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> A transaction can be reversed even 6 months down the line, as anyone who runs a business probably knows. This is a feature, not a bug. I'd want to see eviden

> A transaction can be reversed even 6 months down the line, as anyone who runs a business probably knows. This is a feature, not a bug. I'd want to see evidence that the total cost of fraud in crypto is less per user than the cost of fraud in traditional credit. I would guess that the cost of fraud in traditional credit is actually far lower because reversibility reduces the incentive to commit fraud. It's very difficult to steal money from someone's account because they can dispute the charge and get it back. Compare that to the case where your crypto account is hacked. There is zero recourse, the thief generally gets away with it scott free, so the incentives to commit fraud are huge.

nicky0 8y ago
Visa's reversibility is a feature, just as Bitcoin's irreversibility is a feature. They are quite different systems with different goals, and so comparing their properties in isolation such as transactions/second is not particularly illuminating.
sparkie 8y ago
It might be a feature if you're a consumer worried about having your card stolen. If you're a business, it's a bug. Ideally, you would prefer to not even accept credit card payments and only accept cleared funds, but since you'll potentially lose out on business by not accepting credit card payments, you have to take the risk sometimes. Reversibility does not reduce the incentive to commit fraud, it just enables it. People can use stolen credit cards to purchase real goods, and the seller usually ends up footing all of the cost. Bitcoin puts business first. You don't need to depend on Visa doing their (useless) fraud investigations anymore. You take payment, and you decide whether or not to return it. Anyone who isn't willing to provide the money up front can pay the additional escrow fee.
- dan1234 8y ago
  As a consumer, why would I choose Bitcoin when it gives me less protection than Visa/MC?
  - sparkie 8y ago
    Because it allows you to save money without it losing value in the long term. That is, bad government policy cannot reduce the value of your Bitcoin by printing more of it.
    - mythrwy 8y ago
      Unless you buy at the wrong time, then it loses a lot of value quickly. The international decentralized non-government issued aspects of cryptocurrencies are cool though. As many scams as are in the space, there really is a seed of a neat idea.
      - sparkie 8y ago
        I made the point of specifying long term (by this, I mean say 5 years). Bitcoin is unpredictable short-term because demand can change significantly on a day to day basis, where supply is predictable. If you take any point in the bitcoin history, and check its value compared to 3 years earlier, there is no point where value was lost over a 3 year period. Also, another way to look at it, is that your Bitcoin will be worth exactly the same in Bitcoin in three years. The bitcoin you own as a proportion of the total supply is fixed. Compared to fiat markets, the proportion you own to what is printed is declining year on year. Bitcoin will eventually become not less volatile, but involatile. This is because you won't be measuring its value in USD, but you will be measuring the value of USD in Bitcoins.
        blotter_paper 8y ago
        >Bitcoin will eventually become not less volatile, but involatile. This is because you won't be measuring its value in USD, but you will be measuring the value of USD in Bitcoins. Accepting a hypothetical future where other currencies are generally compared against bitcoins, bitcoins would still not be "involatile." While markets tend to use one currency as a reference point for another, there are other reference points available. Economists often use a basket of staple goods, like milk and eggs, to get a sense of how much the dollar has fluctuated in value. As you're aware Bitcoin was designed to be deflationary. If we expect human population to rise, and bitcoins to be stagnant in number while remaining a cornerstone of the economy, our hypothetical future should see the value of bitcoins continuing to grow in the long term.
- CaptainZapp 8y ago
  You don't need to depend on Visa doing their (useless) fraud investigations anymore. I can't say if their fraud investigation is useless or not. In those (rare) cases were my card was charged fraudulently charges were reversed immediately and (except when they issued a new card) I never heard back. From my perspective their fraud investigation is very effective.
  - sparkie 8y ago
    That was basically my point. The fraud protection works from the consumer side. It is useless from the business side, where no amount of evidence will convince them that you took a payment legitimately. Paypal are the same. They side with the buyer 99% of the time. No proper fraud investigation is even done.
- vincnetas 8y ago
  What about the cases when bad guy takes the business role. Bad guy opens a fake store and start selling non existing products online. So in this case irreversibility is enabling the fraud.
  - sparkie 8y ago
    People not being responsible with their money is enabling the fraud. If some random stranger in the street asked you to hand them some money in return for a product you want which they will send you in the post, are you gonna cough up the cash? Why would you do so for a stranger on the internet without taking the necessary precautions? I like the fact that you get to chose your escrow and are not dependant on Paypal, which is a terrible escrow because they have an entrenched buyer bias.
- Nursie 8y ago
  > If you're a business, Only if you think that people would still spend their money with you without it. A lot of folks (myself included) would be far, far more reluctant to spend money with smaller players or new businesses without the layer of protection. > Reversibility does not reduce the incentive to commit fraud Of course it does - merchants have been committing fraud since the dawn of time. It's a constant throughout history. Look up "Caveat Emptor" sometime.
blotter_paper 8y ago
It's a feature in both cases. This is a philosophical difference: people like you want reversible transactions, and people like me don't. That's okay. You take your risks, and I take mine. Simply comparing rates of fraud isn't enough to change my perspective (I'm not speaking for GP), that's a quantitative difference. There are qualitative differences too.
- shshhdhs 8y ago
  > people like you want reversible transactions, and people like me don't. I don’t buy that. Let’s say someone stole your life savings, would you still not want reversible transactions? What if someone stole your parent’s or sibling’s life savings?
  - OiNG 8y ago
    not OP, but of course you would. but its a trade off in security between buyers and sellers. Neither is inherently better then the other (imo).
  - FireBeyond 8y ago
    Or someone builds a smart contract that loots the bank (I'm looking at you, Ethereum, even though my description is overly simplistic). Of course they don't. Until they do.
    - blotter_paper 8y ago
      Yes, Ethereum gave into the temptation of a special case, redacting code-as-law. But there were some users who understood that this can't be done without undermining the whole system as a social contract, so they didn't go along with the fork. The original, One True Ethereum, is still chugging along as Ethereum Classic.
  - syrrim 8y ago
    Someone always takes the hit. Bitcoin allows you to guarantee that you won't take a hit. Other services can be set up to protect other people as well. I might buy bitcoin with my creditcard, such that if someone fraudulently buys bitcoin on my card, either the cc company or the exchange will reimburse me. As the seller, you don't want to be on the line for such things.
wild_preference 8y ago
When you look at all the purchases you make over a week, I assert you are only interested in paying the overhead of open, reversible transactions for very, very few of them. I think we'd have a healthier view of credit cards if we indeed only used them when we actually wanted their features beyond the sheer convenience. I use bitcoin online where possible precisely because I know I am not going to make a chargeback down the road and I don't want to give someone pull access to my bank account. Only few banking services offer virtual/"OTT" card numbers. If chargebacks were so critical for every purchase, then everyone would be scared of ever using cash. But that's not why people don't use cash.
- rifung 8y ago
  > When you look at all the purchases you make over a week, I assert you are only interested in paying the overhead of open, reversible transactions for very, very few of them. I thought that the benefit of reversible transactions would be for the case someone steals my credit card and uses it. If credit card companies could tell it wasn't me who used it they could have declined it in the first place. Since I have had other people charge things to my credit card before, I'll assume that's not possible and so I'm thankful the transactions are reversible. There is also the case where there's a bug with payment processing. My friend was recently charged for 5 computers because Lenovo's website kept saying there was an error with the transaction when it actually went through.
  - swift532 8y ago
    Well with Bitcoin it's trivial to prove that a transaction went through, and you'd only pay for 5 computers if you carelessly transmitted a transaction without reading the amount.
    - maccard 8y ago
      > Well with Bitcoin it's trivial to prove that a transaction went through Sure, 10 minutes after you request it.
- krrrh 8y ago
r32a_ 8y ago
That "feature" can be built on top of Bitcoin with a Visa powered by Bitcoin. When people do a Bitcoin transaction, its akin to me send give you a $5 note on the internet not a credit card transaction.
chrisco255 8y ago
From a consumer standpoint, it's a decent thing. But from a merchant perspective, it can be nightmarish for companies that experience chargebacks. When I ran a retail company, the CC processor had complete control over my business. They could withhold thousands of dollars in payments due to chargebacks (or the fact I fit some chargeback risk profile, and they did) and I'd struggle to pay rent and salaries. It's not a good thing to give all this power to CC companies and processors.

nicky0 8y ago

Visa's reversibility is a feature, just as Bitcoin's irreversibility is a feature. They are quite different systems with different goals, and so comparing their properties in isolation such as transactions/second is not particularly illuminating.

sparkie 8y ago

It might be a feature if you're a consumer worried about having your card stolen. If you're a business, it's a bug. Ideally, you would prefer to not even accept credit card payments and only accept cleared funds, but since you'll potentially lose out on business by not accepting credit card payments, you have to take the risk sometimes. Reversibility does not reduce the incentive to commit fraud, it just enables it. People can use stolen credit cards to purchase real goods, and the seller usually ends up footing all of the cost. Bitcoin puts business first. You don't need to depend on Visa doing their (useless) fraud investigations anymore. You take payment, and you decide whether or not to return it. Anyone who isn't willing to provide the money up front can pay the additional escrow fee.

dan1234 8y ago
As a consumer, why would I choose Bitcoin when it gives me less protection than Visa/MC?
- sparkie 8y ago
  Because it allows you to save money without it losing value in the long term. That is, bad government policy cannot reduce the value of your Bitcoin by printing more of it.
  - mythrwy 8y ago
    Unless you buy at the wrong time, then it loses a lot of value quickly. The international decentralized non-government issued aspects of cryptocurrencies are cool though. As many scams as are in the space, there really is a seed of a neat idea.
    - sparkie 8y ago
      I made the point of specifying long term (by this, I mean say 5 years). Bitcoin is unpredictable short-term because demand can change significantly on a day to day basis, where supply is predictable. If you take any point in the bitcoin history, and check its value compared to 3 years earlier, there is no point where value was lost over a 3 year period. Also, another way to look at it, is that your Bitcoin will be worth exactly the same in Bitcoin in three years. The bitcoin you own as a proportion of the total supply is fixed. Compared to fiat markets, the proportion you own to what is printed is declining year on year. Bitcoin will eventually become not less volatile, but involatile. This is because you won't be measuring its value in USD, but you will be measuring the value of USD in Bitcoins.
      - blotter_paper 8y ago
        >Bitcoin will eventually become not less volatile, but involatile. This is because you won't be measuring its value in USD, but you will be measuring the value of USD in Bitcoins. Accepting a hypothetical future where other currencies are generally compared against bitcoins, bitcoins would still not be "involatile." While markets tend to use one currency as a reference point for another, there are other reference points available. Economists often use a basket of staple goods, like milk and eggs, to get a sense of how much the dollar has fluctuated in value. As you're aware Bitcoin was designed to be deflationary. If we expect human population to rise, and bitcoins to be stagnant in number while remaining a cornerstone of the economy, our hypothetical future should see the value of bitcoins continuing to grow in the long term.
CaptainZapp 8y ago
You don't need to depend on Visa doing their (useless) fraud investigations anymore. I can't say if their fraud investigation is useless or not. In those (rare) cases were my card was charged fraudulently charges were reversed immediately and (except when they issued a new card) I never heard back. From my perspective their fraud investigation is very effective.
- sparkie 8y ago
  That was basically my point. The fraud protection works from the consumer side. It is useless from the business side, where no amount of evidence will convince them that you took a payment legitimately. Paypal are the same. They side with the buyer 99% of the time. No proper fraud investigation is even done.
vincnetas 8y ago
What about the cases when bad guy takes the business role. Bad guy opens a fake store and start selling non existing products online. So in this case irreversibility is enabling the fraud.
- sparkie 8y ago
  People not being responsible with their money is enabling the fraud. If some random stranger in the street asked you to hand them some money in return for a product you want which they will send you in the post, are you gonna cough up the cash? Why would you do so for a stranger on the internet without taking the necessary precautions? I like the fact that you get to chose your escrow and are not dependant on Paypal, which is a terrible escrow because they have an entrenched buyer bias.
Nursie 8y ago
> If you're a business, Only if you think that people would still spend their money with you without it. A lot of folks (myself included) would be far, far more reluctant to spend money with smaller players or new businesses without the layer of protection. > Reversibility does not reduce the incentive to commit fraud Of course it does - merchants have been committing fraud since the dawn of time. It's a constant throughout history. Look up "Caveat Emptor" sometime.

blotter_paper 8y ago

It's a feature in both cases. This is a philosophical difference: people like you want reversible transactions, and people like me don't. That's okay. You take your risks, and I take mine. Simply comparing rates of fraud isn't enough to change my perspective (I'm not speaking for GP), that's a quantitative difference. There are qualitative differences too.

shshhdhs 8y ago
> people like you want reversible transactions, and people like me don't. I don’t buy that. Let’s say someone stole your life savings, would you still not want reversible transactions? What if someone stole your parent’s or sibling’s life savings?
- OiNG 8y ago
  not OP, but of course you would. but its a trade off in security between buyers and sellers. Neither is inherently better then the other (imo).
- FireBeyond 8y ago
  Or someone builds a smart contract that loots the bank (I'm looking at you, Ethereum, even though my description is overly simplistic). Of course they don't. Until they do.
  - blotter_paper 8y ago
    Yes, Ethereum gave into the temptation of a special case, redacting code-as-law. But there were some users who understood that this can't be done without undermining the whole system as a social contract, so they didn't go along with the fork. The original, One True Ethereum, is still chugging along as Ethereum Classic.
- syrrim 8y ago
  Someone always takes the hit. Bitcoin allows you to guarantee that you won't take a hit. Other services can be set up to protect other people as well. I might buy bitcoin with my creditcard, such that if someone fraudulently buys bitcoin on my card, either the cc company or the exchange will reimburse me. As the seller, you don't want to be on the line for such things.

wild_preference 8y ago

When you look at all the purchases you make over a week, I assert you are only interested in paying the overhead of open, reversible transactions for very, very few of them. I think we'd have a healthier view of credit cards if we indeed only used them when we actually wanted their features beyond the sheer convenience. I use bitcoin online where possible precisely because I know I am not going to make a chargeback down the road and I don't want to give someone pull access to my bank account. Only few banking services offer virtual/"OTT" card numbers. If chargebacks were so critical for every purchase, then everyone would be scared of ever using cash. But that's not why people don't use cash.

rifung 8y ago
> When you look at all the purchases you make over a week, I assert you are only interested in paying the overhead of open, reversible transactions for very, very few of them. I thought that the benefit of reversible transactions would be for the case someone steals my credit card and uses it. If credit card companies could tell it wasn't me who used it they could have declined it in the first place. Since I have had other people charge things to my credit card before, I'll assume that's not possible and so I'm thankful the transactions are reversible. There is also the case where there's a bug with payment processing. My friend was recently charged for 5 computers because Lenovo's website kept saying there was an error with the transaction when it actually went through.
- swift532 8y ago
  Well with Bitcoin it's trivial to prove that a transaction went through, and you'd only pay for 5 computers if you carelessly transmitted a transaction without reading the amount.
  - maccard 8y ago
    > Well with Bitcoin it's trivial to prove that a transaction went through Sure, 10 minutes after you request it.
krrrh 8y ago

r32a_ 8y ago

That "feature" can be built on top of Bitcoin with a Visa powered by Bitcoin. When people do a Bitcoin transaction, its akin to me send give you a $5 note on the internet not a credit card transaction.

chrisco255 8y ago

From a consumer standpoint, it's a decent thing. But from a merchant perspective, it can be nightmarish for companies that experience chargebacks. When I ran a retail company, the CC processor had complete control over my business. They could withhold thousands of dollars in payments due to chargebacks (or the fact I fit some chargeback risk profile, and they did) and I'd struggle to pay rent and salaries. It's not a good thing to give all this power to CC companies and processors.