The Coinbase company blog covers its security infrastructure, compliance, hiring and engineering, and views on digital currency.
HN links it in threads about phone number takeovers and account security, and Coinbase staff there explain its role as a regulated bridge to banks.
Coinbase CEO here. I think this boils down to a misunderstanding about what our product is.
There are some companies which operate purely in the digital currency world, and never store people's money. They are not regulated businesses. I'm glad these exist (and it sounds like this is what you are looking for) but this is not Coinbase.
Coinbase is an exchange that integrates with the traditional financial system to help people convert their local currency into and out of digital currency. I wrote a post about this here which may help: https://medium.com/the-coinbase-blog/coinbase-is-not-a-wallet-b5b9293ca0e7#.obvdyhi2b
When you say Coinbase tarnishes what Bitcoin stands for, I have to disagree. We are enabling millions of people to get access to digital currency so that it can succeed. We do this successfully by playing by the rules in the existing ecosystem. You may not like these rules, but if you want millions of people to have easy access to digital currency (so that a new economy can develop etc) we are the greatest ally you have on that mission.
One company can't play both roles, of integrating with the existing financial ecosystem, and creating the brave new world that you want to see. That role probably needs to be filled by separate companies.
We are much closer to Stripe and other businesses which don't allow adult businesses either. https://stripe.com/blog/why-some-businesses-arent-allowed
Further reading:…
Coinbase employee here. We're providing the bridge between finance 1.0 (e.g. banks) and finance 2.0. This means we're subject to requirements of the banking partners we work with and can only support merchants within their comfort level.
Unfortunately there are times when we would like to support a merchant but can't, but its a hard thing to keep the bridge open. You can read more here: https://medium.com/the-coinbase-blog/building-the-bridge-why-compliance-is-key-to-digital-currencys-success-7bfdd88a084c#.ckubzh6vy
It's not the first time that Verizon transfers an account like this...
Have a look at this other story from last month, "On Phone Numbers and Identity":
- https://medium.com/the-coinbase-blog/on-phone-numbers-and-identity-423db8577e58
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12597609
"It turns out the attacker was able to impersonate the employee on a call with Verizon"
Just don't rely on Verizon for your own 2FA security, partly because the phone system is too easy to redirect and spoof in various ways, and partly because Verizon is too easy to social-engineer.
https://medium.com/the-coinbase-blog/on-phone-numbers-and-identity-423db8577e58#.h2vbyat46
Another case of an attacker using phone porting to attempt to compromise accounts:
https://medium.com/the-coinbase-blog/on-phone-numbers-and-identity-423db8577e58#.xeqi89wpn