Show HN: Worqshop: GitHub client for iPad and iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://worqshop.com

<comment><USER2> This looks really interesting. I'm excited to see someone is working to bring GitHub to iOS.

Looking at the screenshots, it looks like it could use some UI polish (<http://worqshop.com/>). For now, this will keep me from dropping $5 on this. My primary use case would be writing text (not code), and for that I value the great UI/UX of iA Writer over being able to save directly to GitHub.

I'd be curious to hear what other common use cases there are for this. In addition to writing text (Jekyll-powered blog), I might use this to make quick fixes on the go or review issues/pull requests.

It seems like actually writing significant amounts of code on the iPad is probably not a common use case. I refuse to believe this is productive compared to using a real computer with multitasking, Vim/emacs/Sublime Text, etc.

Anyway, if this were my app I'd focus on making the experience great for doing issues/pull requests and typing text (in comments on the aforementioned or in files). I wouldn't focus on actually writing code. But it's clearly not my app :)

In any case, great work -- I'm looking forward to seeing this app progress.

<comment><USER3> Very useful though when doing the 90% of code work that isn't composing new stuff from scratch. A real gift for people doing lots of code review. As you say great support for issues would go a long way toward that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The website's meta viewport is fixed and explicitly disallows pinch and zoom gestures and you want to sell IOS apps?

Dude doesn't get IOS usability. At all.

</comment><comment><USER5> Does it support the iPad 1? I'd have bought it right now if it had a dark theme + coffeescript highlighting (currently making up most of my work).

</comment><comment><USER6> These products and others allowing one to save text or code to Github seem to be begging for Github to introduce a staging feature in the API. It would allow saving code Into an intermediate uncommitted state, but could even be implementing as a lightweight stash-like feature. A set of changes could be individually stored or just committed through UI/API.

</comment><comment><USER7> This seems fantastic, makes me wish I had an iPad. I love the option for side by side web browser and code (especially in landscape).

It would be great if there was an option for side by side SSH session and code editor, that way you could push and then check on the remote build (for people that have such setups).

</comment><comment><USER8> Do you think the rubberband bounce-back effect is slightly too violent? Maybe the bounce back animation timing curve could be ease-out?

Otherwise, looks like an awesome app!

</comment><comment><USER9> I was going to buy it, but it requires iOS 6. Shame.

</comment><comment><USER10> You should change your appstore name to "Worqshop, a github client for iPhone" then you will show up in iOS spotlight searches for github

<comment><USER11> I can confirm that isn't necessary. It shows up as a search result when I search for "github" on my iPad's App Store app right now.

I imagine the devs were wise enough to include "github" in the list of search keywords that you're allowed to attach to your App Store submission.

<comment><USER10> I'm talking about the search box on the SpringBoard (aka, the search box when you swipe left from the home screen).

That will allow people to search there for github and see the app in the list of launchable items.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Site doesn't seem to be browsable on my iPad? Was trying to check out anything besides the main page and I couldn't.

</comment><comment><USER10> Does this support organizations?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup :)</comment></comment>


Plant-Based Device Could Charge Cars in Minutes - <AUTHOR> https://www.futurity.org/green-supercapacitor-energy-storage-device-2435682-2/ <comment><USER2> If the supercap has such great properties, why not focus on commercialization and owning the energy storage market now? Making it fully green could be the next step. I have trouble believing that if they indeed had a revolution like they purport on their hands their next thought would be how to keep working on it without leaving the lab and not how to prove it in the real world.

</comment><comment><USER3> The devices are Supercapacitor and they won't charge a car, but rather would replace batteries and can be charged.

They are not without there problems though.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor)</comment>


Show HN: Hacker News Academy — Interactive Mobile Courses for Enterpreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://hnacademy.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is what we've learned since our start at YC Hacks:

— Best learning comes from fast cycles "challenge-action-feedback".

— Ideally, each learning cycle should be 30 seconds or less.

— Learning with yes-no questions (tinder-style) is much more powerful that one can think.

— Existing content is not ready for interactive content. Serious investment in content is necessary.

— Interactive learning requires depth: ideally, at least 10 examples for each rule.

— Mobile learning has high potential, especially for role-based training in the fields like sales, support, horeca, transportation.

HN Academy was a temporary name for our hackathon project. We will rename soon.

</comment><comment><USER2> Would be nice to have a way to access the courses via desktop web browser w/o having to disguise my user agent

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, this is definitely in our roadmap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Crashes on Chrome on my iPhone 4S, works on Safari on 5C.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Will fix soon.

We started with mobile web for the speed. But implementing all those animations in the mobile browser is much harder than in native apps.</comment></comment>


What Exactly is Docker? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@burakkarakan/what-exactly-is-docker-1dd62e1fde38 <comment><USER2> > # install chromedriver

> RUN apk update

> RUN apk add chromium chromium-chromedriver

These kind of poor examples lead to a huge amount of waste when using Docker because people learning it are not taught about how layers interact, leading to ridiculous things like 'COPY' followed by 'RUN chown'.

Layers are a _core_ part of how Docker works, why not make this example "correct" by doing:

> RUN apk --no-cache add chromium chromium-chromedriver

Then just a comment like this: "it's important to group layers if possible to reduce your image size. By using `--no-cache` apk will update at the same time as installing".

<comment><USER3> I wish Dockerfiles allowed you to group commands so that they would end up in the same layer, so you don't have to do something ridiculous like

RUN cmd1 && cmd2 && cmd3 && cmd4

maybe with brackets:

        # 1 layer

        {

          RUN cmd1

          COPY someshit

          RUN cmd2 -lots -of -long flags

          ...

        }

<comment><USER4> Why do you want to avoid multiple layers. Performance?

<comment><USER2> Build performance, image size and deployment speed mostly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'll admit it took me a while to realise that Docker containers aren't magical apparatuses that can run software. They are just an OS running like a VM. Yes there's differences but I really wish learning resources began with that.

I think a lot of it has to do with the experts accidentally talking past beginners, missing a lot of the basics before getting into teaching abstractions.

It also reminds me of the feeling I'm experiencing now about learning Elasticsearch. I'm amazed just how few JSON examples I can find online for the API. It was amazing how much it helped for a peer to say, "an index is a table, a document is a record and it's kind of like monogdb."

Furthermore this all reminds me of wrong atomic models in high school. Please just teach me a really simple but wrong explanation then slowly work out the details.

<comment><USER6> >They are just an OS running like a VM.

This is exactly what Docker containers AREN'T.

Don't think of containers like tiny VMs. Think of them as processes with additional isolation from each other.

<comment><USER7> A VM is a good way to logically think about the containers, and I'm sure it's the way the vast majority of people first think about them.

Under the hood they are simply a process isolated with namespaces, but their behavior on the outside feels like getting a VM.

<comment><USER8> But docker containers don't run their own kernel, which is a huge difference to a VM.

<comment><USER7> My point is that most people don't even really know that's how a VM works. They just think of a VM as a fresh sandbox where they can install and run stuff without deleting somebody else's files or programs.

<comment><USER9> I'm hearing a repeated theme in your comments that people don't know much about how anything works, and that's supposedly OK. That's actually not OK. :)

<comment><USER10> No, that's how learning curves work. Until we can Matrix beam info into our skulljack, humans will spend a notrivial amount of time having to make do with using things while not fully understanding how they work.

Unless one is 31337-rockstar-ninja-IQ150-programmer, the uptake of new skills is painful and takes time. The pedagogical process is important. It's totally OK to not know how anything works as long as you acknowledge that and are willing to learn.

<comment><USER9> I totally agree. That wasn't the sentiment I was responding to, which sounded more like "nobody knows how that works, and they don't really need to, so why are you wasting their time explaining how it actually works?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > The actual way containers work is a complex topic that I will not get into > here, but overall the concept is simple: give me an operating system (OS) > level virtualization so that I can play around with different stuff in > isolation.

Sad to see he gave up before he started, and instead of explaining what Docker is, went off into the docker and docker-compose CLI commands. What an opaque explanation too :(

Docker is hard to explain, and the official documentation won't help you understand it. I'm sad that so few people are self aware enough to combine just the right, minimal depth of concepts about kernels, operating systems, systemd, namespaces, and the fact this all only works on Linux, to make a truly approachable explanation. Most developers are really bad at teaching, they only describe things they already know, vs actually trying to teach something.

<comment><USER12> > _and the fact this all only works on Linux_

Docker runs on Windows. Windows containers run on Windows. Linux containers run on Linux as well as Windows. (To run Linux containers on Windows a small Linux kernel is run inside HyperV.)

You can think of Docker containers as VMs, except instead of running its own copy of the OS it runs directly on top of the host machine's OS.

<comment><USER13> That is not anything close to the kernel namespaces used to provide different types of userspace isolation. That's crippled virtualization.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Docker is 1) namespace and chroot for separating processes 2) cgroups to limit hardware resources (CPU/RAM) . This allows for this "packaging" and kind of "sandbox". In addition, it adds a file-saving feature by using a layering filesystem.

Please watch this awesome presentation: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGw_xKF47T0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGw_xKF47T0)

<comment><USER15> That video really is awesome. A lot of practical experience distilled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The title was promising but it seems that the author hasn't noticed that Docker the company uses the same name for many different things. On Mac and Windows, Docker is a VM. On Linux it's what this article discusses. I don't even know what Docker Enterprise is.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, OP here, thanks a lot for the input. I know that the company uses the same name for multiple stuff, but I also think that, from my very own experience, people associate the name "Docker" with containers in general, regardless of the runtime used with them; therefore, I wanted to come up with an explanation that is simple enough to get started with containers, and decorate it with some examples to make things more approachable for beginners. I believe that there are certain improvements that containers might bring to software development lifecycle of certain products, and I wanted to enable people to attempt improving their workflows with this article.

If you have suggestions to improve my point above in the article itself I'd be glad to take that input and incorporate it into the article itself, feel free to write here or reach out to me via email in my bio. Again, thank you for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > We are going to containerize our app, use container orchestration tools for > deployments, and we have to install Docker.

you do not. you may also install Podman. Docker does not "own" containers, there is an open standard for containers that any vendor may implement.

</comment><comment><USER18> The post emphasize that docker (or its proper name, a container) provide weaker isolation compare to VM but I wish author can expand on this topic a little bit.

Also I'm disappointed that the good old chroot is not mentioned, or the BSD jail system.

</comment><comment><USER19> > therefore, you will be externalizing these values and decouple them from the > application, which will give you great flexibility in the long term

I think this is one of the worst "Best Practices" ideas that are parroted by people who haven't thought deeply about the issue. It's really a bad legacy from the era when most software was actually _distributed_. Now that most software runs in environments that are controlled by the same organization that developed the software, the principle is far less valuable.

Nowadays, most software should have most of its configuration information - paths, DB URLs, HTTP endpoints, etc - hard-coded into it. This strategy follows the "convention over configuration" philosophy, and it gives you a range of benefits. First of all, you can run tests on your config to make sure everything is working properly (check various files are present, do a SELECT * LIMIT 1 from DB tables, etc). You can catch config errors at compile time, eg by using enums like prod/dev/qa to represent environment names. And it prompts you to apply a refactoring mindset to your config - when you notice that your config code is repeating itself extensively, you'll realize this and be able to take steps to refactor, standardize, and simplify the config.

<comment><USER20> This feels... backwards, but it's probably because I'm indoctrinated to external configs.

Do you have references to companies that are developing software this way at scale?

<comment><USER21> I'm not entirely sure if this is what GP was describing, but as a quick example, likely any that use the Django web framework. By default it puts the settings inside the repo, and at least at my work we just build off of that by putting multiple settings files in the repo and switch between them depending on dev/beta/live/etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm currently working on implementing Docker support for a multi tenant service where users can login to their IDE from a Chromebook or what not... It seems docker was not designed for that use case. And every tutorial out there assumes you are running as root and have the Docker daemon installed on your local system...

<comment><USER23> I deal with Docker daily and don't run as root and quite frequently am not dealing with a local Docker instance. Maybe you should RTFM, as they say?

<comment><USER22> How do you solve local mounts, eg. a folder on your local developer machine mounted to a folder inside the container, if using a remote docker daemon?

My current solution is to give each user their own docker daemon running in a dedicated virtual machine... Do you have a better solution?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is a wonderful overview. Many thanks to the OP for putting this together.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for your comment, it made my day. I have had a hard time getting started with these technologies, especially with everyone talking about these without explaining what they actually are in a basic state, that's why I tried to come up with an article that I wish existed when I started. There is probably a lot of stuff to improve there, but I hope it helps getting started with these topics somehow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > What Exactly is Docker?

For 99% of the world, the answer is "a file format like .tar.gz except composable".

These guys are really missing their target audience needs by a mile.

<comment><USER12> More like a VM that shares the host machine's OS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Docker is bad because while docker images crudely compose sequentially (the fs layers), docker files don't compose at all.

The goal of Nix and Nixpkgs is to have effient recipes for building _everything ever, in all configurations_. The docker ecosystem could never get there.

Now containers do make sense for deployment, but that has little to do with docker, as those docker replacements for kubernetes demonstrate.

<comment><USER7> > _The goal of Nix and Nixpkgs is to have effient recipes for building > everything ever, in all configurations. The docker ecosystem could never get > there._

Packaging is just one component of a container, and it actually works quite well in docker, since it feels like you're packaging up the entire OS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I thought Docker is a common standard that defines. How archive format? How build file format? How the config format? What operation system need to support in order to be fully compatible with docker cli?

Instead of a cli tool.

Because there are already standalone docker implementations that implemented with completely different technology. Just like docker on windows (the one runs exe).

</comment><comment><USER28> I have a SQL library that I maintain and it supports Postgres, Maria, MySQL and SQLite. I use Docker for integration testing and it works really well. I have no need for these db engines otherwise, so making them just completely go away when not working on the library is excellent.

</comment><comment><USER29> cgroups + namespaces

<comment><USER30> And tar files!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Can anyone speak to why deploying your application as a container is more expensive than deploying on an VM instance?

</comment><comment><USER32> Minor correction: ECS isn't serverless. You need to explicitly allocate instances for your cluster.

<comment><USER33> You don't need to allocate instances in advance if you use Fargate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> cgroups and pid's, just like every other container tech

</comment><comment><USER35> just an extremely static executable

</comment><comment><USER36> What is Docker? We just don't know.</comment>


Ask YC: What's the best way to do payments? - <AUTHOR>

We are a startup, deploying an application that will require a monthly & yearly license fee from users - nothing too complicated. This is our first startup, and we've seen a range of opinions online on how to process payments. I'd be interested to hear how YC'ers have tackled this question! <comment><USER2> We've created a free API and "lowest cost" processing model that is working well for what amounts to subscription fees in your case. firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER3> Ruby's Active Merchant + Paypal.</comment>


Coinbase Wants to Be Too Big to Fail - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/longform/coinbase-bitcoin-brian-armstrong/ <comment><USER2> >Armstrong belongs to a generation of evangelists who view digital currencies, and the blockchain technology on which they're based, as tools that will make investing, borrowing, and saving money faster, cheaper, and more egalitarian.

My main question about cryptocurrencies has always been the "faster, cheaper" thing. Last I heard it was pretty expensive to do a bitcoin transaction, and slow. The quote thrown around:

>The networks that Visa and Mastercard use process, in aggregate, "more than 5,000 transactions per second with capacity to process volumes multiple times that number. Bitcoin in contrast takes 10 minutes to clear and settle a single transaction vs. Ethereum that takes 15 seconds."

[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-bitcoin-wont- displace-...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-bitcoin-wont-displace- visa-or-mastercard-soon-2017-12-15)

I wonder what someone as heavily invested as Armstrong would say to that?

<comment><USER3> The problem with the comparison to Visa and Mastercard, is that settlement is never really final with those services. A transaction can be reversed even 6 months down the line, as anyone who runs a business probably knows. The cost of fraud-protection offered by these companies is the reason Bitcoin was proposed as a cheaper alternative. By making transactions final, the cost of fraud protection is put on the participants between each transaction, and not on every network user as a whole.

Bitcoin can be expensive to transact small volumes when the network is busy. This is due to a limitation in the amount of transaction data that can fit into a block, and blocks are limited to 10 minutes on average. A transaction fee however, is not measured as a percentage of the value being transferred, but is measured in the bytes occupied in a block. Since the transaction amount is just a 64-bit value, the transaction fees are the same whether you're transferring $1 or $1M. In the latter case, it will be far cheaper than existing payment processors and banking settlement systems.

This is why Bitcoin has emerged to become a settlement layer for larger value transactions, because block space is valuable (it costs money to replicate and store over hundreds of thousands of machines). People looking for a cheap payment processor for smaller value transactions are looking at solutions other than Bitcoin.

The trade-off is that to scale their own blockchains, they deprioritize decentralization (fundamental to Bitcoin), or they print own currency (undermining the idea of finite supply). Since anyone can do this, it becomes difficult to tell which are scams. As more and more blockchains exist, the value accrued in each blockchain will become less and less as it gets shared between them. The logical conclusion is that the value of tokens in this myriad of chains will converge to nothing.

On the other hand, if you could make a payment processor which does not undermine Bitcoin's decentralization or limited supply, then perhaps this would enable small, cheap transactions at a global scale. This is what the Lightning Network, among other solutions, are aiming to provide.

<comment><USER4> > A transaction can be reversed even 6 months down the line, as anyone who > runs a business probably knows.

This is a feature, not a bug. I'd want to see evidence that the total cost of fraud in crypto is less per user than the cost of fraud in traditional credit. I would guess that the cost of fraud in traditional credit is actually far lower because reversibility reduces the incentive to commit fraud. It's very difficult to steal money from someone's account because they can dispute the charge and get it back.

Compare that to the case where your crypto account is hacked. There is zero recourse, the thief generally gets away with it scott free, so the incentives to commit fraud are huge.

<comment><USER3> It might be a feature if you're a consumer worried about having your card stolen.

If you're a business, it's a bug. Ideally, you would prefer to not even accept credit card payments and only accept cleared funds, but since you'll potentially lose out on business by not accepting credit card payments, you have to take the risk sometimes.

Reversibility does not reduce the incentive to commit fraud, it just enables it. People can use stolen credit cards to purchase real goods, and the seller usually ends up footing all of the cost.

Bitcoin puts business first. You don't need to depend on Visa doing their (useless) fraud investigations anymore. You take payment, and you decide whether or not to return it. Anyone who isn't willing to provide the money up front can pay the additional escrow fee.

<comment><USER5> As a consumer, why would I choose Bitcoin when it gives me less protection than Visa/MC?

<comment><USER3> Because it allows you to save money without it losing value in the long term. That is, bad government policy cannot reduce the value of your Bitcoin by printing more of it.

<comment><USER6> Again, that is a feature, not a bug. Inflationary currency means that you need to invest money, not just sit on it. Deflationary currency means that an investment must provide returns more than what would be gained by just sitting on it.

<comment><USER7> Ergo inflation tends to cause malinvestment as savers want to protect as much value as possible, whereas deflation is more likely to incentivize productive investments.

After all if deflationary currency is worth more tomorrow, one wants to make sure an investment in the future is sustainable.

Notably one is especially interested to invest in a deflationary economy because the gains are multiplicative.

<comment><USER8> Bitcoin has a higher inflation rate than USD.

      Bitcoin inflation rate per annum: 3.87%
      USD Current inflation rate for the United States is 2.7%.

Early in Bitcoin history, by design Bitcoin went though a period of hyperinflation where Satoshi and a few users acquired most of the coins in circulation.

Aprox 4.11% of Bitcoin users (addresses) control 96.53% of all bitcoins in circulation.

<comment><USER9> Inflation is not calculated the way you think it is calculated.

<comment><USER8> Point being the Bitcoin supply is increasing at a rate higher than fiat.

What is that called? It's not deflation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Armstrong said the Bitcoin paper came out in 2010, it actually came out in November 2008 and the first implementation of it was in January 2009 [1][2].

Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies correlated with the Great Recession so that added fuel to the desire to have a safe currency if a national fiat failed suddenly.

> _The domain name "bitcoin.org" was registered on 18 August 2008. In November > 2008, a link to a paper authored by Satoshi Nakamoto titled Bitcoin: A Peer- > to-Peer Electronic Cash System was posted to a cryptography mailing list. > Nakamoto implemented the bitcoin software as open source code and released > it in January 2009. The identity of Nakamoto remains unknown._

> _In January 2009, the bitcoin network was created when Nakamoto mined the > first block of the chain, known as the genesis block. Embedded in the > coinbase of this block was the following text:_

> > _The Times 03 /Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks._

[1] [https://web.archive.org/web/20140320135003/https://bitcoin.o...](https://web.archive.org/web/20140320135003/https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin)

<comment><USER11> FTA:

> While surfing the web at his parents' house on Christmas of 2009, he > encountered a nine-page paper written by a pseudonymous author named Satoshi > Nakamoto.

<comment><USER10> Yeah the article has it correct. In the video on the article he opens with talking about the paper and said it came out in 2010. Maybe he first saw it then.

Part of Bitcoin/crypto success was due to the sketchiness of the Great Recession (Sept 15, 2008 the markets fell off a cliff and the paper came out two months later in November 2008) and fears of being tied to into a fiat nationalized currency.

I don't know if bitcoin/blockchain would have been as big a hit without coupling with the Great Recession, that at least gave bitcoin massive fuel. The Great Recession was 'good for bitcoin' as they say.

<comment><USER12> _coupling with the Great Recession, that at least gave bitcoin massive fuel_

Whatever fuel that contributed, it probably pales in comparison to the fuel contributed by Mark Karpeles' market manipulation at MtGox.

That's what really caught people's attention, and after that was when large scale VC money started to flow in, because the market manipulation and subsequent price spikes gave the impression that this was a growth market worthy of deploying capital into.

After the collapse of MtGox, and what was going on behind the scenes became apparent, you had lots of people with money invested under the false pretence of great interest and demand for this new thing.

So they had to decide were they going to take the loss, or pickup the torch from MtGox, and thus we got _blockchain fever_.

Whatever utility there is in blockchain crypto-currencies, the game to this point has been _" Hey I'm gonna buy some of this stuff, then convince other people to do the same, because it is magic internet money! (please don't be too specific in your questions, or ask me to think if what I propose is actually workable)"_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have read nothing but bad things about coinbase: non-existent customer service, poor security against hackers (esp. sms/phone hackers), no reimbursement for hack victims, withholding of funds for arbitrary and unfounded reasons, etc.

All exchanges have problems, but coverage of coinbase is so negative

<comment><USER14> My main complain with coinbase is long holds (like 2 weeks) on cryptocurrency after they have taken the money from a bank account. That just seems shady. Although to be fair they do credit the account with the coin at time of purchase so it goes up and down with market. You just can't move it out.

Really like Square Cash App for purchasing BTC. Have it nearly instantly, easy to move.

<comment><USER15> The only reason this exists is to prevent people with stolen bank credentials from purchasing a bunch of bitcoins and then running off with them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm currently looking for a lawyer to pursue a lawsuit against Coinbase. It's been over a year, and I still haven't received my bitcoin cash, which was previously in a multi-signature account at the time of the split. I had tried to retrieve my bitcoin before the split, but it took several months because of a delay on Coinbase's part. Coinbase has failed to act despite sending multiple messages over the past year, and they have recently become completely unresponsive.

If anybody is interested in joining the lawsuit, please message me to see if we could join efforts.

<comment><USER17> Did you remember to file the SAR paperwork? It's required by US law if you're trying to withdraw more than $3K within 30 days.

<comment><USER16> Sorry, I'm not familiar with this paperwork. Could you point me in the right direction?

Its been over a year since I first asked for my BCH (in fact, I asked to receive my bitcoin from the multi-signature account months before that, but it was delayed due to technical issues with Coinbase's system at the time). Coinbase's agents initially told me that the engineers would eventually work on the issue, and I took them at their word.

However, I've waited for more than a year (far beyond a reasonable timeline), and they have gone radio silent since my message to them over 2 months ago.

I've only recently started looking into taking steps to find a lawyer and actually bring Coinbase to court.

Edit: I will probably file a CFTC complaint in the coming days. Not sure how helpful it will be though.

<comment><USER18> There is a long list of people who have been scammed by coinbase and the many other exchanges. I had about 12 btc in a bittrex (another "safe" us based exchange) account that I signed up for with a pseudonym. Then one day around the time btc was at $19k they decided to lock my account until I give them a selfie showing my passport and other scans of id. They know this is impossible and will not let me change my basic details (citing some sentence in their ToS and how they are trying to protect me). I went the lawyer route but it turns out there is nothing you can do legally if wording in the ToS says any deposits belong to them, they are not responsible for anything, can't be sued etc. Also no one really cares about bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies in the legal sense. So good luck trying to get your bch. This turns out to be a double edge sword because since then I have made use of some of the exploitable bugs in several cryptocurrency wallets held on exchanges and have transferred back the amount I lost plus much more. Didn't even bother to use a proxy or anything because I know there is nothing that anyone can do about it, go ahead and send the internet police to my house maybe that way I can finally get in contact with them to investigate the btc that was stolen from me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Realistically, if any alternative currency starts giving a sovereign currency any real competition inside a sovereign controlled market, it will get shut down more or less immediately.

If X% of Americans or [insert nation] are doing their transactions with bitcoin and the Treasury is losing a measurable percentage of income stream it's game over. Best case, it gets nationalized and [new currency] will be mandated to be pegged to the sovereign currency and taxed appropriately.

The existential political aspect is what these folks seem to not understand.

<comment><USER20> Bitcoin is a _commodity_ , not a currency. Bartering commodities is already a taxable event and the IRS handles that just fine. There's nothing really new here.

<comment><USER19> While it's true that Federal courts have ruled that cryptocurrencies are commodities, I'm addressing what the coinbase founder and team are stating as their desired goal.

If you read the foundational paper from Satoshi, stateless decentralized currency was always the end goal. Philosophical proponents, like the coinbase founder, continue to state that it's still the goal which is what I'm addressing.

<comment><USER20> The goals of the Coinbase founder and Satoshi are entirely irrelevant. Power comes from the barrel of a gun.

<comment><USER21> Called the government.

<comment><USER22> Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? We ban accounts that mostly do that.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> That's funny, I want Coinbase to fail to be too big. Subtle difference.

</comment><comment><USER24> There's nothing too big to fail. Especially something tethered to a space that is so volatile and unpredictable. Remember WorldCom?

<comment><USER25> Then that was not too big to fail.

<comment><USER26> Big things usually are too big to fail until they fail.

<comment><USER25> Then that big thing was not too big to fail.

<comment><USER26> Nothing is, but you learn that only when it finally fails ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> You can send money with no fees with zelle instantly and fdic insurance is free. The dollar is going to outlive bitcoin as you have to pay utilities with the dollar and without utilities bitcoin is useless! Bitcoin has become the ultimate heist, just own the exchange and disappear! And con the public to make customers whole? Sorry charlie dodd frank forbids that happening with actual legitimate financial institutions. They will bail in instead! So nothing at all changes! The bank robs you just like bitcoin exchanges do all the time!

So then which would you rather have in a depression? The kind no one ever thinks will show up on their watch?

</comment><comment><USER28> TBTF == too big to exist

<comment><USER29> But until the government starts breaking them up, "too big to fail" will be the goal of every large financial firm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Don't we all! We all want to grow for the love of capitalism! But when we fail, we want socialism! Save me with public money!

I don't want to pay insurance! But I want to be saved when I have cancer!

Screw the social safety net, we are millionaires! Oh, the market crashes... Can I get some of that tax-payers money please!

</comment><comment> m-i-l _" Right now, Coinbase's most promising project, say Johnson and others, involves a new class of investments known as security tokens"_

I used to think security tokens were going to be one of the useful things to come out of the crypto asset space, for the reasons in the article, e.g. it does make a lot of sense being able to automate ownership and transactions and so on so easily. But now I'm not sure - it puts the success of your company/asset entirely in the hands of your chosen platform (which might crash and burn) and the wider crypto asset market (which again may have an uncertain future). It would be a bit like deciding to float your company on the Venezuelan stock market and price your stock in Venezualan Bolivar - even if you were one of the successful companies in the world your stock is probably going to do pretty badly. I have a suspicion that its all part of the plan by the small number of people who have accumulated almost all the wealth to draw more people into the scheme to prop up the pyramid a bit longer.</comment>