Coinbase Adds Support For Bitcoin Cash [Update: Disabled]

Popular digital exchange Coinbase has announced support for Bitcoin Cash. "Bitcoin Cash was created by a fork on August 1st, 2017," a blog post reads. "All customers who held a Bitcoin balance on Coinbase at the time of the fork will now see an equal balance of Bitcoin Cash available in their Coinbase account. Your Bitcoin Cash balance will reflect your Bitcoin balance at the time of the Bitcoin Cash Fork, which occurred at 13:20 UTC, August 1, 2017."

The recent announcement has disrupted the markets. Bitcoin has dropped 12 percent, with the other two cryptocurrencies supported via Coinbase not faring too well either.

Update: Coinbase said Tuesday evening users wouldn't be able to buy and sell bitcoin cash four hours after it said trading of the cryptocurrency would be enabled on its platforms. Chief executive Brian Armstrong said the company is looking into whether employees tried to profit from advanced knowledge of the news.

Comments

16000, 8500, and 750 at the same time?

[RhettLivingston]

Coinbase is looking really weird today. Many times I've noticed the various offerings at odd numbers on an individual basis like $15,999.99 (bitcoin), $8499.98 (bitcoin cash), and $749.99 (ethereum). Just a few moments ago, I saw this kind of number, as if there is some effect causing them to trade at around two significant digits, on all three simultaneously. I don't know what to make of this but can't imagine it being random chance. Does anyone have some technical insight here?

For those with their bets spread, this is an awesome day! It hurts not one bit for bitcoin to go down a bit if the net effect is positive. The total value of bitcoin and bitcoin cash for those who've held onto theirs since August is now at $24500!

Re: Hahaha no...

[j-turkey]

Cryptocurrencies are a massive Ponzi scheme. The last ones in will lose all their money. Exchanges like Coinbase should be shut down by the feds.

It sounds like you do not understand what a Ponzi scheme is. Read up, my friend. It may be a bubble, but it's not a Ponzi scheme by any definition that I've ever heard of.

It is both

[SuperKendall]

it's an investment rather than a functional currency

How is it not functionally a currency if I can buy things with it?

If people stop buying BTC it will not matter because there will always be some level of trade where people are buying things with BTC and thus exchanging BTC for real value. Again, a functional currency.

The reason it works is because people the world over back it, not just a single nation - which is why the valuation you noted is still quite low.

Re:It is both

[Kiuas]

How is it not functionally a currency if I can buy things with it?

You missed the point he was making.

A currency =! a functional currency. The Venezuelan bolivar is functionally a currency, but because of the hyperinflation that has made it worthless it's not a functional currency and the people have by and large transitioned away from it and are operating using other currencies, mainly the dollar.

Bitcoin is certainly in a similar situation but for different reasons (not inflation). The amount of actual vendors (outside the dark/grey market(s) in Tor which constitute the majority of BCs current usage) is so tiny that it's de facto impossible to buy nearly anything with BC in the real world. It's a currency still, but because of the low amount of practical uses, the highly unstable value and the insanely slow transaction speed (and cost), it's a very very dysfunctional one.

I couldn't buy a carton of milk with BC from a store even if I wanted to, and even if I could there's no benefit for me in doing so as compared to using regular cash.

If people stop buying BTC it will not matter because there will always be some level of trade where people are buying things with BTC

This is massively incorrect for 2 reasons. Firstly, If people stop buying BC that means BC will lose its market value which means there's no reason for anyone to accept BC as a payment. If no-one's buying or selling bitcoin, there's no reason why anyone will accept it as payment for actual goods because there's no guarantee whatsoever that you will be able to get anything with the coins you receive as payment. Imagine if I wanted to buy your car with BC. Say your car's worth around 15 000 $. Okay, with current BC market price that means I could, if you agree, pay you about 1 bitcoin for it and it'd be a solid deal for both of us. However, in 10 years if no-one's exchanging BC for real world currencies you'd certainly not agree to the trade with just 1 BC. Would you agree to it at 100 BC? 1000? How do you measure the amount of coins you'd need for the trade to be fair? You can't. For any trade to be feasible, you have to have a market value measurable in other currencies, because without it just saying. "I will pay you N bitcoins for your car" is a meaningless statement that doesn't convey how much value is actually being transferred to the seller.

Secondly and more importantly, if no-one's buying or selling BC the mining infrastructure will collapse making BC transactions impossible. Running the mining operation is insanely energy intensive and only gets more intensive with time as the calculations required to maintain the blockchain get increasingly complex. Right now people are doing this because the value of the coins they receive as payment for mining are worth several times more than the electricity/hardware costs to run the operation. If the market collapses or BC price drops significantly, the mining will become unprofitable, ie. running the mining will cost you more than you get out of it as a reward*. The moment this happens there's no economic incentive for anyone to be running BC mining, which will make any transactions impossible,

*=This is already actually the case with home PC mining. Running the mining on standard machines will currently cost you way more than you get out of it because of the increased complexity, which is why the entire mining industry is now de facto centralized to the hands of large commercial operators mostly in Asia.

Re: Hahaha no...

[j-turkey]

Makes sense, and you are certainly not the first person to make the comparison. Sure, if people stop believing in the currency and try to sell all at once, its value will collapse. That goes for any currency. In this case, the main difference between a cryptocurrency and a fiat currency is that the latter has the backing of a government. However, a fiat currency can still drop to near zero value as well. I read a good quote about this a few years ago - "a real Ponzi scheme takes fraud; bitcoin, by contrast, seems more like a collective delusion."

Re:FUCK ALL REPUBLICANS (INCLUDING VOTERS)

[Anonymous Coward]

The government is handing the American people a credit card with a high interest rate. Some of our taxes will go down until 2025. Then they will go back up. In the meantime we will be adding over a trillion dollars to our national debt. Money which will need to be paid back plus interest in the future via taxes. It's short term gains for long term pain.

captcha: looted

Re: Hahaha no...

[Mr307]

Its some hybrid of a ponzi/pyramid/mlm scam.

The only feature that supposedly guarantees value is the scarcity and, and thats just a joke since there are over 4000 types of 'coins' now, and I would bet that number is growing daily now.

Many people have pointed out that its already looking like some kind of 'investment' vehicle which is a near perfect reversal from what its claimed to want to do. Others have pointed out that as the perceived value rises more people will hold their coins rather than use them since its both too costly to use and if the belief is that the 'value' will continue to rise then its very difficult to reliably buy or sell anything with it since you dont know its value minute to minute or day to day.

And I wish Slashdot would stop posting stories about this scam, if the underlying tech is interesting in some other field then great, but its not for currency.

Re: Hahaha no...

[religionofpeas]

> there are over 4000 types of 'coins' now, and I would bet that number is growing daily now.

There are also over 4000 types of 'painting', but the Mona Lisa is still worth millions. It's easy to create a coin, but it's very hard to create one with value.