A Major Coinbase Milestone: 1 Million Consumer Wallets

Re:A Major Coinbase Milestone: 1 Million Consumer Wallets by gnaritas on Thursday February 27, 2014 @03:46PM (#7314931)

> The law doesn't prevent you from committing crimes.

That wasn't the question, the question was what's to stop them and the answer I objected to was "Nothing"; that's false, the law is not nothing. What's to stop most bad behavior... the law.

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Re:A Major Coinbase Milestone: 1 Million Consumer Wallets by makomk on Thursday February 27, 2014 @04:46PM (#7315354)

The law is fairly obviously not an answer though, given the context. The original question specifically asked what stops Coinbase from shutting down and taking everyone's money like MtGox did. It was just as illegal when MtGox did it, yet it happened anyway. (Actually, most of the other answers have the exact same problem.)

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Re:A Major Coinbase Milestone: 1 Million Consumer Wallets by gnaritas on Thursday February 27, 2014 @05:52PM (#7315834)

> The law is fairly obviously not an answer though, given the context.

You're free to think that, I'm free to think you're wrong. MtGox is in Japan, Coinbase isn't; the contexts are different.

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Re:A Major Coinbase Milestone: 1 Million Consumer Wallets by natrius on Thursday February 27, 2014 @06:44PM (#7316171)

If there is evidence that MtGox was complicit in the loss of their customers' Bitcoin, someone will go to jail, regardless of the jurisdiction. It's plain old theft.

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Re:A Major Coinbase Milestone: 1 Million Consumer Wallets by smtddr on Thursday February 27, 2014 @04:57PM (#7315442)

>>What's to stop most bad behavior... the law

No... what stops most bad behavior is _consequences_. The law applies to everyone, but the consequences for breaking them don't.

We will see what(if any) consequences are placed upon MtGox. Personally, I still can't see how MtGox will be found liable of anything. Bitcoins aren't protected under any law and nobody said it was okay to trade your hard-earned government-backed fiat for some magical interwebz money. It might as well be fairy wings & unicorn tails. Don't get me wrong, I'm into crypto-coins and willing to lose up to 7k on them... but I fully understand that my coins could disappear in the next 5 mins due to any number of reasons and I have absolutely nobody to blame but myself.

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Re:A Major Coinbase Milestone: 1 Million Consumer Wallets by gnaritas on Thursday February 27, 2014 @05:29PM (#7315691)

The law is what defines the consequences, your pedantry is pointless.

> Bitcoins aren't protected under any law

False. Just because something is new doesn't mean existing laws don't apply to it. Bitcoins are property and property is protected by law regardless of when said item was invented. We don't have to create new law to cover every new invention man decides to own.

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Re:A Major Coinbase Milestone: 1 Million Consumer Wallets by smtddr on Thursday February 27, 2014 @07:58PM (#7316563)

I disagree with you... but we'll see how it plays out with MtGox.

In the eyes of the law, I don't think bitcoin is your property anymore than buying a special weapon on Eve Online with fiat-money is your legal property. Maybe it should be, maybe it will be, but today that's not the case.

Or maybe I'm completely wrong... Has anyone sought legal action on financial loss related the value of an item inside Eve Online? Or any virtual item in any system?

A straight scam I understand, but say you purchased a bunch of rare swords & armor in some online game then next month the server crashes and all players lose their virtual items and the gaming company goes bankrupt. Is the company liable?

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