There's no transaction history because they're a bank and you don't actually have any of your money earmarked for you, it's all on one pool. The wallets and numbers you see in your account represent an "i owe you"...just as occurs in a fiat based bank. As soon as someone sends money to your wallet it is immediately transferred out of your wallet to the Coinbase wallets, the general pool of funds used to cover other people's transactions.
So how would we know that Coinbase does not counterfeit these coins in the pool and use an internal database to place them into your account and
the people who designed BTC talk about inflation being kept in check but it's not if Coinbase is printing up fake coins as fast as they can sell them.
We wouldn't know...you're right...this could all be some big conspiracy! But Coinbase is putting a lot of effort into running a legit, legal business - in the United States, where legal consequences are high. Further, Coinbase couldn't counterfeit their own coins that would be able to be transacted across the Bitcoin blockchain. The technology doesn't allow for it.
Can you see me getting any Bit-Gold from Coinbase since they hold coins for me from before that fork because I would say I can kiss them goodbye
from what I am reading ?
I was being a bit snarky, "Bit-Gold" isn't a thing. I think you're referring to "Bitcoin Gold". And in that case, you have to wait for Coinbase to decide if they are going to give their customers access to their Bitcoin Gold. It's totally upto Coinbase because they hold the private keys for the bitcoin they have under management, they don't allow their customers to have private keys (which are needed to claim the hardforked coin). This isn't unique to Coinbase, all exchanges operate this way, most exchanges have not granted Bitcoin Gold to their customers.
This is how all banks have operated for over 100 years.
Many people have moved to gold/silver and BTC to get away from banks and the monopoly money and need to be aware that it's just the same thing
when using fat-cat brokers to hold these coins.
Yes, you're right! And to truly get away from the banks you need to keep your coins in an offline or hardware wallet (e.g., Bitcoin Core, Trezor, Ledger). If you keep your money on an exchange you're keeping your money in a "bitcoin bank". And that's fine, but the only way these operations work is by pooling all the assets (coins) they hold for people so they can pay out when people want to send there Bitcoin outside the exchange. This is the business model of a bank.
Many people here advise not to keep majority of your crypto wealth in an exchange because you don't own the private keys for your wallet, therefore you technically don't have control of (or own) your crypto coins. You're putting all your trust in the exchange. In the fiat world banks pay you interest in exchange for this trust, currently there are only two bitcoin wallets that pay interest...more should...Coinbase should...we're still in the infant stages of all of this. I believe exchanges will start to pay interest on wallets as the market matures.
Great questions. If you're worried about Coinbase, don't use them. There are several other options. Coinbase (along with all other exchanges) are operating the same as a fiat banks. There's no drawer in your fiat bank that holds money labeled "for Anti-Cen's use only."