A number of crypto enthusiasts are dissatisfied with the platform’s previous statements in support of the Bitcoin Classic hard fork and unwillingness to work with Ethereum Classic.
Some bitcoin community members suggest excluding Coinbase from the list of recommended cryptocurrency wallets at bitcoin.org due to the growing number of complaints about the platform.
“In the light of recent events I would like to reopen the discussion on removing Coinbase from the "Choose your Wallet" page [on Bitcoin.org],” the user nopara73 from Hungary wrote on GitHub portal.
He believes that the behaviour of Coinbase management discussed among bitcoin enthusiasts these days, including the company’s refusal to allow users withdrawing assets in ETC and delays in the issue of funds from accounts, raises many questions.
This opinion was supported by a number of community members, including the notorious Cobra-Bitcoin, the anonymous user who suggested “to alter the bitcoin white paper” by Satoshi Nakamoto.
“I support removing them. Their leadership keeps making bad decisions and they always seem to be trying to undermine Bitcoin in some way (XT, Classic, Ethereum, etc). I don't know why any sane person would use their services. It's not really the sort of company we should be pushing new users too, Coinbase is too irresponsible and keeps forgetting that they're essentially a bank and shouldn't be behaving like a careless startup keen to "move quick". I'm very glad more people are starting to realize the truth about Coinbase,” Cobra-Bitcoin wrote.
Who stands behind this username is anybody’s guess. There are several versions: some believe that Cobra-Bitcoin is a developer at Blockstream, the company that was earlier repeatedly suspected of plotting against the decentralised nature of the system.
But this theory was refuted by one of Blockstream representatives Greg Maxwell, who wrote in the Reddit trend that Cobra-Bitcoin is neither the company’s employee nor one of the Bitcoin Core developers.
At the same time, it was noted that Cobra’s signature is present along with those of many famous bitcoin community representatives the 2015 roadmap concerning the bitcoin system capacity increase. An ordinary bitcoin user would hardly be able to attend that meeting in Hong Kong, the more so to sign the document.
Some users point at another bitcoin enthusiast, Theymos, famous for his harsh statements about various aspects of bitcoin industry. These guesses are based on the fact that both of them are bitcoin.org domain owners.
The idea to exclude Coinbase from the recommended wallets list has been likewise supported by some Bitcoin Core developers — Peter Todd and Jonas Schnelli. The latter, in particular, suggested a “warning mode” for Coinbase, not deleting them from the list completely but making the icon less bright and adding a warning sign with an explanation why Coinbase is deactivated.