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131 sats \ 1 reply \ @2big2fail OP 2 Feb 2023
swan is a very very fragile business and all they really control is the front end.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DiracDelta 2 Feb 2023
And by "front end", you also must mean the front of bitcoin twitter where they paid off every micro-influencer they could find to make it appear like a grassroots effort, right? ;)
They make a big deal out of being anti-shitcoin, but Cory was a hardcore full time shitcoin promoter in 2019 (giving talks, etc), Breedlove did BitClout, managing director Terrence was helping someone run BitClout in 2020. Seems like anti-shitcoin could just be a marketing funnel for them.
They seem to hire business:tech people at a 5-10 to 1 ratio, which might explain their failure to deliver basic features such as market-if-touched quasi-limit orders.
And then there was the whole 5-10% spread for a couple days, to which they could only afford to say "tough shit" to customers who got scammed (a circuit breaker to prevent something like that would also have been trivial to build). And now Cory is writing emails letting people know they want to IPO soon... I suppose with the nonsense that goes on in fiatland maybe they'll pull it off 🤦♂️
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/ftx-collapse-cause-huge-bitcoin-price-spike
(Possible bias: I was trying to inadvertently crush them with a component of what I was working on given how easy it would have been, but fell a bit short as I attempted to continue bootstrapping as the bitcoin price went from 50s to low 20s. No bitcoin "investors" were interested... really hope there is something about bitcoin startup investing that attracts absolute morons and that OGs are much smarter or we may be in for a rough few decades after hyperbitcoinization while the fool-whales lose their coins.)
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10 sats \ 5 replies \ @siggy47 2 Feb 2023
Swan has been my source for kyc bitcoin for a while now. The bitcoin only ethos and Corey himself are the reasons.
This prime trust issue has me nervous. As anyone using Swan knows, withdrawal is a two step process. You "sign" the transaction through Swan, but then have to wait for prime trust to send you an email to again verify the withdrawal.
Is anyone else having second thoughts about the process?
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196 sats \ 1 reply \ @benthecarman 2 Feb 2023
there's no reason to use swan over river
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 2 Feb 2023
There's one big reason for me. River isn't available for New York residents.
That's complicated too. Currently New Yorkers cannot open Swan accounts in New York, but existing account holders can still buy bitcoin. Swan is apparently in the process of applying for the infamous Bitlicense, but I wonder what effect the Prime Trust issues will have on the application.
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @tmoney 2 Feb 2023
Currently in the locking period to withdrawal. It really sucks. They are lessening the risk for themselves by having these long ass locking periods while passing more risk to us. Definitely want bitcoin only companies to succeed but have been disappointed by my experience with them.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @pleb349 3 Feb 2023
Thats crazy. With Unchained multisig, you can just move your BTC out of their "vaults" any time you like. It is just a normal on-chain transaction that you control.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @tmoney 3 Feb 2023
I think that's not exactly an apples to apples comparison. With Swan its just like buying bitcoin with a normal exchange and then waiting a certain period before you can withdraw (so that Swan can protect itself from fraud). It's just that their waiting period is longer than normal so it's exposing me to to more counter party risk (aka Prime Trust going bankrupt). I like to withdraw my BTC asap. Here's a link to their locking periods: https://help.swanbitcoin.com/hc/en-us/articles/360044722794-Why-is-my-Bitcoin-waiting-to-unlock-How-long-until-I-can-withdraw-my-coins-. For a multisig like Unchanged, it sounds like you already bring the bitcoin rather than buying it with fiat directly into a multisig account.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Jbana 2 Feb 2023
Bleh.
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