Does Coinbase ‘deserve’ to go bankrupt?

Lavina Daryanani
Source: GoBankingRates

Global trading firm Factor LLC’s CEO point-blank took a dig at Coinbase on Thursday. Per the exec, the crypto exchange “deserves” to go bankrupt in the ongoing bear market.

Peter Brandt has been always been vocal about crypto-centric developments and has seldom restrained from voicing out his views.

Why Coinbase when there are other fishes?

Tuur Demeester, the Editor at The Satoshi Papers, tweeted recently that he expected a bunch of companies to come out stronger post the current bearish market. His list included the likes of Blockstream, Bitfinex, Kraken, Unchained, Trezor, and Lightning Labs amongst others.

A host of other prominent names—including Coinbase—weren’t touched upon, but Demeester clarified by tweeting,

Clearly I failed to mention several other solid companies! The point I’m making is that in times like these in particular, companies will be rewarded that have a culture of prudence and low time preference and that esp. value the stability and promise of the bitcoin platform.

Quote tweeting the main tweet, Brandt did lash out at Coinbase but expressed his concern with respect to the exchange’s customers. He highlighted that in an event of bankruptcy, users HODLing their crypto assets on the exchange may be declared “unsecured creditors” and their Bitcoin would be “stolen.”

Outlining why Brandt elaborated,

“Under your agreement forms with @coinbase if the firm goes bankrupt any BTC held with the firm will belong to secured creditors for which you are not”

Armstrong clears the air

In May when the crypto exchange declared its quarterly results, it parallelly made an SEC filing that stated that Coinbase users’ crypto would be used to bail out the company during any sort of adverse situation.

As the said statement started doing the rounds on social media, the company’s CEO Armstrong came to defense and said that the company did not face any risk of bankruptcy. He clarified that Coinbase was merely catering to the SEC’s SAB 121 requirement.