5 ms·

Your point would have greater validity if your savings were impervious to theft and devaluation in any other world's currency.

by slver 6y ago

icedchai 6y ago
If your bank gets hacked and your savings stolen, there are laws, policies, procedures, and insurance (like FDIC) that will guarantee you eventually get most, if not all of your money back. If your bitcoin wallet gets hacked, you're basically SOL.
- chucksta 6y ago
  Policies and procedures for fraud are at the bank level afaik, and the purpose of FDIC is to protect against bank failure up to 250k USD ( https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/111815/does-fdic-cover-identity-theft.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/111815/does-fdic-co... )
  - icedchai 6y ago
    Yes, you are right. FDIC does not cover this sort of thing.
- WinstonSmith84 6y ago
  If you think the current system is that good... think again. In Europe, the protection is capped to 100K Euros. And that's the EU, not a third world country .. :-) https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/banking-and-finance/financial-supervision-and-risk-management/managing-risks-banks-and-financial-institutions/deposit-guarantee-schemes_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/banking-and-... We are not speaking about hacking here, simply about banks failing. Bank which failed, it happened 10 years ago, who knows when the next crash is happening...
  - smnrchrds 6y ago
    Bank failure is completely orthogonal to fraud. Do the regulations cap bank's liability in case of fraud? If there are such regulations, I have not heard of one. > Bank which failed, it happened 10 years ago For what it's worth, governments have gotten progressively better at regulating banks in a way to make such failures increasingly unlikely. We have a similar system in Canada, with protection capped at 100k CAD. The last time they had to pay out was 1996. Failures were frequent in 80s and 90s, and then they just stopped. Not by miracle, but by regulation. The government had learned how to avoid failure instead of allowing it to happen and reimbursing the stakeholders. https://www.cdic.ca/about-us/our-history/history-of-failures/ https://www.cdic.ca/about-us/our-history/history-of-failures...
    - lostmsu 6y ago
      It does not matter if a bank is liable if it doesn't have money to give back to you.
      - smnrchrds 6y ago
        You are conflating two unrelated failure modes: 1. A fraudster obtains your credentials and steals money from your bank account: The bank reverses the entire transaction and makes you whole. You get your whole money back, no matter the amount. 2. The bank goes out of business: Worst case scenario, the bank has no assets, the government reimburses you up to 100k CAD/100k EUR/250k USD depending on the country the bank is located in. A lot of times, bankruptcies are due to liquidity issues, not insolvency, so you would get back most of your money, even above the caps here, eventually. Also, because the government is not just the insurer, but also the regulator, it has gotten much better at avoiding bankruptcy and this does not happen often these days (at least in Canada). I am not sure what failure mode you are concerned about: one where fraudsters steal so much money that the bank goes under, like tens or hundreds of billions of dollars? And the transactions are somehow irreversible?
        lostmsu 5y ago
        I am not sure what are you referring to when you say "bank reverses the entire transaction". Who gives you that guarantee?
  - kaba0 6y ago
    That’s for a bank crash or some other shit.
- tshaddox 6y ago
  There are plenty of phone scams that trick people into sending money such that the money is unrecoverable (like using retail gift cards). The victim’s recourse in these cases is also zero.
smnrchrds 6y ago
Don't banks in your country cover you for being a victim of fraud? If he had entered his bank credentials in the fraudulent app instead, wouldn't the bank have made him whole and reversed all transactions to get their money back?
- csomar 6y ago
  Not necessarily. Keep in mind, Bitcoin is attractive mainly for people living in countries were rule of law is really loose. So a loose proposition like Bitcoin is still a good one.
  - amznthrwaway 6y ago
    Bitcoin is almost exclusively used by rich people in rich countries.
  - smnrchrds 6y ago
    The comment I replied to talks about "any other world's currency, not "every other world's currency". They must mean USD, EUR, JPY, and CHF too, not just VES and MMK.
ForHackernews 6y ago
My cash savings are held in the form of US treasury bonds. To a first approximation, they are impervious to theft (registered to me personally and accessible via treasurydirect.gov) and devaluation (indexed to grow with inflation).
- SilasX 6y ago
  If they’re short term treasurys (or heck, anything up to five year maturities) they’re definitely not keeping up with inflation, especially if you have a normal income and have to pay taxes on the interest.
  - ForHackernews 6y ago
    I bonds are indexed to inflation (adjusted semi-annually) and exempt from state & local tax: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_ibonds_glance.htm https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_ibonds_gl... But also, this is hilarious nitpicking from fans of digital "currency" that can't be used to buy anything or even moved for less than a 20 dollar transaction fee. [0] I'll put treasury bonds up against bitcoin as a stable store of value all day. How much are you up? Getting nervous to sell, or gonna HODL strong? [0] https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_fee https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_f...
    - SilasX 6y ago
      Treasury bonds can’t be used to buy anything either. Are you comparing apples to apples here?
      - ForHackernews 6y ago
        Who knows anymore? Bitcoin advocates keep changing what their thing is supposed to be an improvement on as it proves to be inferior to one traditional financial implement after another.
- noofen 6y ago

Your point would have greater validity if your savings were impervious to theft and devaluation in any other world's currency.

by slver 6y ago

Your point would have greater validity if your savings were impervious to theft and devaluation in any other world's currency.

icedchai 6y ago

If your bank gets hacked and your savings stolen, there are laws, policies, procedures, and insurance (like FDIC) that will guarantee you eventually get most, if not all of your money back. If your bitcoin wallet gets hacked, you're basically SOL.

chucksta 6y ago
Policies and procedures for fraud are at the bank level afaik, and the purpose of FDIC is to protect against bank failure up to 250k USD ( https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/111815/does-fdic-cover-identity-theft.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/111815/does-fdic-co... )
- icedchai 6y ago
  Yes, you are right. FDIC does not cover this sort of thing.
WinstonSmith84 6y ago
If you think the current system is that good... think again. In Europe, the protection is capped to 100K Euros. And that's the EU, not a third world country .. :-) https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/banking-and-finance/financial-supervision-and-risk-management/managing-risks-banks-and-financial-institutions/deposit-guarantee-schemes_en https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/banking-and-... We are not speaking about hacking here, simply about banks failing. Bank which failed, it happened 10 years ago, who knows when the next crash is happening...
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  Bank failure is completely orthogonal to fraud. Do the regulations cap bank's liability in case of fraud? If there are such regulations, I have not heard of one. > Bank which failed, it happened 10 years ago For what it's worth, governments have gotten progressively better at regulating banks in a way to make such failures increasingly unlikely. We have a similar system in Canada, with protection capped at 100k CAD. The last time they had to pay out was 1996. Failures were frequent in 80s and 90s, and then they just stopped. Not by miracle, but by regulation. The government had learned how to avoid failure instead of allowing it to happen and reimbursing the stakeholders. https://www.cdic.ca/about-us/our-history/history-of-failures/ https://www.cdic.ca/about-us/our-history/history-of-failures...
  - lostmsu 6y ago
    It does not matter if a bank is liable if it doesn't have money to give back to you.
    - smnrchrds 6y ago
      You are conflating two unrelated failure modes: 1. A fraudster obtains your credentials and steals money from your bank account: The bank reverses the entire transaction and makes you whole. You get your whole money back, no matter the amount. 2. The bank goes out of business: Worst case scenario, the bank has no assets, the government reimburses you up to 100k CAD/100k EUR/250k USD depending on the country the bank is located in. A lot of times, bankruptcies are due to liquidity issues, not insolvency, so you would get back most of your money, even above the caps here, eventually. Also, because the government is not just the insurer, but also the regulator, it has gotten much better at avoiding bankruptcy and this does not happen often these days (at least in Canada). I am not sure what failure mode you are concerned about: one where fraudsters steal so much money that the bank goes under, like tens or hundreds of billions of dollars? And the transactions are somehow irreversible?
      - lostmsu 5y ago
        I am not sure what are you referring to when you say "bank reverses the entire transaction". Who gives you that guarantee?
- kaba0 6y ago
  That’s for a bank crash or some other shit.
tshaddox 6y ago
There are plenty of phone scams that trick people into sending money such that the money is unrecoverable (like using retail gift cards). The victim’s recourse in these cases is also zero.

smnrchrds 6y ago

Don't banks in your country cover you for being a victim of fraud? If he had entered his bank credentials in the fraudulent app instead, wouldn't the bank have made him whole and reversed all transactions to get their money back?

csomar 6y ago
Not necessarily. Keep in mind, Bitcoin is attractive mainly for people living in countries were rule of law is really loose. So a loose proposition like Bitcoin is still a good one.
- amznthrwaway 6y ago
  Bitcoin is almost exclusively used by rich people in rich countries.
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  The comment I replied to talks about "any other world's currency, not "every other world's currency". They must mean USD, EUR, JPY, and CHF too, not just VES and MMK.

ForHackernews 6y ago

My cash savings are held in the form of US treasury bonds. To a first approximation, they are impervious to theft (registered to me personally and accessible via treasurydirect.gov) and devaluation (indexed to grow with inflation).

SilasX 6y ago
If they’re short term treasurys (or heck, anything up to five year maturities) they’re definitely not keeping up with inflation, especially if you have a normal income and have to pay taxes on the interest.
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  I bonds are indexed to inflation (adjusted semi-annually) and exempt from state & local tax: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_ibonds_glance.htm https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_ibonds_gl... But also, this is hilarious nitpicking from fans of digital "currency" that can't be used to buy anything or even moved for less than a 20 dollar transaction fee. [0] I'll put treasury bonds up against bitcoin as a stable store of value all day. How much are you up? Getting nervous to sell, or gonna HODL strong? [0] https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_fee https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_f...
  - SilasX 6y ago
    Treasury bonds can’t be used to buy anything either. Are you comparing apples to apples here?
    - ForHackernews 6y ago
      Who knows anymore? Bitcoin advocates keep changing what their thing is supposed to be an improvement on as it proves to be inferior to one traditional financial implement after another.
noofen 6y ago