| You're conflating miners and brokerages and they don't operate nearly anything like each other. Miners do not custody funds. Large miners that control a farm can't run on empty, they need to pay for space, hardware, and electricity - they need to sell through crypto through a brokerage to end users to make a profit. The brokerage (e.g. Coinbase) may then custody those funds on behalf of brokerage users, but the miner no longer has it. Mining pools directly pay out the pool contributors in crypto who then themselves decide to either save or spend. There are some "cloud mining" services but they don't account for a lot of power and most end users play with them at a loss. A brokerage does not own or generate new coin, it simply holds it on behalf of users and enables exchanges between users via the market. "[Coinbase] claim that it will take a few days to process the transaction" -> This is very vague. When you withdraw crypto it generally happens near instantly. If you're talking about a purchase which involves processing a fiat withdrawal from a bank, that's not the same thing. Re: Binance, you can audit it yourself at addresses like this: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/34xp4vRoCGJym3xR7yCVP... |