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A comment on A Major Coinbase Milestone: 1 Million Consumer Wallets. Parent comment

Re:A Major Coinbase Milestone: 1 Million Consumer Wallets by baddox on Thursday February 27, 2014 @01:59PM (#7314148)
Lots of people in this thread seem to think that there is either no incentive for Coinbase to conduct their business legitimately, or that the law is the only incentive. That ignores the much more obvious and presumably stronger incentive: they should be able to make a lot more money as a legitimate business than if they just ran away with one lump sum.
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Re:A Major Coinbase Milestone: 1 Million Consumer Wallets by diego on Thursday February 27, 2014 @02:08PM (#7314213)
That relies on the assumption that they will not suffer a tremendous loss due to a rogue employee, a software bug or a malicious hack.

If they found themselves in a situation in which they are certain to go out of business as soon as people find out that they are in trouble, that motivation would cease to exist. It would come down to ethics, reputation, pressure from investors, etc.

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Re:A Major Coinbase Milestone: 1 Million Consumer Wallets by torbjorn on Thursday February 27, 2014 @03:46PM (#7314930)
Sure, Bad Things™ could happen at Coinbase like they did at Gox. However, I think it is reasonable to trust Coinbase more than Mt. Gox. If you looking to Mt. Gox's history there are many signals that suggest general mismanagement and dysfunction.

This is in no way rigorous but consider User Interface design as a rule of thumb. Gox had an ugly unintuitive site. Coinbase on the other hand has a polished UI. This attention to detail suggests that the people who operate Coinbase are very different from those who operated Gox.

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Re:A Major Coinbase Milestone: 1 Million Consumer Wallets by baddox on Thursday February 27, 2014 @06:57PM (#7316261)
Rogue employees, software bugs, and malicious hacks can also happen in a pure USD business covered by explicit laws.
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Re:A Major Coinbase Milestone: 1 Million Consumer Wallets by torbjorn on Thursday February 27, 2014 @03:39PM (#7314873)
The mistrust in Coinbase line of thinking seems similar to fear and paranoia about terrorism. Could a bad actor acquire and use agency to do something horrible like obtain a dirty bomb and set it off? Sure, it is possible. But at the same time it is very unlikely. People GENERALLY want to be good actors and make a positive impact on the world.

With Mt. Gox I am more inclined to think their problems stemmed incompetence rather than malevolence.

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