Ever Wonder how Poloniex and Coinbase keep most of their customers bitcoins so extremely safe in cold storage? Here are some behind the scenes images!

Here is an article from molinn.is @molinn showing a behind the scenes look at Coinbase operations!
http://molinn.is/.crypt/news/WithBitcoinCoinbase/coinbase-servers.php

I had assumed they had some machine that automatically retrieved a paper from a stack of them and then a scanner automatically can scan the QR code or read the private key whenever someone requested any funds kept in cold storage... and I thought they would need some elaborate offline machine to do this!

Turns out they simply transfer the customers private keys and a series of pre generated address onto a usb thumbdrive and also print out a paper backup and they then lock them both inside a safety deposit box at a bank! Where they only use the bank for its vault and in no way actually give the bank any access to the bitcoins themselves and the bank managers would have NO way of stealing these private keys and stealing the bitcoins without coinbase finding out immediately and obviously noone else but bank staff would have been able to steal from safety deposit boxes and it would be easy to take em to court and the bank will never be able to steal the bitcoins!

Anyway look!

Poloniex also keeps over 90 of its customers funds in cold storage in the same way! So the worst that could happen is that if a hacker somehow stole all coins from the hot wallets on coinbase or poloniex, only five percent would be stolen, and honestly that could probably be replaced by the companies profits....Like how poloniex replaced everyone bitcoins who had them stolen once...hearing about that is why i chose to go with Poloniex! That is some integrity right there!

So see how they keep most of your Private Keys offline? Its a great system! Cold Storage! If you dont understand how this works, watch some more videos on how the private keys of bitcoin work!

Here is a picture of Poloniex HQ! hah this is my first time seeing it! Its reassuring to know its a real place! Many people are ignorant about crypto and ting its some sort of centralized ponzi or that sites like poloniex are somehow operating some sort of a scam when anyone can withdrawal as much as they want whenever they want on poloniex! Its not some HYIP High Yield Investment Scam! But some people have just gotten scammed so many times, including Mt Gox that they will just never trust anything that seems to be good to be true to them! Oh well they will miss out!

This is not about prices or money...its about the economy as a whole and FinTech or Financial Technology and its evolution! Money is what we make of it and paper money is an outdated obsolete system! Just think about how Pablo Escobar, who would loose 2.1 BILLION in cash every year or about 10 percent of his cash due to Rats eating it or mold or water damage!
( Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/pablo-escobar-and-rubber-bands-2015-9 ) AND he would have to pay $2,500 a month on rubber bands! Just think about how innefficient cash is now! Would YOU want to have 10 percent of your hard earned millions to be eaten by rats or water damage?!?! Imagine if he would have had been able to buy bitcoin! Im surprised that mexico has a very low bitcoin penetration rate when the cartels there would love bitcoin as a way to send money from the US back to mexico or to south america!

a here is that famous image of 207 million in cash made from sales of methamphetamine seized by Mexican authorities in 2007! read about it here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhenli_Ye_Gon And they were just 2 years too early for bitcoin which came out in 2009! This image is proof that the scene in Breaking Bad with the money bed in the storage unit is not very far off from reality at all! Seriously if those cartel members would have been able to buy bitcoin with that cash, they would have been able to store all 208 million in one phone! And no police officer would have EVER found it!even if someone searched your phone they could never get your bitcoins without your private key which you could memorize via a brain password! Where you convert your key into a series of a dozen or so random words that are surprisingly easy to memorize! especially if they are the backup to a bitcoin wallet worth hundreds of millions!

Imagine having a btc wallet with over 200,000 BTC in it! You could fit that whole room sized pile of cash into one piece of paper on a paper bitcoin wallet! this screenshot of ross ulrichts bitcoin wallet with over 200,000 btc in it, shows you how it doesnt matter how much money it is it is jst as easy to carry $1 as it is $30 bilion in bitcoin!
It would be a 200(now more like 400) million dollar s today!