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Comment by allears | Hacker News Reader

Well, there goes crypto. With this precedent, Coinbase is next. Bitcoin will probably survive, but the landscape will change radically.

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Coinbase and Binance acted/acts very differently. Binance basically throw their hands in the air saying "well, whatever, it's illegal so whatever we do is illegal, so lets just do whatever" while Coinbase been acting as they are trying to follow the law as much as they could, while still operating an exchange.

Not saying one is more illegal/legal than the other, but they certainly acted differently.

Do you have any insights into why they act like this? Is it the founders vision?

That’s the strategy they explicitly chose. Probably because of the founder’s preference or vision. They wanted to position themselves as the legal crypto exchange which is a great differentiation in that market.

> position themselves as the legal crypto

Not saying that it couldn't be, but the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

Coinbase acts like this because it was founded from day one to serve the US market, and everything that it has done has been to invest millions of dollars a year into complying with US law. Coinbase has only in the past couple months, started expanding internationally so they don't die immediately in case the US regulatory system decides to cannibalize them.

Binance acts like this because complying with US law is ridiculously expensive. Binance cares most about serving the remaining 95% of humanity that does not live in the US. Maybe seven years or so ago they really started shifting things around so their US services are expendable, and could be jettisoned at any moment if US regulators start biting.

Both are entirely reasonable strategies, and it's why I, as a US citizen, moved everything I had in Binanace away 7 or so years ago, and only ever do anything custodial with Coinbase. Back in the before times, I had accounts across multiple global exchanges so I could run arbitrage bots etc, but now it's basically Coinbase or nothing when it comes to custodial exchanges.

> Binance cares most about serving the remaining 95% of humanity that does not live in the US.

That totally explains why they put so much effort into catering for US whales.

Yeah, You don't do regular trade with the other 95% without the approval of the United States financial system, yay global hegemony.

Binance is relatively new, it was founded only 6 years ago, in 2017.

Yes, but Coinbase deals in lots of tokens that the SEC claims are "securities," so their business model may not survive.

I don't think it's possible to make money like a traditional bank or brokerage with cryptocurrency, none of it is sticky and the users can go around you. Thus the "security but not a security" get rich quick FOMO schemes.

Coinbase is american based by ex WallStreet people, I'm pretty sure this is all coordinated to help Coinbase lead the digital USD revolution, fishy buisiness as usual..

https://www.federalreserve.gov/central-bank-digital-currency...

Another case of Alstom or even BlackBerry..

Keep in mind this is a TRO, and the judge only has heard from the SEC so far.[1]

[1] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/wom...

For the casual bystander with crypto parked in Coinbase vaults, and maybe some eth staked - what's the consensus among those more knowledgeable? Move assets now or just stay the course?

It doesn't look like anyone is going to outright lose assets - but perhaps not the able to withdraw for some period of time?

One of the few benefits of crypto is to "be your own bank" and not needing 3rd party permission to move your assets.

Withdraw to cold storage, dump everything except bitcoin, and of course, do your own research.

...and send a test transaction before you send it all.

Self-custody is the way to go. Send your assets to a private key you control. Not your keys, not your coin. I sleep like a baby no matter what sketchy exchange is in the news any given week.

Exactly! My grandpapa drilled it into me at a very young age.

“Tortilla! Not your keys, not your coin! Eat your vegetables.”

Yes, but for regular people, like myself, being responsible for those keys is a pretty sizable burden. I didn't speculate on crypto because I hated centralized banking...

At the end of the day, figuring out whether new crypto companies are trustworthy might be as much of a burden as figuring out how to handle the keys yourself.

If you really don't want to self-custody, probably the next safest option is to skip all the new crypto companies and instead use one of the traditional finance companies that's starting to branch into crypto (like Fidelity)

The problem with that is you can't get overnight rich by buying a coin and holding it in an offline wallet anymore.

You either need to be day trading off the wild fluctuations in different coins prices, which requires working through an exchange, or you need to be "investing" in various scams and hoping to get your money back out before the rugpull.

I wonder how many billions of dollars are gone because of lost keys or how much was stolen because your wallet was compromised.

all of this conveniently happening right before FedNow goes live in July and after the debt ceiling got suspended until 2025

Similarly, you conveniently ignoring the past 20+ months of high profile crypto investigations, shutdowns, arrests, lawsuits and seizures to pretend there's a sudden conspiracy.

Don’t forget the CBDC reports that are coming due about now.

+ Dedollarization.

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