13 ms·

It's trying to solve the problem of having to involve a 3rd party in on-line transactions. Chargebacks are expensive to deal with. Jurisdictions are expensive

by ftlio 8y ago

It's trying to solve the problem of having to involve a 3rd party in on-line transactions. Chargebacks are expensive to deal with. Jurisdictions are expensive to deal with. Standing up a multinational e-commerce site requires a lot of lawyers and accountants. Will the risk presented by crypto always be greater than the risk of involving trusted third parties? Maybe. Maybe not.

walrus01 8y ago
Counterpoint: There's a lot of people who will stop buying stuff online with such a system, once they have been bitten by a system that has truly irrevocable payments. Part of the reason why I trust buying random $25 used video games from eBay (using Paypal) is that I know I'm about 99% certain to get my money back if it never arrives, or arrives in poor condition. I can buy a used Cisco 48-port 1000BaseT/PoE switch on eBay and know that I have some degree of buyer protection. Or I can go to Newegg and buy a new $700 monitor and trust that if something goes terribly wrong with the transaction, Visa's buyer protection/chargeback system can be engaged. Moving to irrevocable online payments is basically the equivalent of handing a wad of cash to some stranger in a parking lot selling "new, sealed!" ipads out of the trunk of a car.
- CamTin 8y ago
  I totally agree with you in practical terms, but what you're really saying is that you prefer the governance offered by Paypal and the credit card networks to the governance provided by the government: IOW, it wouldn't even occur to you (or most sane people) to file a claim in court over a $25 Atari cart you tried to buy online. In the society these courts are designed to serve (peasant agricultural economies), the courts were where these issues were hashed out, and a fair bit of the "state-iness" of the state derived from its ability to solve these kinds of problems for people. Increasingly, this kind of justice is inaccessible to ordinary people except through "customer support" mechanisms at institutions like Amazon or Paypal or by tweeting at their CEOs. One of the very real problems that cryptocurrency enthusiasts are concerned about (but IMO totally failing to actually solve) is that it seems like a really bad idea to leave such basic functions of state in the hands of difficult-or-impossible-to-regulate transnational enterprises. When will these players realize that they've got more "state-iness" than most actual states, and how will they use it?
  - mantas 8y ago
    You won't need a claim either. Chargeback is easy. So in CryptoWorld, people should go to court and try get their money back from anonymous seller? That'd be a field day for scammers.
    - CamTin 8y ago
      Right, this is why its totally unworkable as a solution to the problem of transnational corporations wielding too much power, and a totally crypto-ized global economy would probably just make that worse. It solves other problems fairly well (paying ransoms to anonymous cybercriminals, as an example), but also doesn't even try to solve the problem that ordinary people can't afford (or figure out how) to have small commercial disputes adjudicated by actual courts anymore, which is (IMO) the one of the reasons these corporations hold so much power. In the neoliberal world order, government exists to ease the flow of international capital ("These regulations make it hard for us to scale our sales beyond the {US,China,Germany}. Please Mr. President, we need common-sense solutions!"). It has jettisoned its role of solving real problems for ordinary people ("Lord Fontleroy, Biff's dog killed two of my pigs.") as it once did.
    - ric2b 8y ago
      If you need the extra safety you pay for the service of an intermediary, like PayPal or eBay or (in cryptoland) Purse.io. If you don't need the extra safety, you don't.
      - mantas 8y ago
        Many people take extra safety for granted though. Wether it's chargeback or at least knowing who you pay to pursue further legal actions. Let me rephrase consumer safety in crypto. Food safety regulations is kinda cool and we feel safe eating out. Now crypto food comes. It's cheaper, but seller now follows it's own understanding of food safety. Or not.
  - spookthesunset 8y ago
    > When will these players realize that they've got more "state-iness" than most actual states, and how will they use it? In the brave new decentralized "free market" crypto world you are even more fucked if you have a problem. Who do you appeal to? Who decides if your edge case is worthy of rolling back the all mighty blockchain. The DAO folk got the "hack" stuff rolled back so the "thief" no longer had their money. But what about you and your Atari that never arrived? You think the top of the crypto pyramid is gonna roll back the blockchain for you? It can literally become mob rule! And sure, you can say "build a better smart contract", but I would say that is impossible because then you have to encode every edge case you can imagine and all the ones you can't imagine. And worse, you still need that smart contract to interface with things outside the "trusted" sandbox the smart contract lives in (i.e. meatspace)--which means you need to trust not only whatever is providing that interface but everything beyond it. Governments exist for a reason. One of those reasons is to be where the buck stops. A society that scales to billions of people needs somebody to say "this is right / this is wrong". It needs a final authority on conflict resolution. Smart contracts are seriously one of the stupidest things to come out of the crypto space. It really highlights how some engineers think "I am good with computer stuff, so therefore I am also good at economics, government, politics, finance, monetary policy, contract law, etc". The whole idea is really arrogant.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > I can buy a used Cisco 48-port 1000BaseT/PoE switch on eBay and know that I have some degree of buyer protection. This is a basic insurance market. You can still buy the insurance separately if you want it -- sites like eBay would undoubtedly offer it with nothing more than a checkbox for about the same fee as the credit card companies currently charge for implicitly the same thing. The problem with the existing system is that it requires you to buy that insurance, even when it isn't necessary. If you order something from Newegg, they're ultimately going to send it or give you a refund, because they're a stable business and it's cheaper for them to make good to begin with than have a small claims court order them to. So you lose 3% in processing fees for nothing -- Newegg is no more likely to not make good than the payment processor is to not reverse the transaction. The existing system also basically makes micropayments impossible because the transaction costs are too high, but it's not actually all that serious of a problem if you get ripped off to the tune of $0.10 from time to time. The amount is small enough that it doesn't need to be insured, and that allows you to get a good feel for what kind of purchases are scams without actually losing any significant amount of money. It also creates an opportunity for curation services to vouch for verified sellers at a lower cost than insurance would have to be to cover the losses from less savvy individual buyers not knowing who to trust (or not caring when the insurance is mandatory).
  - rcxdude 8y ago
    > This is a basic insurance market. You can still buy the insurance separately if you want it -- sites like eBay would undoubtedly offer it with nothing more than a checkbox for about the same fee as the credit card companies currently charge for implicitly the same thing. It's not the same thing. With chargebacks, in the case of fraud the payment processor almost always extracts the money from the seller, acting both as a deterrent and reducing the cost of the protection. If it was just insurance, it would be more expensive (because there would be less deterrent to (seller-side) fraud and it would cost more to recoup the costs).
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      > It's not the same thing. With chargebacks, in the case of fraud the payment processor almost always extracts the money from the seller, acting both as a deterrent and reducing the cost of the protection. If it was just insurance, it would be more expensive (because there would be less deterrent to (seller-side) fraud and it would cost more to recoup the costs). It's still possible to do that by having the insurer escrow the payment in cases where you want the insurance, if that's actually more efficient. But sometimes it isn't. Doing it that way subjects you to buyer fraud where the buyer actually receives the item, claims not to have and has their money refunded. The cost of that has to be paid by honest sellers, which then have to charge higher prices to honest buyers. And an insurer who can't recover their costs from the seller has more incentive to vet the sellers (and buyers) so that they aren't insuring fraudulent transactions to begin with, which could plausibly have lower overhead than sellers eating the entire cost of buyer fraud. Different choices may be more efficient for different transactions. A transaction between a reputable buyer and a reputable seller will have low insurance costs even without escrow. A seller with less reputation would have higher insurance costs, but can mitigate the cost by offering to accept escrowed payments but only from more reputable buyers. A buyer with less reputation could do the opposite, buying from a more reputable seller at low insurance cost by waiving the ability to easily reverse the transaction. Forcing everyone into the same box only creates inefficiency.
- baddox 8y ago
  Counter to your counterpoint: the people selling you those games on eBay also know that you might be able to revoke your payment either fraudulently or because of events outside the seller’s control, thus the selling price is almost certainly higher than it would otherwise be. In other words, both buyer and seller are incurring a cost due to the existence of chargebacks. Whether that cost is worth it depends on the actual probability of fraud or problems occurring, and at the very least, it seems reasonable to have an option for both buyer and seller to agree to not support chargebacks.
  - spookthesunset 8y ago
    > In other words, both buyer and seller are incurring a cost due to the existence of chargebacks The cost isn't due to chargebacks. It is due to the risk of fraud. Criminal behaviour like fraud extracts a toll on society at large and we all get to pay. The overhead added from chargebacks make both the buyer and seller internalize the potential risk of fraud. Without chargebacks, yeah prices might be slightly lower but society at large would get to foot the bill for fraud.
    - baddox 8y ago
      It could still be optional for parties who trust each other. Chargebacks is not the only way to establish trust in a transaction.
      - gerikson 8y ago
        Loyalty programs fill that role.
        baddox 8y ago
        Loyalty programs, reputation systems, escrow, etc. Nothing will ever be perfect, but the status quo of chargebacks is also not perfect.
- stale2002 8y ago
  Of course you shouldn't be forced to use certain payment methods. ut that is irrelevant to the choices of other people. If other people want other payment methods, that is their choice.
- hoorayimhelping 8y ago
  That's like saying "many people won't meet someone in the desert and sell drugs for cash after being burned by a shady deal." That is very true, but how is that relevant? Some people will still want to meet in the desert to sell drugs for cash, away from prying eyes and ears, despite the risk. The fact that many people still want all the conveniences of modern transactions doesn't change the fact that some people don't. I'm not even really sure what all these posts are arguing for. Someone asked what problem cryptocurrency is supposed to solve, and the GP answered it with a good and succinct answer: >It's trying to solve the problem of having to involve a 3rd party in on-line transactions.
- mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
  This is what smart contracts are for. Make the contract valid only when the other party verified receipt.
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  It works the other way as well, there are some products businesses can't sell and communities they can't service because the risk of fraudulent chargebacks is so high.
  - GenericsMotors 8y ago
    Can you elaborate with some examples?
daveguy 8y ago
Chargebacks from the business side. Rip-off protection from the consumer side. I personally will not be quick to give up the ability to dispute charges. That is a feature that just isn't possible in bitcoin without involving a third party.
- mjevans 8y ago
  Both of those are what escrow is for. A trusted and publicly audited thing where a payment is held until the services are rendered.
  - Filligree 8y ago
    Escrow is far more expensive than chargebacks. And if we're involving a third party either way, I'd rather have the regulated, battle-tested, already existing banking system.
    - wcoenen 8y ago
      Chargebacks essentially are escrow. The merchant can't stop them from happening because the money is taken from the merchant account reserve, i.e. a minimum balance that the merchant can't withdraw. Sounds similar to money held by an escrow agent doesn't it? And credit card transactions are also expensive, between 1.5% and 3% and even higher[1]. It's just that the cost is hidden from the consumer by accounting for it in a higher product price. (Some merchants like gas stations may offer a cash discount, which can be used as a rough estimate of that hidden cost.) On top of this, merchants get charged a hefty fee (on the order of $50) for each chargeback that they receive. [1] https://www.creditdonkey.com/credit-card-processing-fees.html https://www.creditdonkey.com/credit-card-processing-fees.htm...
      - adrianN 8y ago
        The EU proposed limiting transaction fees to 0.2%. I don't know whether that is law already or not.
village-idiot 8y ago
Chargebacks are also insanely useful. If my card is stolen I can get my money back, if my merchant tries to defraud me I have a recourse. I will never use bitcoin for consumer transactions for this exact reason.
- zorga 8y ago
  Those aren't free, they drive up prices by a few percent and frankly fraud only matters for large transactions and/or untrusted merchants. Bitcoin is cash, not credit, and avoiding 2-3% of fees tacked on by credit card companies is more than enough reason to want internet cash for purchases where you're not concerned with fraud.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    I know they’re not free, and I’m happy to pay for the service. I can name a large number of smallish purchases I would not have done online if I didn’t know that Visa would make it right should the unknown vendor stiff me. Bitcoin is piss poor cash, given the wild exchange rate swings and the ability for it to be stolen online. It literally has no property that I desire.
    - zorga 8y ago
      > Bitcoin is piss poor cash Agree, but I'm not promoting Bitcoin, I think it's poorly designed by someone who doesn't understand the properties of good money. Another crytpo with better properties will supersede it. It's the idea of crypto that's great, not the particular implementation of that idea called Bitcoin. Once you know an trust a vendor, paying with cash will eventually be a few percent cheaper just as it often is as brick and mortar places sometimes when they offer cash discounts because they too don't like the fees the cards companies force on them. It's not an either or scenario, it's a both scenario; you should have the option of cash or credit online, just like you do in the real world.
  - anigbrowl 8y ago
    frankly fraud only matters for large transactions Largeness is relative. The counter to your argument is that widespread use of existing payment methods means the market prefers them.
cm2187 8y ago
Miners are your 3rd party.
- rusk 8y ago
  If so, they're nicely decoupled from the transaction.
C1sc0cat 8y ago
Your assuming a 3rd party is bad - commodity trade would not work without third party's validating that that ship load of Copper really is the xxxx tons of copper you paid for.

by ftlio 8y ago

walrus01 8y ago

Counterpoint: There's a lot of people who will stop buying stuff online with such a system, once they have been bitten by a system that has truly irrevocable payments. Part of the reason why I trust buying random $25 used video games from eBay (using Paypal) is that I know I'm about 99% certain to get my money back if it never arrives, or arrives in poor condition. I can buy a used Cisco 48-port 1000BaseT/PoE switch on eBay and know that I have some degree of buyer protection. Or I can go to Newegg and buy a new $700 monitor and trust that if something goes terribly wrong with the transaction, Visa's buyer protection/chargeback system can be engaged. Moving to irrevocable online payments is basically the equivalent of handing a wad of cash to some stranger in a parking lot selling "new, sealed!" ipads out of the trunk of a car.

CamTin 8y ago
I totally agree with you in practical terms, but what you're really saying is that you prefer the governance offered by Paypal and the credit card networks to the governance provided by the government: IOW, it wouldn't even occur to you (or most sane people) to file a claim in court over a $25 Atari cart you tried to buy online. In the society these courts are designed to serve (peasant agricultural economies), the courts were where these issues were hashed out, and a fair bit of the "state-iness" of the state derived from its ability to solve these kinds of problems for people. Increasingly, this kind of justice is inaccessible to ordinary people except through "customer support" mechanisms at institutions like Amazon or Paypal or by tweeting at their CEOs. One of the very real problems that cryptocurrency enthusiasts are concerned about (but IMO totally failing to actually solve) is that it seems like a really bad idea to leave such basic functions of state in the hands of difficult-or-impossible-to-regulate transnational enterprises. When will these players realize that they've got more "state-iness" than most actual states, and how will they use it?
- mantas 8y ago
  You won't need a claim either. Chargeback is easy. So in CryptoWorld, people should go to court and try get their money back from anonymous seller? That'd be a field day for scammers.
  - CamTin 8y ago
    Right, this is why its totally unworkable as a solution to the problem of transnational corporations wielding too much power, and a totally crypto-ized global economy would probably just make that worse. It solves other problems fairly well (paying ransoms to anonymous cybercriminals, as an example), but also doesn't even try to solve the problem that ordinary people can't afford (or figure out how) to have small commercial disputes adjudicated by actual courts anymore, which is (IMO) the one of the reasons these corporations hold so much power. In the neoliberal world order, government exists to ease the flow of international capital ("These regulations make it hard for us to scale our sales beyond the {US,China,Germany}. Please Mr. President, we need common-sense solutions!"). It has jettisoned its role of solving real problems for ordinary people ("Lord Fontleroy, Biff's dog killed two of my pigs.") as it once did.
  - ric2b 8y ago
    If you need the extra safety you pay for the service of an intermediary, like PayPal or eBay or (in cryptoland) Purse.io. If you don't need the extra safety, you don't.
    - mantas 8y ago
      Many people take extra safety for granted though. Wether it's chargeback or at least knowing who you pay to pursue further legal actions. Let me rephrase consumer safety in crypto. Food safety regulations is kinda cool and we feel safe eating out. Now crypto food comes. It's cheaper, but seller now follows it's own understanding of food safety. Or not.
- spookthesunset 8y ago
  > When will these players realize that they've got more "state-iness" than most actual states, and how will they use it? In the brave new decentralized "free market" crypto world you are even more fucked if you have a problem. Who do you appeal to? Who decides if your edge case is worthy of rolling back the all mighty blockchain. The DAO folk got the "hack" stuff rolled back so the "thief" no longer had their money. But what about you and your Atari that never arrived? You think the top of the crypto pyramid is gonna roll back the blockchain for you? It can literally become mob rule! And sure, you can say "build a better smart contract", but I would say that is impossible because then you have to encode every edge case you can imagine and all the ones you can't imagine. And worse, you still need that smart contract to interface with things outside the "trusted" sandbox the smart contract lives in (i.e. meatspace)--which means you need to trust not only whatever is providing that interface but everything beyond it. Governments exist for a reason. One of those reasons is to be where the buck stops. A society that scales to billions of people needs somebody to say "this is right / this is wrong". It needs a final authority on conflict resolution. Smart contracts are seriously one of the stupidest things to come out of the crypto space. It really highlights how some engineers think "I am good with computer stuff, so therefore I am also good at economics, government, politics, finance, monetary policy, contract law, etc". The whole idea is really arrogant.
AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> I can buy a used Cisco 48-port 1000BaseT/PoE switch on eBay and know that I have some degree of buyer protection. This is a basic insurance market. You can still buy the insurance separately if you want it -- sites like eBay would undoubtedly offer it with nothing more than a checkbox for about the same fee as the credit card companies currently charge for implicitly the same thing. The problem with the existing system is that it requires you to buy that insurance, even when it isn't necessary. If you order something from Newegg, they're ultimately going to send it or give you a refund, because they're a stable business and it's cheaper for them to make good to begin with than have a small claims court order them to. So you lose 3% in processing fees for nothing -- Newegg is no more likely to not make good than the payment processor is to not reverse the transaction. The existing system also basically makes micropayments impossible because the transaction costs are too high, but it's not actually all that serious of a problem if you get ripped off to the tune of $0.10 from time to time. The amount is small enough that it doesn't need to be insured, and that allows you to get a good feel for what kind of purchases are scams without actually losing any significant amount of money. It also creates an opportunity for curation services to vouch for verified sellers at a lower cost than insurance would have to be to cover the losses from less savvy individual buyers not knowing who to trust (or not caring when the insurance is mandatory).
- rcxdude 8y ago
  > This is a basic insurance market. You can still buy the insurance separately if you want it -- sites like eBay would undoubtedly offer it with nothing more than a checkbox for about the same fee as the credit card companies currently charge for implicitly the same thing. It's not the same thing. With chargebacks, in the case of fraud the payment processor almost always extracts the money from the seller, acting both as a deterrent and reducing the cost of the protection. If it was just insurance, it would be more expensive (because there would be less deterrent to (seller-side) fraud and it would cost more to recoup the costs).
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > It's not the same thing. With chargebacks, in the case of fraud the payment processor almost always extracts the money from the seller, acting both as a deterrent and reducing the cost of the protection. If it was just insurance, it would be more expensive (because there would be less deterrent to (seller-side) fraud and it would cost more to recoup the costs). It's still possible to do that by having the insurer escrow the payment in cases where you want the insurance, if that's actually more efficient. But sometimes it isn't. Doing it that way subjects you to buyer fraud where the buyer actually receives the item, claims not to have and has their money refunded. The cost of that has to be paid by honest sellers, which then have to charge higher prices to honest buyers. And an insurer who can't recover their costs from the seller has more incentive to vet the sellers (and buyers) so that they aren't insuring fraudulent transactions to begin with, which could plausibly have lower overhead than sellers eating the entire cost of buyer fraud. Different choices may be more efficient for different transactions. A transaction between a reputable buyer and a reputable seller will have low insurance costs even without escrow. A seller with less reputation would have higher insurance costs, but can mitigate the cost by offering to accept escrowed payments but only from more reputable buyers. A buyer with less reputation could do the opposite, buying from a more reputable seller at low insurance cost by waiving the ability to easily reverse the transaction. Forcing everyone into the same box only creates inefficiency.
baddox 8y ago
Counter to your counterpoint: the people selling you those games on eBay also know that you might be able to revoke your payment either fraudulently or because of events outside the seller’s control, thus the selling price is almost certainly higher than it would otherwise be. In other words, both buyer and seller are incurring a cost due to the existence of chargebacks. Whether that cost is worth it depends on the actual probability of fraud or problems occurring, and at the very least, it seems reasonable to have an option for both buyer and seller to agree to not support chargebacks.
- spookthesunset 8y ago
  > In other words, both buyer and seller are incurring a cost due to the existence of chargebacks The cost isn't due to chargebacks. It is due to the risk of fraud. Criminal behaviour like fraud extracts a toll on society at large and we all get to pay. The overhead added from chargebacks make both the buyer and seller internalize the potential risk of fraud. Without chargebacks, yeah prices might be slightly lower but society at large would get to foot the bill for fraud.
  - baddox 8y ago
    It could still be optional for parties who trust each other. Chargebacks is not the only way to establish trust in a transaction.
    - gerikson 8y ago
      Loyalty programs fill that role.
      - baddox 8y ago
        Loyalty programs, reputation systems, escrow, etc. Nothing will ever be perfect, but the status quo of chargebacks is also not perfect.
stale2002 8y ago
Of course you shouldn't be forced to use certain payment methods. ut that is irrelevant to the choices of other people. If other people want other payment methods, that is their choice.
hoorayimhelping 8y ago
That's like saying "many people won't meet someone in the desert and sell drugs for cash after being burned by a shady deal." That is very true, but how is that relevant? Some people will still want to meet in the desert to sell drugs for cash, away from prying eyes and ears, despite the risk. The fact that many people still want all the conveniences of modern transactions doesn't change the fact that some people don't. I'm not even really sure what all these posts are arguing for. Someone asked what problem cryptocurrency is supposed to solve, and the GP answered it with a good and succinct answer: >It's trying to solve the problem of having to involve a 3rd party in on-line transactions.
mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
This is what smart contracts are for. Make the contract valid only when the other party verified receipt.
tonyedgecombe 8y ago
It works the other way as well, there are some products businesses can't sell and communities they can't service because the risk of fraudulent chargebacks is so high.
- GenericsMotors 8y ago
  Can you elaborate with some examples?

daveguy 8y ago

Chargebacks from the business side. Rip-off protection from the consumer side. I personally will not be quick to give up the ability to dispute charges. That is a feature that just isn't possible in bitcoin without involving a third party.

mjevans 8y ago
Both of those are what escrow is for. A trusted and publicly audited thing where a payment is held until the services are rendered.
- Filligree 8y ago
  Escrow is far more expensive than chargebacks. And if we're involving a third party either way, I'd rather have the regulated, battle-tested, already existing banking system.
  - wcoenen 8y ago
    Chargebacks essentially are escrow. The merchant can't stop them from happening because the money is taken from the merchant account reserve, i.e. a minimum balance that the merchant can't withdraw. Sounds similar to money held by an escrow agent doesn't it? And credit card transactions are also expensive, between 1.5% and 3% and even higher[1]. It's just that the cost is hidden from the consumer by accounting for it in a higher product price. (Some merchants like gas stations may offer a cash discount, which can be used as a rough estimate of that hidden cost.) On top of this, merchants get charged a hefty fee (on the order of $50) for each chargeback that they receive. [1] https://www.creditdonkey.com/credit-card-processing-fees.html https://www.creditdonkey.com/credit-card-processing-fees.htm...
    - adrianN 8y ago
      The EU proposed limiting transaction fees to 0.2%. I don't know whether that is law already or not.

village-idiot 8y ago

Chargebacks are also insanely useful. If my card is stolen I can get my money back, if my merchant tries to defraud me I have a recourse. I will never use bitcoin for consumer transactions for this exact reason.

zorga 8y ago
Those aren't free, they drive up prices by a few percent and frankly fraud only matters for large transactions and/or untrusted merchants. Bitcoin is cash, not credit, and avoiding 2-3% of fees tacked on by credit card companies is more than enough reason to want internet cash for purchases where you're not concerned with fraud.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  I know they’re not free, and I’m happy to pay for the service. I can name a large number of smallish purchases I would not have done online if I didn’t know that Visa would make it right should the unknown vendor stiff me. Bitcoin is piss poor cash, given the wild exchange rate swings and the ability for it to be stolen online. It literally has no property that I desire.
  - zorga 8y ago
    > Bitcoin is piss poor cash Agree, but I'm not promoting Bitcoin, I think it's poorly designed by someone who doesn't understand the properties of good money. Another crytpo with better properties will supersede it. It's the idea of crypto that's great, not the particular implementation of that idea called Bitcoin. Once you know an trust a vendor, paying with cash will eventually be a few percent cheaper just as it often is as brick and mortar places sometimes when they offer cash discounts because they too don't like the fees the cards companies force on them. It's not an either or scenario, it's a both scenario; you should have the option of cash or credit online, just like you do in the real world.
- anigbrowl 8y ago
  frankly fraud only matters for large transactions Largeness is relative. The counter to your argument is that widespread use of existing payment methods means the market prefers them.

cm2187 8y ago

Miners are your 3rd party.

rusk 8y ago
If so, they're nicely decoupled from the transaction.

C1sc0cat 8y ago

Your assuming a 3rd party is bad - commodity trade would not work without third party's validating that that ship load of Copper really is the xxxx tons of copper you paid for.