https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/34yvtf/coinbase_is_behaving_like_big_brothermonitoring/
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Coinbase IS behaving like Big Brother/Monitoring (self.Bitcoin)
submitted 3 hours ago by throwawayshowaway1
Thats it. I thought these complaints/rants against Coinbase were explainable in one way or the other. But no, sorry. Coinbase is seriously crossing the line now. I have had an account with Coinbase for well over 1.5 year. I bought some btc in March, and sent it to a DNM (won't say which one).. and did not purchase anything. I did not. The btc was a trivial amount, and said DNM has been having troubles with their uptime lately. Literally, no crime committed.
Fast fwd to yesterday. I wasn't home yet from work, but my wife tells me local LE showed up and wanted to have a "chat". Asked if I or anone had ever ordered anything illicit in the mail. Said "nobody's in trouble, we're just following up on something that might be nothing". My wife, bless her heart, answered truthfully "no". She should have told them to GTFO off our porch.
1) I have never ordered any illegal substance to my home address - so I know this "knock and talk" was ridiculous.
2) I bought bitcoin from Coinbase and sent it to a DNM. That's it. Is that a crime? Is that enough for Coinbase to apparently "report" me? It's ludicrous! Coinbase never even sent me an email or anything of the sort.. it looks like it straight up tattled. The irony is, I never committed anything remotely illegal.
TL;DR - Coinbase is monitoring everything you do and fast becoming the teachers pet and trying to score points with govt/banks/LE/regulators etc, even if it means just tattling on anyone who even does anything remotely naughty with btc.
Fuck Coinbase. Cancelling my account today.
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So uhhh... guess Helix by grams is gonna be doing some better business now, eh?
I've said it before and I'll say it again... store your own BTC immediately after (or at) purchase - use Electrum on Tails.
EDIT: Actually, there could be even more to this story, check out this comment:
This brings up an interesting possibility... that LE got involved not via CoinBase, but via the market itself, which is definitely plausible. If the market was compromised, or if the pseudorandom number generator that churns out its deposit addresses was exposed or cracked, LE would then look for BTC addresses that sent coins there, and where they could assign a source to any of those (like CoinBase), they might then send a subpoena for that user's info. This actually lines up a bit better, too, in regards to what the CoinBase employees in that thread are saying - that CoinBase wouldn't send the cops, just close the account.
Hmmmm....
Agora's still having troubles with their deposits, right?
I would caution reading too deeply here. The OP made a mistake by not tumbling but it sounds like other incriminating facts are being omitted. I mean seriously I don't mean to assume guilt but doesn't it seem weird for him to send bitcoins to a market for no reason. It seems more likely OP used a drop for his purchase so the drugs didn't actually come to his residence.
Notice he says, "I've never ordered drugs to my home address."
Seems more probable he shipped to a friend who rolled on him or package was profiled and delivered to a po box.
This all sounds like an excuse to me saying he just innocently sent coins to a dnm. We honestly can't know what other illegal things that could have led LE to knock on his door.
LE investigating sending bitcoins to a dnm seems way down there list of priorities and why would they not go after a bigger fish. I would assume there are much larger buyers of bitcoin that don't tumble. Stupid idea but we all know how people don't even encrypt their addresses.