Coinbase and the Widespread Adoption of Cryptocurrency

[samatman]

> A quick Google search will reveal hundreds of unanswered support requests, API problems, and some shady internal business practices.

Ugh, please don't blog like this, hyperlinks exist for a reason. Each of the noun phrases composing the object of this sentence could have been a link. What Google tells you today won't be what Google tells you a year from now.

[cco]

What Google tells you and what Google tells me also differs, another reason to not treat "a Google search" as immutable and ubiquitous.

[judah]

Oiy, that was a bad article in terms of content, broad assertions without supporting evidence, superfluous animated gifs.

Besides the title containing the word "cryptocurrency", I'm not sure why this got on the front page.

[gruez]

off topic, but what's up with the gifs in this article? they're super distracting and they make up 80% of the page.

[ve55]

It's pretty relevant though. The article is completely unreadable for me unless I disable images. I don't understand the mindset of someone putting huge gifs everywhere in their article, that is something a small child would do, not someone that wants to be taken seriously.

[mehblahwhatevs]

And are not at all related to the content - horrible.

[sp527]

Why is this guy shilling so hard for Coinbase? Is there a conflict of interest disclaimer I missed in this post?

[chrisco255]

Coinbase is the most user-friendly crypto exchange for non-technical users. It more closely resembles an online banking experience that most people are used to. On this point, I have to agree with the author.

[mtgx]

The countdown to Coinbase getting acquired has already started. Now it's just a matter of when it will happen and which of the tech giants will end-up owning it.

[EthanHeilman]

Why would Coinbase agree to an acquisition by a tech giant?

* Coinbase is making plenty of money,

* Google, Facebook or Apple etc wouldn't provide much more additional value,

* and there would be a real risk that an acquisition would be a disaster since tech giants clearly don't understand cryptocurrencies (see AOL/Timewarner).

I could see an acquisition by a large bank or exchange.

[CPLX]

I'm an extreme skeptic on crypto, I'm not sure it's really useful for anything. But it seems to me that if anyone did want to buy this company it would be an old-line financial institution.

[Yizahi]

Why would tech giants want this particular industry? I don't see them buying guns manufacturers, despite that being a very profitable business.

[davesque]

It's almost impossible to pay attention to the article's content when it's constantly distracting you with huge animated gifs.

[dev_dull]

Why would something that serves such an extremely small niche market ever be “widespread”?

Rather than focusing on what crypto is bad at (nearly everything because trust is useful for 99% of its applications), crypto should focus on the niche where it’s actually good at: large money transfers across international boundaries.

[cryptobeanbaby]

Ah yes, like how Coinbase told its investors that Bitcoin is great for money laundering and bypassing sanctions?

  Immune to country-
  specific sanctions 
  (e.g. Russia-Visa)

http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/COINBASE-IN...

[pavlov]

> ... niche where it’s actually good at: large money transfers across international boundaries

Is Bitcoin even good at that?

If you're going to transfer a million dollars from Nigeria to the USA, presumably you're going to want to cash it out at the other end. If the exchange providing your USD follows the law, they'll be asking the same questions concerning the provenance of the $1M that would get asked for a regular wire transfer. So you're not really getting access to the money any quicker in the end.

Of course if the intent is to diffuse the $1M into smaller crypto transactions and cash out those under the radar... Well, that's a different niche entirely than just plain old "large international wires".

[Yizahi]

That is including or excluding paying capital gains taxes that is required for cashing out such transactions?

[lost953]

aka Crime (for the most part)