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The whole point of a trustless transaction is that you don't need to worry about who the counterparty is. You don't need the leverage to sue somebody because fr
by Taek 5y ago
The whole point of a trustless transaction is that you don't need to worry about who the counterparty is. You don't need the leverage to sue somebody because fraud is not possible. For digital transactions, the lack of trust can be two-way - two mutually distrusting people can confidently exchange Bitcoin for Ethereum in a transaction, because the software and math behind the blockchain prevents fraud from happening at all.
For meatspace the best you can do is one-way. If I'm buying a car with Bitcoin, I still need to trust the car manufacturer to deliver, but the car manufacturer does not need to trust me. They don't need to know who I am or how deep my credit line is, as soon as the bitcoin hits their wallets they have extreme confidence that the transaction won't be reverted. No bounced checks, no chargebacks, etc. It's a zero fraud system, and there's also no intermediate party (like PayPal or a bank) that can decide the transaction shouldn't happen. Whether or not the payment is accepted is at the sole discretion of the recipient.
- mullingitover 5y ago> The whole point of a trustless transaction is that you don't need to worry about who the counterparty is. You don't need the leverage to sue somebody because fraud is not possible. Payment reversal is not possible, fraud is still just as possible as it is with a traditional transaction. If I were selling a fake van Gogh, I'd prefer BTC for the transaction, but if I were selling a legit van Gogh I'm not worried about being sued over, a wire would suffice. I would think more than twice about transacting with anyone in large amounts who insists on transacting in BTC.
- mullingitover 5y ago> Whether or not the payment is accepted is at the sole discretion of the recipient. Forgot to mention - no? This isn't how the protocol works, you have zero discretion about whether to accept payment or not in BTC. If ISIL sends your wallet a million dollars then that's that, you've just received money from a terrorist group, the whole world knows it, and now the feds want to talk to you.