
Coinbase blocks WikiLeaks Shop - malvosenior
https://twitter.com/WikiLeaksShop/status/987510235349663744
======
m52go
If you want full control, you've got to be in full control. But you can't do
that if you delegate that control to a third party. That's the whole point of
bitcoin.

Instead of complaining, WikiLeaks can set up their own payment processing
server and do away with Coinbase altogether.

Can't do that with a bank account!

~~~
merinowool
But it is good to know what is coinbase's moral compass.

~~~
trumped
Coinbase has been fishy from the start... For example, I placed buy orders for
some Bitcoins when they dropped sharply years ago (Coinbase just started at
that time) and they canceled those orders after I placed them. Now what they
do is that they bring the servers down when it happens.

They did the same with Bitcoin Cash, or maybe worst... (see stories about when
they first introduced bitcoin cash)

~~~
sp0rk
> Now what they do is that they bring the servers down when it happens.

That's a pretty bold allegation. Do you have any evidence that this is the
case.

~~~
trumped
No. It was just such a common occurrence that I could not come to a different
conclusion.

If you need many examples, look for Reddit threads that talk about Coinbase
created right after Bitcoin dips.

~~~
paulgb
Alternative Hanlon's razor hypothesis: the system gets an abnormal amount of
traffic during large price swings and they can't cope with the demand.

~~~
ShabbosGoy
I don’t buy it.

Any serious software engineer knows about the CAP theorem.

~~~
mjcl
And yet they allowed me to accidentally double-sell bitcoin cash from my
account, leaving me with a negative BCH balance for months now.

------
onetimemanytime
Wikileaks, rightly or wrongly, has essentially been declared an enemy of USA.
[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cia-wikileaks/cia-
chief-c...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cia-wikileaks/cia-chief-calls-
wikileaks-a-hostile-intelligence-service-idUSKBN17F2L8) I do not blame
Coinbase

~~~
pera
Declared by whom? Your cited article says:

> _Pompeo, in an address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
> think tank, called WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange “a fraud” and “a
> coward.”_

> _“It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state
> hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia,”
> Pompeo said._

I wouldn't taken this particular statement as the official position of the
whole U.S. Federal Government towards the Wikileaks organization.

~~~
onetimemanytime
The CIA director, a former Congressman and a Republican said that. I mean, you
want to know what the Center for Disease Control and EPA think of Wikileaks?

------
matt4077
Fun to see how bitcoin has come full circle in reinventing everything its
cheerleaders initially railed against: fraud, then centralization, regulation,
and now “censorship”.

I guess the lesson here should be about the primacy of law, and how you won’t
succeed in using technology to undermine it.

~~~
roywiggins
It's not really Bitcoin's fault that people are using Coinbase.

But the fact is, there's always a price to decentralization. Centralized
services are fast and can be cheaper! It's not a huge surprise that something
that seems bulky and annoying to deal with has sprouted companies like
Coinbase.

~~~
wybiral
How do you convert non-bitcoin currency into bitcoin without a trusted entity?

If masses are expected to do so then there will likely be a sort of
centralized "trusted few".

------
largehotcoffee
I cannot recommend Coinbase at all. I operate an adult comic book publisher
and they shutdown our account without notice and blamed the bank they work
with (despite the fact that we were not converting our BTC to USD). All
support tickets took weeks to get a reply and it was always unhelpful.

For a company like ours the whole appeal of Bitcoin is the anonymity, so our
readers don't have to worry about buying lewd comics and having it show up on
their statements. Coinbase tarnishes what Bitcoin stands for and they do not
protect artists/publishers.

Do not use Coinbase.

~~~
return1
What is the use of coinbase? you can accept payments directly

~~~
maxpupmax
I think that the barrier to entry to accepting bitcoin or cryto payments in
general directly can be fairly high, depending on the ecosystem. It's been
intimidating to me.

I'd love to see a collection of crypto tutorials to get started accepting
payments and buying coins in any ecosystem.

Maybe another commenter has a good source?

------
monochromatic
Why do you even need a payment processor to accept money via BTC? Can't it be
sent directly from one address to another?

~~~
m52go
Yes but processing is useful for invoicing, e-commerce, etc.

------
omgbananas
[https://globee.com/](https://globee.com/) accepts multiple cryptocurrencies
and pays out in either fiat or Monero (the closest thing to digital cash there
is). They are based in South Africa with different laws.

Last year they went in 50/50 with the Monero community and worked on
[https://www.projectcoralreef.com/](https://www.projectcoralreef.com/) which
is the implementation of many famous music artists accepting Monero in their
online stores.

------
arcaster
This is why we need decentralized exchanges... It was only a matter of time
before Coinbase started acting like traditional payment processors / PayPal...

------
pokemongoaway
Exchanges like Coinbase are going to continue to lock themselves down. Then
regulators are going to get into bed with their favorite companies. Then
They're going to make love and use tax dollars to send guns to the exchanges
that do not meet "sane requirements."

