I'll start by apologizing for my paranoia here, and for adding yet another post to the "fuck Coinbase" train. The anxiety following some of the discussions yesterday is just really fucking with me, and I could use outside input.
When I first started, a lot of posts here articulated "tumbling is overkill" for small time, personal buyers (i.e. myself). That being said, I stupidly moved BTC directly from Coinbase to the marketplace (Agora, Evo, Cannabis Road). I'm fully verified as to allow instant buy, and the amounts were small, ~$100 on average, the largest being $230 for an ounce of weed. But this happened somewhat frequently, perhaps once or twice a month, for a total of maybe ten times. I only ever sold BTC back once, directly after buying it (mistake on my part).
Fortunately, I never lost a package, and never had any suspicious delays. Haven't bought anything for a few weeks, and I've been using Electrum for the past few orders.
All of that being said...
If I close my Coinbase account today, will I be able to just forget about this? It occurred to me that even though the amounts were low, there's still a pretty lengthy paper trail, should they ever retroactively decide to plow over small time buyers...
...and that's what's freaking me out. Thanks everyone.
You're probably safe. You could be safer, sure, but really, you're too small to be on their radar.
Obviously, that's just an opinion- but my gut feeling is the arrest was based more off IRS investigations then strictly Coinbase to DNM.
More importantly, you PGP'ed your orders, right? If you're super concerned, keep a clean house. Have a cover story for why you sent BTC... personally, assuming somehow I found myself in this situation, I'd say I have a girlfriend on the side and she gets an allowance, I use BTC so my wife thinks I'm just investing, and I have no clue what she does once I send the money. That's off the top of my head...
Well, actually, I'd say "I refuse to answer on advice of my attorney" and clam the fuck up. Unless they can find 38k in unexplained cash and/or drugs in your place (assuming they get a search warrant because you might have bought a couple hundred bucks worth of drugs- not ENTIRELY impossible, but unlikely) you might be scared, but you'll likely skate right through.