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I honestly don't know a ton about cryptocurrencies, but I though confirmed transactions were.....more or less whole point? can you give me an ELI5 version of wh

• ericb 9y ago
  It depends on the use-case. If you look at credit card transactions, they are only "confirmed" after 120 days (when chargebacks become harder...not impossible). A 0-conf transaction will work for all scenarios where you would trust a credit card with about the same amount of certainty. For those other scenarios, 10 minutes is better.
  • Isomatik 9y ago
    I think it's really only comparable for online transactions, where all credit card transactions are Card Not Present and you aren't able to 100% guarantee that the delivery went to the correct person or that the card wasn't stolen, making fighting the chargeback sometimes not worth it. A brick and mortar doing swipe transactions should have everything they need to effectively fight chargebacks, so I wouldn't consider that money to be 'gone' the way it would be in a double-spend.
• Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y ago
  For small transactions, it's often a tolerable risk. You amortize any losses to double-spends and compare that to e.g CC fees. For larger amounts, you want confirmations, but then it's generally alright to wait a little while for confirmation, too. Note that replace-by-fee means this only works with Bitcoin Cash.