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So looking at the updated site, I see: 1) Peer-to-Peer transactions Thats's nice, but so do Square Cash, Venmo, Paypal, etc... and they currently do it cheape

So looking at the updated site, I see: 1) Peer-to-Peer transactions Thats's nice, but so do Square Cash, Venmo, Paypal, etc... and they currently do it cheaper. 2) Borderless payments How do we define borders? They're just arbitrary demarcation lines regulated by governments, so wouldn't the developing regulations in South Korea and China be creating borders for bitcoin? 3) Fraud Protection Maybe someone can explain this to me. If any weird activity happens on my bank account, my bank contacts me and shuts down my card until I verify transactions. If I make a purchase with my CC and the seller is fraudulent, I can charge-back and have the CC deal with the seller. How does Bitcoin even come close to that level of fraud protection? I assume multi-sig is their way of defining "fraud protection"? Is it the decentralization? Because isn't the bulk of the mining being done by large pools that can then be regulated and controlled by the governments of the countries in which they operate? I just checked the mining breakdown[0] and the two top mining pools (BTC.COM and AntPool) are owned by Bitmain[1], which is a Chinese company, and the next two (BTC.TOP and ViaBTC) also look they're controlled by Chinese companies. I'm not anti-chinese, but lets not pretend that companies operating in China aren't in some way beholden to their highly centralized and non-democratic government. So what are, and have always been, the main benefits of bitcoin again? [0] https://blockchain.info/pools https://blockchain.info/pools [1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitmain https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitmain

Cthulhu_ 9y ago
> Thats's nice, but so do Square Cash, Venmo, Paypal, etc... and they currently do it cheaper. With the difference that your wallet and means of transferring funds is centralized; you can't transfer money from your Paypal wallet without using Paypal's services. With crypto all you need is a connection to the network and your private key. > How do we define borders? They're just arbitrary demarcation lines regulated by governments, so wouldn't the developing regulations in South Korea and China be creating borders for bitcoin? They are, plenty of countries where crypto tech is not officially allowed. Or well, they can block the exchanges; in theory, using a VPN service people could still get on the network. But that too can be blocked. So you have a point there, while transferring coins is a global thing, there will be countries without an open internet where it won't be possible. Re: fraud protection, that's a tough one indeed. I think that implies that you can't get hit by a malicious bank? I'd argue it's more insecure than regular currencies, and like you said, official banks and currencies have a guarantee system, that is, if e.g. a bank gets hacked, or even when, due to your own fault, you get scammed, banks and credit card companies will reimburse you, often backed by national / global banks and systems.
- statoshi 9y ago
  Fraud protection is referring to protection against double spending and protection against chargebacks - it's not the same type of consumer protection that folks are used to with credit cards. However, it's worth noting that this type of consumer protection /is/ possible and can be built on top of the system using reputation and escrow services.
icelancer 9y ago
>> Thats's nice, but so do Square Cash, Venmo, Paypal, etc... and they currently do it cheaper. No they don't. Any one of those services can freeze your money or worse, go into your banking account and reverse transactions. That's not peer-to-peer. There's a centralized governor.
nicky0 9y ago
It protects the seller against the fraud of malicious chargeacks. i.e. it provides surety of funds.

Cthulhu_ 9y ago

> Thats's nice, but so do Square Cash, Venmo, Paypal, etc... and they currently do it cheaper. With the difference that your wallet and means of transferring funds is centralized; you can't transfer money from your Paypal wallet without using Paypal's services. With crypto all you need is a connection to the network and your private key. > How do we define borders? They're just arbitrary demarcation lines regulated by governments, so wouldn't the developing regulations in South Korea and China be creating borders for bitcoin? They are, plenty of countries where crypto tech is not officially allowed. Or well, they can block the exchanges; in theory, using a VPN service people could still get on the network. But that too can be blocked. So you have a point there, while transferring coins is a global thing, there will be countries without an open internet where it won't be possible. Re: fraud protection, that's a tough one indeed. I think that implies that you can't get hit by a malicious bank? I'd argue it's more insecure than regular currencies, and like you said, official banks and currencies have a guarantee system, that is, if e.g. a bank gets hacked, or even when, due to your own fault, you get scammed, banks and credit card companies will reimburse you, often backed by national / global banks and systems.

statoshi 9y ago
Fraud protection is referring to protection against double spending and protection against chargebacks - it's not the same type of consumer protection that folks are used to with credit cards. However, it's worth noting that this type of consumer protection /is/ possible and can be built on top of the system using reputation and escrow services.

icelancer 9y ago

>> Thats's nice, but so do Square Cash, Venmo, Paypal, etc... and they currently do it cheaper. No they don't. Any one of those services can freeze your money or worse, go into your banking account and reverse transactions. That's not peer-to-peer. There's a centralized governor.

nicky0 9y ago

It protects the seller against the fraud of malicious chargeacks. i.e. it provides surety of funds.