Coinbase Suspends the Personal Account of Gab Founder

Coinbase Suspends the Personal Account of Gab Founder

American cryptocurrency exchange and wallet provider Coinbase has banned the personal account of Andrew Torba–founder of free speech social messaging platform Gab. In response to Coinbase’s censorship efforts, Torba emphasizes the need for decentralized exchanges. 

Also read: 525,600 Blocks Mined: Measuring the 10th Bitcoin Birthday

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Gab Locked Out of Coinbase

Gab CEO Torba announced on his own social media platform that U.S.-based crypto exchange heavyweight Coinbase has shut down his personal account. Torba attached the notice from Coinbase asking him to immediately withdraw his digital assets from the account.

As at press time, Coinbase has offered no reason for the unexpected suspension, but presumably a recent tweet from Gab that advocates the use of bitcoin to combat financial censorship by centralized crypto exchanges may have been pivotal.

Gab’s tweet reads:

The next phase of financial censorship as people move to bitcoin is censoring the on ramps and off ramps (exchanges.)

This will force and incentivize people to not use those ramps and instead only use bitcoin for all things.

Keep censoring. It will only push people to bitcoin.

— Gab.com (@getongab) January 4, 2019

Additionally, Gab’s reputation for harboring far-right voices could have been a major factor in banning Torba from Coinbase. The New York Times called Gab a “digital safe space” for the ultra right-wing community.

Torba Had It Coming

Although unexpected, Coinbase’s decision may not have surprised Torba, as last year Coinbase suspended Gab’s merchant account. As a result, Gab tweeted:

As predicted: the on ramps and off ramps (exchanges) are going to start censoring not only companies, but also individuals. @coinbase has now banned both Gab’s merchant account and Andrew Torba’s personal account.

Decentralized exchanges are the future. pic.twitter.com/LXkjblrdgu

— Gab.com (@getongab) January 4, 2019

Following the suspension, Torba highlights that censorship-resistant decentralized exchanges will be the future. Whether you agree or not with Coinbase’s move to banish Torba, bitcoin’s decentralized nature presents an alternative payment method that mitigates the risks of financial censorship on individuals, organizations, and even countries.

A clear example is Venezuela, the South American country that turned to crypto tokens to circumvent economic sanctions imposed by the United States.

Last year, the largest American crypto exchange blocked the WikiLeaks Shop that sells clothes, books etc. to financially back the non-profit whistleblower.

Coinbase is not the only one to boot out the controversial site. Many other organizations, including PayPal, Stripe, Medium, GoDaddy, and Joynet have shuttered service to the social network following the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that left eleven people dead. Reportedly, the shooter maintained an active profile on Gab and made numerous posts involving hate speech.

Will decentralized exchanges be the solution to financial censorship? Share your views in the comments section below.

Images via Pixabay