Coinbase Still 'De-Listed' from Bitcoin.org as GitHub Request Rejected

The scrutiny is on Bitcoin.org as a GitHub pull request to merge Coinbase back into the system was opened 13 days ago. A claim that 95% of overwhelming support for this action has been made on an /r/bitcoin post and other forums that once again has got the community all riled up.

Also read: Blockchain Without Bitcoin: Big Banking Babble

“It’s not about altcoins, it’s about a wallet that clearly supports Bitcoin. @ Cobra probably should just close this (request) as it seems like while it enjoys a clear majority for reinstatement you will not merge it.” — Brian Hoffman, CEO Open Bazaar

A few weeks back CEO Brian Armstrong had announced via Twitter that Coinbase would be testing the Bitcoin XT back at their lab. Almost immediately after this announcement the person who’s currently in charge of Bitcoin.org named Cobra had said he would remove Coinbase from their website. The volunteer website consisting of Cobra, Theymos and others followed through with the threat and had the San Francisco-based company removed. This action had made the community go into a frenzy on various media outlets and social platforms.

During this debacle, many people voiced their opposition to the removal and had expressed the opinion that this was bad for adoption. Coinbase is known as one of the biggest and one of the easiest wallet providers and brokers of Bitcoin. Some feel that because of the ban new users will miss out on the opportunity to access the digital currency.

As time progressed, Armstrong addressed the public through a Medium blog post explaining what his company was planning to do. Now a GitHub pull request calling for people to pledge their signature of support for Coinbase to be reinstated. This request has received a fair amount of attention and just recently escalated to the top posts on Bitcoin subreddits. The GitHub statement called “Revert “Merge pull request #1178 from Cobra-Bitcoin /remove- coinbase” #1180,” asks the Bitcoin.org leader to change his mind about the Coinbase removal. 74 participants played their role by placing votes for the suggested reinstatement.

Some of the comments were very supportive of this move while others were not. The creator of the request Brian Hoffman of Openbazaar writes, “@cobra-Bitcoin do the right thing and merge,” and comments throughout the entire page. Core developer Jeff Garzik explains his opinion and vote saying, “ACK (which is a vote of ‘yea’)- this situation is completely unprofessional, and the removal PR should have never been merged. I already had users asking me on twitter if Coinbase-BTC was still safe to use. This looks like amateur hour to outsiders – a business experiments with something that diverts from the Official Line, and bitcoin.org immediately de-lists them. That’s anti-innovation, anti-freedom-of-choice and discourages anyone from diverging from the Official Line.”

Garzik added:

“Ultimately Bitcoin.org is devalued not Coinbase.”

Others who opposed this wrote “Nack,” which is against the merge and expressed their opinions as well with their votes. Chief Scientist Gavin Andresen agrees with Garzik and expresses his opinion saying:

“ACK. jgarzik expressed my thoughts well.”



It does look as though that 95% of the participants were “Acked for” the wallet service to be added back to Bitcoin.org or, at least, the majority. Cobra did show up and said his vote of “Nack” along with roughly a few others who shared his opinion. Then just yesterday on January 9th Theymos didn’t appreciate the pull request utilized as a vote for this subject. He writes, “This is not a vote. I will unlock this when it is no longer being brigaded” and continues to lock down the merge appeal following his statement.

So the discussion on GitHub had ceased though it may be reopened later. It is clear that actions and strong words are being dealt swiftly in this argument, and many are upset. It doesn’t seem like the pull request accomplished its goal except by causing attention to the discussion at hand. Coinbase will remain removed from the Bitcoin.org wallet page while discussion over block size implementation continues.

What do you think about this subject concerning the removal of Coinbase? Let us know in the comments below.

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