For a large number of people, the likelihood of the us government stealing all of coinbase's money is far lower than the likelihood of them losing their key to their hardware wallet or whatever.

Let's just store all of our money with the government then, eh?

With a bank, yeah. Even as somebody who is savvy specifically in security I trust a bank to keep my savings safe more than I trust myself.

Threat models and risk balancing are important.

Banks are basically just retail fronts for the Federal Reserve anyway. And IRS has such tight hooks into the banking system...all they have to do is snap their fingers to freeze your account.

Bitcoin is no less safe than any other asset re: civil forfeiture. One might even make the argument that it is moreso because there aren't the established communication mechanisms that exist between law enforcement agencies and banks that allow them to hold funds as quickly as they do.

Per your other argument: a whole host of executive orders spanning 2 years, nearly 100 years ago, designed to work around the federal reserve ratio, doesn't hold much water.

How many hacks does it take for cryptocurrencies fads to think their money is secure despite the dozen+ that have happened so far...

How does the government seize bitcoins when you have memorized your private key? They cannot read your mind.

Here is more information about the topic :https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Brainwallet

Well I meant "safe" in the way that a Normie would think is safe. IE, similar security guarantees that a bank would provide.

Obviously, this makes no sense to a cryto enthusiast, because they care more about the stuff you talked about.

But the "average" zero knowledge person who freaks out about how Bitcoin is "unsafe" is usually talking about private key theft, or getting scammed by someone. These "unsafe" things aren't a problem on coinbase.

So not safe but just say it is.

It's safe if you trust coinbase. I trust coinbase, so I think it's safe.

"It's safe as long as i think it's safe." Gotcha.

You realize "safe" is a feeling, an emotional response. I have yet to see "safe" defined in some probabilistic way and that is what you would have to do to have it not just a feeling.

> I have yet to see "safe" defined in some probabilistic way

https://www.moodys.com/sites/products/DefaultResearch/200710...

Of course, when you start defining "safe" in a probabilistic way, you end up very quickly estimating the degree of safety instead of binary safe/not safe.

Correct. I'm sure its has been done, but the general public does not think about it that way.

Nice subtle joke(?) with that link to a Moody's March 2008 report on rating bonds given that rating agencies were probably the closest single thing you could point to as the fraud that caused the mortgage bubble and 2008 collapse. Yes, sometimes a feeling can be closer to the truth than a lot of complicated math done with wrong assumptions.

> general public does not think about it that way.

I agree that general public is utterly incapable of understanding basic concepts of probability. (See: Clinto had probability 52% of winning. Trump won -> Forecast was wrong. How stupid is that?) I just commented when you told you have not seen safe even defined in a probabilistic way.

> Yes, sometimes a feeling can be closer to the truth than a lot of complicated math done with wrong assumptions.

To me that is like a stopped clock is correct twice a day compared to a working clock that is just having wrong time all the time.

At least with the complicated math you are forced to spell out the assumptions and there is a chance you are able to recognize them before it is too late.

Hey you know what, you've shown a bias of me.

I come from a construction background (big stuff) and it hadn't occurred to me that people would not get my connotative understanding of 'safety'. For me, safety is about risk minimization. If you haven't considered actual risk when you investigate doing something that could hurt you, it isn't 'safe'.

So thanks for helping me recognize that.