[mikeash]

They're giving up control of their bitcoin for specific purposes. Coinbase can't just do whatever they feel like with it, any more than your bank can one day just declare "Hey, we decided to keep all of your deposits, FOAD, thanks."

[chii]

may be i'm misunderstanding the nature of the bitcoin fork, but i see it the same as owning foreign currency. IF you banked some US dollars, you can't turn around and say you'd like to get it back out as Euros without paying some kind of exchange rate.