This is good news, but it's important to remember that the way Coinbase works is for Coinbase to keep the private keys. A Coinbase "wallet" is really more like a Coinbase demand deposit account. That means you are trusting Coinbase to hold on to your bitcoins, thus losing one of the key benefits of bitcoin, which is that you hold your money. A better alternative is the Blockchain.info app, but from my understanding this is not available for un-jailbroken iPhones (please correct me if I'm wrong).
I think the key benefit of bitcoin here is that you have a choice as to who holds your bitcoin for you, as opposed to there being only one option: storing your money with a bank. You can store bitcoin with an online wallet or on your home computer, and there are risks in both cases. E.g. if you are afraid of getting hacked, or accidentally destroying your own keys (common enough to be a real concern), you may determine that storing your bitcoin with a service like Coinbase is better for you personally in your specific context.
The advantage of bitcoin is being able to have that option, not that it's always necessarily better to store bitcoin on your own.
Correct, I go as far as to not even really consider Coinbase a wallet, even though I know that's what there shooting for. I still like using Coinbase to buy when dips occur, It's the easiest way for US residents.
Blockchain.info web interface I believe works on the iPhone, albeit It's been a while since I've been there. If you really want to embrace Bitcoin, build from source https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
Wow, sweet. It seems though that the "send me a link" feature doesn't work with non-US phones? It would be nice if you had a friendler message when someone enters a non-us phone (essentially, a number beginning with "+", and not with "+1")
Coinbase already had an app... At least I had one installed from way back. It had the exact same icon and name. It was basically just a list of transactions and you couldn't take any action. Maybe they aren't counting that app. Interestingly, this new app must be using a different bundle if because I now have both Coinbase apps installed next to each other on my phone.
Am I wrong for having a moment of panic were I wondered if I had been tricked into installing an app that was not actually Coinbase's all those months ago?
I'm still a novice to Bitcoin but I thought the lure of it was so that there is no way to track/audit money transactions in as far as who was involved.
The top screenshot seems to show such an audit trail. I hope it is stored on the device (never on Coinbase's servers) and only temporarily.
It's not a private wallet it's an interface to a coinbase's shared wallet obviously they track it. If you didn't want that you would use one of the many local wallets / blockchain.info's wallet.
The blockchain is a public ledger of most every transaction made with bitcoin. It includes sending and receiving addresses and the amount transacted.
You can think of the Coinbase app as a contact book that attaches a name and face to a bitcoin address. This is exclusive to the Coinbase servers. No one else but you can see the identities of the people you have transacted with, only the addresses and amounts.
No, bitcoin has a global history of all the transactions and how much at what time was sent from what account to what other account. There is most definitly a way to track the money (ish).
However you (or anyone) can set up lots of accounts for free and unless you tell someone, people can't easily match up account to actual person.
Coinbase taking over a lot of the bitcoin ecosystem makes me nervous. They seem to have great engineering skills, but have the morals of PayPal. It might be better to push for other services that seem to be pushing for the betterment of the whole bitcoin community like inputs.io
For those curious: Yes, there is already a wallet app available on the App Store called "Blockchain". It's a thin client app, which is usually more secure than using Coinbase (which keeps your private keys). It supports sending, receiving, etc. from your phone. The UI is so nice that I prefer using it to all other Bitcoin apps, be they mobile or desktop.
[+] [-] yafujifide|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ok_craig|12 years ago|reply
The advantage of bitcoin is being able to have that option, not that it's always necessarily better to store bitcoin on your own.
[+] [-] w-ll|12 years ago|reply
Blockchain.info web interface I believe works on the iPhone, albeit It's been a while since I've been there. If you really want to embrace Bitcoin, build from source https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
[+] [-] pmorici|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mustapha|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] bredren|12 years ago|reply
If you are new to Bitcoin apps, you may want to check out Gliph. [1]
The app lets you view your Coinbase, Blockchain.info or BIPS bitcoin wallet and send Bitcoin to people easily.
[1] https://gli.ph/ (I work on Gliph.)
[+] [-] kolinko|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bgar|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nextstep|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carbocation|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barmstrong|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] letney|12 years ago|reply
I wonder if Apple will start allowing entirely phone-based wallet apps now...
[+] [-] wyager|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaekwon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kolinko|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jayfuerstenberg|12 years ago|reply
The top screenshot seems to show such an audit trail. I hope it is stored on the device (never on Coinbase's servers) and only temporarily.
[+] [-] asdfaoeu|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samweinberg|12 years ago|reply
You can think of the Coinbase app as a contact book that attaches a name and face to a bitcoin address. This is exclusive to the Coinbase servers. No one else but you can see the identities of the people you have transacted with, only the addresses and amounts.
[+] [-] rmc|12 years ago|reply
However you (or anyone) can set up lots of accounts for free and unless you tell someone, people can't easily match up account to actual person.
[+] [-] nnnnni|12 years ago|reply
( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6573455 )
[+] [-] deftnerd|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] orand|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fiatjaf|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wyager|12 years ago|reply