That doesn't seem correct. It's pretty simple to buy BTC on Coinbase and then transfer it to another wallet. Then you can do anything you want with it.
Yes, Coinbase would control the private keys for any bitcoin stored there. So the issue is most likely that Coinbase hold's the majority of it's digital currencies in cold storage - essentially stored on air-gapped computers.
To redeem your bitcoin cash (BCH), you have to import your private keys into a new bitcoin cash wallet, and then transfer them. If you do not transfer your BTC to a new wallet before importing your private keys to the BCH wallet, a malicious wallet could then have access to both your BCH and BTC.
With replay protection, the solution is to move your BTC to a new wallet, then import the old private keys (with a balance of 0 BTC, but still has BCH associated) to the BCH wallet.
Hopefully you can see all of the failure points here. I have coins stored in cold storage and haven't yet bothered to claim any BCH due to the hassle, and lack of exchanges where you can sell it.
Coinbase has no control over any cryptocurrency accounts besides their own.
Each cryptocurrency user generates a private key that becomes a wallet and is used to sign transactions. These signed transactions are then broadcast to the internet for balance keeping nodes to keep track of. They do it in a globally distributed manner (no central entity) and earn rewards for their work (like collecting a tiny fraction of the transaction as a fee).
Coinbase or any other exchange can certainly steal your coins, just like a bank can steal your money. Hosting your own private key is like having your money in your mattress -- it's as secure as you allow it to be, and once stolen it's gone forever.
There is a "Coinbase Wallet," though, which is somewhat confusingly a separate app where you actually do hold your own private keys.[0]
You can seamlessly link your exchange account and your Wallet account so you can move the money right into your own Coinbase Wallet with your own private keys as soon as you're done with the exchange.
I'm not sure the parent comment meant that wallet, but Coinbase does "give you a wallet" if you want, complete with your own private keys.
There's something I don't quite get (being a cryptocurrency newbie). Why can coinbase users not simply import their private key into some other wallet that supports both Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash?
My understanding is that Bitcoin Cash recognises the old Bitcoin blockchain as their own up to the point of the fork. So as of Aug 1st all Bitcoin balances are Bitcoin Cash balances as well. Or is that not how it works?
The irony being of course is that Coinbase is literally a financial instution
but given confirmation time inherent to the network, I don't see a way around doing something similar to what coinbase have done here (minus the egregious part where they hold your private key)
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