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Comment by SunlightEdge | Hacker News Reader

I lost a little bit of money investing in crypto on Coinbase (I put about £500 in which shrank to £200 - over the course of past 2 years and for past year I mostly have just had money in sterling - the market looked terrible) I finally decided yesterday to cash out of coinbase yesterday - they charged me £3 to withdraw my money!! In the scheme of things I didn't lose that much money - not really. But personally I can't see myself getting back in when Bitcoin goes below 10,000 dollars (which I believe it will in 2023). I think Coinbase share price is heading to junk status. No wonder the employees were selling all their shares when it went public!

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Your surprise over a £3 fee strikes me as a perfect illustration of crypto: profoundly naive, inexperienced investors getting a hard lesson in how unregulated markets work.

I hope, some years down the line, you take the broader life lesson that anyone promising you money for nothing does not have your best interests at heart.

So I don't agree with your view here. The majority of my savings were in index funds which have done very well over the years. Dipping in to a high risk investment is I think perfectly reasonable. What would be insane is if I kept on investing - or continued to do so even now. But in the spirit of good will I will take the merits of your comment :)

You make it sound like a £3 transaction fee is evidence of some kind of scamminess or preying on naivety but most normal, regulated investment platforms, crypto or not, come with transaction fees, account fees, fund management fees and so on. Usually they are taking a lot more than £3 from you too. That's even before we get into the world of professional financial "advice" and the commissions they just happen to earn when you buy the one they recommend. Compared to all the ways the traditional investment world seeks to milk you, Coinbase's flat fee per trade looks admirably straightforward.

Fees are a more honorable way to keep the lights on than the FTX ‘take the money and run’ business plan.

Mmmm that's a reasonable point - I didn't mind paying fees for the coins, but I do think its a little iffy about fees to withdraw...

On another note, one thing about Coinbase that struck me, was that on the app/website it doesn't actually show you how much money you put in / what the return on your investment is (I used a spreadsheet to track my own investment "success").

I suspect Coinbase does not do this deliberately - as many, many people who invest in Crypto lose money and it doesn't want to highlight this point too much.

£3 fee isn’t a withdrawal fee, it’s a transaction fee to sell your bitcoin for pounds. The actual withdrawal of pounds to you bank account is free.

Likewise, you could withdraw your bitcoin to your own wallet for free. The fee comes when you change from one type of currency to another.

I think the reason they don’t show return on investment is because Coinbase presents itself as an exchange, not an investment platform. The purpose is to facilitate the exchange of currency from one kind to another. They’re not positioning themselves as trying to help you build up retirement nest egg.

The surprise over the $3 fee indicates just how many tricks of the light are used to hide exactly how bad finance is, then make dishonest comparisons to crypto markets.

In my experience crypto exchanges have far fewer hidden fees than conventional banks do.

All the whales and insiders thank you for your donation of £303 to their net worth.

Lol. I probably shouldn't but I find this quite funny.

I bought some bitc on coinbase in 2015/2016? Around the time that it spiked to 30k and gained some money, but even back then I parted ways with Coinbase anyway, it seemed like a scam made just for them to earn money without risks, like even their quote of a BTC is higher price when you buy and much lower when you sell, and that for me was the breaking point

I had a similar experience to you a few weeks ago. First I paid transaction fees to change my coins into cash, and then Coinbase had the temerity to charge me again to transfer it out! They just had to squeeze a few more dollars out of me on the way out the door. It left a bad taste in my mouth for sure.

Just to clarify - if I were to buy crypto again, I would buy from Coinbase.

I am not positive about the future of crypto though. And I said before it's also telling that I had to use a spreadsheet to look at how much I put in, fees, money lost etc. On Coinbase. Again I suspect it's because a lot of people are losing money and the owners want that information hidden.

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