that can be traded or transferred."

How do Binance and Coinbase coordinate their cbETH and BETH?

They don't? They're separate tokens.

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