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The most important value of bitcoin is that transfers are non-repudiable. Any situation where sellers do not trust their buyers and have to eat the cost of thin

The most important value of bitcoin is that transfers are non-repudiable. Any situation where sellers do not trust their buyers and have to eat the cost of things like credit-card chargebacks, there's a huge savings in accepting payments in a form that the buyer can't reverse. Of course, the huge dark side to that is that there's now a way to easily send money in a way you cannot reverse. This provides a huge incentive for things like kidnappers demanding their ransom in bitcoin. It's often valuable to be physically incapable of doing things. I'm long-run bearish on Bitcoin because of this analysis - the majority of its value is in something that makes governments and other coordination mechanisms interested in destroying it.

nicky0 9y ago
However, another core property of Bitcoin is strong resistance to censorship and government interference, which is another big part of its value.
saas_co_de 9y ago
> transfers are non-repudiable Technically, but not legally. Transfers are 100% reversible by going to court, so Bitcoin is really only non-reversible for criminal activity (dealing drugs, gambling, etc) where someone cannot bring an action because the contract was illegal in the first place. This technical non-repudiability is a feature that only works for criminals and is an anti-feature for legitimate users.
- deleted 9y ago
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- detaro 9y ago
  True, there is a lot of middle ground where that higher standard for reversibility is useful though (e.g. compared to dealing with PayPal or credit cards, which are the primary alternatives for international/inter-currency transfers and provide very little in the way of security for the seller). Especially interesting for smaller sums though, and there the current level of transfer fees really gets in the way.
dcosson 9y ago
> There's a huge savings in accepting payments in a form that the buyer can't reverse. Bitcoin just kind of flips the problem, it doesn't solve it. In a world where payments can easily be reversed, sellers take on all the risk. In a world where they can't be, buyers take all the risk. You can get pretty far with a reputation system, and in a market with many more buyers than sellers it's nice that now only the seller's reputation matters. But for a lot of people there's still benefit in having a trusted middleman like Paypal.

nicky0 9y ago

However, another core property of Bitcoin is strong resistance to censorship and government interference, which is another big part of its value.

saas_co_de 9y ago

> transfers are non-repudiable Technically, but not legally. Transfers are 100% reversible by going to court, so Bitcoin is really only non-reversible for criminal activity (dealing drugs, gambling, etc) where someone cannot bring an action because the contract was illegal in the first place. This technical non-repudiability is a feature that only works for criminals and is an anti-feature for legitimate users.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
detaro 9y ago
True, there is a lot of middle ground where that higher standard for reversibility is useful though (e.g. compared to dealing with PayPal or credit cards, which are the primary alternatives for international/inter-currency transfers and provide very little in the way of security for the seller). Especially interesting for smaller sums though, and there the current level of transfer fees really gets in the way.

dcosson 9y ago

> There's a huge savings in accepting payments in a form that the buyer can't reverse. Bitcoin just kind of flips the problem, it doesn't solve it. In a world where payments can easily be reversed, sellers take on all the risk. In a world where they can't be, buyers take all the risk. You can get pretty far with a reputation system, and in a market with many more buyers than sellers it's nice that now only the seller's reputation matters. But for a lot of people there's still benefit in having a trusted middleman like Paypal.