About Coinbase

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This article was first published on Dr. Craig Wright’s blog, and we republished with permission from the author.

Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) is currently facing several lawsuits. One of the lawsuits involves XRP and Ripple. Coinbase will likely argue that they had no idea. Which would be a lie. Several years ago, senior executives of Coinbase visited nChain’s offices in London. During the meeting, many issues were discussed, including the nature of Bitcoin, and how it doesn’t fork and that any changes creating a new chain would result in passing it off as Bitcoin. I noted, when I had created Bitcoin, the protocol had been set in stone¹.

In our discussions, I pointed out Liberty Reserve and several prior cases. In discussing XRP, I was told that it was ‘crypto’, so it wouldn’t be a security. Basically, the executives at Coinbase did not care. They were informed of the nature of XRP and of the action with BTC and its copying of the Bitcoin database and the creation of a new system. Coinbase, though, doesn’t care about reality. They care about ensuring that their clients lose money trading. Overall, trading is a zero-sum game. But, some of the fees go to Coinbase.

For every coin that goes up in value, someone loses money. Money is not created out of thin air, as those promoting the “cryptocurrency” get-rich wagon try to tell you. But, whether the price of XRP or BTC goes up or down, Coinbase makes money.

In the same meeting, we also discussed USDT.

The outcome would be simple.

Coinbase doesn’t care about anything other than making money. The law is secondary. They intentionally chose to overlook the law. Coinbase was definitively put on notice, years ago, as to the state of all such systems. As with many others, pointing out the law, and how it applies to digital currency systems and digital token systems, was part of where the attacks against my character started.

I had been pointing out the same issue in 2014 and 2015. In 2014, I pointed it out to Ripple, who would ignore me completely. I discussed the issues concerning Bitcoin with members of Bitcoin Core and Blockstream, including Adam Back, in 2013 and 2014. So, when certain individuals started attacking me, it wasn’t for any other reason than to shut me up and have people not listen. The “cryptocurrency” feed wagon has been good to such people. They have managed to milk unsuspecting dupes of their money for years. Their aim lies not in creating a system that acts as digital currency or digital cash, but instead in creating an online casino, where only the casino wins.

Bitcoin was designed as a digital cash system. Yet, Coinbase and others have created an online casino, one where people gamble money and call it an investment. The promise of Bitcoin was a commodity-based digital cash system that can be extended into many other uses. But, Coinbase earns more profit promoting a digital casino. As an exchange, where they buy and sell bitcoin for use, it opens up a completely different market, but not one that allows Coinbase to maintain custodial control. It is not a market where they make excessive profits, no matter how much their clients lose. In their original construction, the company was designed as a broker allowing people to buy and use bitcoin. But, BTC is not bitcoin, and it is not usable as cash. Instead, BTC is well-suited to be traded and gambled on unregulated exchanges (aka bucket shop casinos) that promote false information concerning such systems.

Coinbase is portrayed as an organization of regulatory compliance, which presents a deception. Coinbase always knew that XRP was a security; they simply sought to deceive the regulators. Coinbase always knew that following the split in 2017, the BTC network would not be Bitcoin. But, Coinbase was complicit in the deception.

So, I am more than happy to wait, to see the executives of Coinbase weasel and lie their way into telling everybody that they had no idea and that they don’t believe it. When they do, I’ll be there, ready to provide evidence to the contrary. When the executives of Coinbase attempt to give evidence showing that they had no idea that XRP was a controlled security, I will happily demonstrate their perjury and show how they intentionally overlooked the issue, amongst many others.

Footnotes

[1] See: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195.msg1617#msg1617

Follow CoinGeek’s Crypto Crime Cartel series, which delves into the stream of groups—a from BitMEX to Binance, Bitcoin.com, Blockstream, ShapeShift, Coinbase, Ripple, Ethereum, FTX and Tether—who have co-opted the digital asset revolution and turned the industry into a minefield for naïve (and even experienced) players in the market.