BCH, Coinbase, and the Pipe Problem

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The U.S. has truly woken up to the phenomenon of cryptocurrencies. And because of our need for having the best securities laws in the world (slight sarcasm), it is fiendishly difficult for Americans to get any kind of service by the industry. For months now, I’ve been holding the hands of my subscribers get started in cryptocurrencies. Dealing with the practical, basic issues of this new market and way of doing business is a nightmare for people without the technical background.

I was lost at first because the landscape had changed so much from when I was last involved with the industry back in the days of Mt.Gox. And this barrier to entry is mostly mitigated by the ease with which one can get started on Coinbase. Even if it’s only an initial $250 buy on their credit card, within minutes someone can get set up and take the plunge.

And while this rate of adoption by Americans was rising, the rest of the world was shutting their doors for us, forcing even more money through the small pipe that is Coinbase and its sister exchange, GDAX. Flash forward to this week and we have a recipe for a technical nightmare that dwarfs what we saw over the summer when Bitcoin first hit $5,000 and China began making noise about “outlawing cryptos” and shutting down third-party exchanges.

Coinbase or Con-base?
Coinbase finally added support for Bitcoin Cash (BCH) amidst very hinckey circumstances. The outcry from the public thanks to its amateurish handling of the roll out is real. Accusations of insider trading are flying while the company hadn’t activated the balances of all the folks who held Bitcoin back during the August fork. Aside from the obvious insanity of Coinbase still not implementing SegWit for BTC transactions, it shouldn’t have taken them this long to support BCH. When fly-by-night Korean and Ukrainian exchanges can make this happen in a matter of days, Coinbase’s protestations ring very hollow.

And I’m laying aside the insane pump of BCH prior to the opening of trading, which prompted an explosion of activity on GDAX and promptly broke the exchange. And all of this occurred during a week which saw Bitcoin Futures begin trading at the CME Group. Trading which saw regular smackdowns occur at 12pm UST everyday.!