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This hasn't been the best week for WikiLeaks, to put it mildly. Coinbase has shut off the WikiLeaks Shop's account for allegedly violating the cryptocurrency exchange's terms of service. In other words, the leak site just lost its existing means of converting payments like bitcoin into conventional money. While Coinbase didn't give a specific reason (it declines to comment on specific accounts), it pointed to its legal requirement to honor "regulatory compliance mechanisms" under the US' Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
This doesn't prevent WikiLeaks from accepting cryptocurrency, but it will have to scramble to find an alternative if it wants to continue taking digital money from customers buying shirts and coffee cups. Unsurprisingly, the organization is less than thrilled -- it's calling for a "global blockade" of Coinbase, claiming that the exchange is reacting to a "concealed influence."
Source: https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/21/wikileaks-loses-coinbase-account/
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 23 2018, @10:20PM
If I could click a button and "back up" my money every night, that would make theft much less of a concern - particularly if my money were so compact that I could store Billions on a thumb drive and disguise it as vacation photos.
I tried using a local bank back in the 1990s, the fees and outright theft (they made a $20 addition error on a monthly statement, in their favor of course, and basically shrugged at me when I pointed it out - corrected it after a week), convinced me to continue to do business with my Credit Union by mail with the closest branch office ~200 miles away. Two or three times since then, I've opened brick and mortar bank accounts, only to close them within months because the reality of banking with them is much more expensive than the Credit Union. Bank by mail in the 1990s meant ~$0.40 stamps on the deposit envelopes, but that's cheaper than driving to a local branch anyway, unless your bank branch is directly on your normal daily path, less than 1 mile out of the way, and even then the time differential between: address, seal, stamp and drop in post box and standing in any kind of line at the bank is pretty huge. The banks I used that had "convenient" location right across the street from work (only have to walk 2 blocks to get there and back) seemed to always have 20+ minute lines to wait to talk to a teller.
And, if you think that your time face-to-face with that teller, in that commercial building, isn't being siphoned away from your money somehow, do you also believe in magic fairies? Banks explain that away by lending your money to other people and claiming that all their expenses are covered by the differential between savings and loan interest rates - which is probably why savings has paid virtually zero interest during the past 10 years. Notice any inflation in the cost of living over the last 10 years? That's your money in the bank, shrinking.
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