Was Circle just a data collecting Honeypot all along? (duh)

To be honest, I used it myself. The first time I took in its slick interface, quick approval, and soon quick buy limit ($3k buy liimit seems like enough rope to hang yourself) increases, the lazy me loved it. The zero fee got me thinking (when I should have been allready), seems to good to be true. Of course they will start having fees eventually. I believe there were fees for large amount transfers $1k plus,(never went that high, anyone care to chime in?) but otherwise nothing.

Then they queitly stopped selling BTC, and redirected purchase traffic to coinbase. The same coinbase who right before openly admitted to cooperating with federal authorities.

Seems like a real slick way to identify a lot of lazy dissidents. Let's face it, if you want to spend outside the US petrodollar, you are a dissident. Ask Qaddafi and Lebanon.


Comments


[20 Points] 1percentof1:

This comment has been overwritten.


[11 Points] JollySwvgMvn:

I dunno. While playing Occum's Razor is usually a cop-out, in this instance I don't see a lot of reason to seriously question their explanation.

I see your logic, don't get me wrong. but if you think Circle was cooperating any less than Coinbase (coerced, compensated, or voluntarily), I think that's a mistake. Maybe they were making just enough money on the conversion spread (their buy price was great, so I imagine this was minimal) to operate without a loss while they examined all options at optimal monetization of their baby.

As you imply in the "petrodollar" remark, this is a capitalist economy. While they certainly have their work cut out for them if they are aiming to compete with the already entrenched payment processors, it's not a stretch to see that this shift was a legitimate business decision. And perhaps even one that was a card on the table from the get-go.

That said, the way they just up and stopped was fucked as fucked can be.


[7 Points] Omomomomomo:

This makes a lot of sense.


[4 Points] coffeencreme:

We're junkies abusing the Internet and making poor innocent postal staff deliver our deadly devill drugs. /'s

We don't get to have nice things.


[4 Points] TheDopeNerd:

There were never an explicit fees, but they made money off every trade due to a spread. If you ever looked at the price circle gave you compared to the price on other major exchanges you would notice that circle's was slightly higher.


[3 Points] A530:

Any virtual/crypto currency that is based in the US or takes US customers is going to be vulnerable, its just that simple, especially if they provide the ability to fund/liquidate in-house (ala exchanger/market maker).

In the US, there have been a decade or more of failed virtual currencies that have crashed and burned because of lack of clear regulatory compliance. No clear guidance means that FinCEN and the DOJ can just keep moving the goal posts.


[2 Points] IM_FUCKING_SHREDDED:

What do you guys use for BTC nowadays? Coinbase takes like 4 days to verify. Stupid shit.


[1 Points] 82ff24670dfadcbc9d8a:

Not only did they have zero fees, they actually paid you above market value to sell your btc back to them. I really miss that site, just had to pay a 100$ fee at coinbase to cash out my bitcoin profits, they fucking suck.


[1 Points] throwahooawayyfoe:

Circle most definitely charged a fee for buying btc. It wasn't an actual stated "fee," but they took a nice margin on what they charged. Circle's prices were always around 10% higher than Coinbase and the other exchanges, meaning you got 10% less coin compared to the open market.


[1 Points] tweakingpelicant:

Act as if ..


[1 Points] ElectronicExorcist:

Here is a huge list of different vendors:

https://howtobuybitcoins.info/#!/

They all have positives and negatives, so just check a few out and figure out which suits your needs best. Some only work in certain states or countries. Some have different verification requirements, different fees, etc. Some use bank accounts wire routing, credit cards, paypal, what have you.

Coinmama.com will let you instantly get $150 without verification, then you need to upload photos to get more. That is the best one if you are in a hurry.