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> online fraud is still a concern in 2021. Sure, but this is why you transact with trusted people and businesses, just like you would when using cash. To be h

> online fraud is still a concern in 2021. Sure, but this is why you transact with trusted people and businesses, just like you would when using cash. To be honest, I don't know a single person that relies on PayPal's protection when making a purchase online from an individual or business. Every single person I know that uses PayPal does their due diligence on the seller before buying. None of them assume that PayPal disputes will actually work. The same would be true with crypto. You'd do your due diligence before buying, just like you do today, if you're buying from a random. > this cold wallet basically sounds similar to stashing your life savings under your mattress (or, at least, in a safe in your house). You would use a social recovery wallet, in which, say, your trusted family members could secure your life savings as a group. Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, has a great article [1] on this. Even if you don't trust a multisig/social-recovery wallet, you can store your money on an insured exchange. It still comes out ahead of banks and PayPal in that your transactions themselves are private and cannot be censored. > I think the overall point is whether or not the risk of being screwed over by the machinations of a giant corporation outweighs the risk of being screwed over in the "wild west" world of crypto. Just like online payments and credit cards had their "wild west" period, crypto has its own. I don't see a big deal here. This is a field in its infancy with staggeringly rapid development. Over time the UX will get better. I'm not expecting your average Joe to move their savings to Monero tomorrow, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did (to whatever Monero-equivalent exists) 10, 20 years down the road, when social recovery wallets are easy to use and crypto prices have algorithmically stabilized itself (ala DAI) or have naturally fallen into an equilibrium. [1]: https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/11/recovery.html https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/11/recovery.html

pjc50 5y ago
> transact with trusted people and businesses What, like paypal and ebay? The problem is that in reality there are (a) small businesses whose trust is difficult to verify and stability may not be guaranteed and (b) large companies who have a proportion of incidents of very bad customer service. For many services there may only be (b). > do your due diligence before buying How much do you do exactly? How long does it take, what does it cost (do you pull company financial reports?) and shouldn't the extra time it takes to do this be counted as a transaction fee? > Just like online payments and credit cards had their "wild west" period Not really? It's been the same customer-not-present process since the days of export-restricted SSL. In fact that's kind of the problem, it's the same insecure process designed for paper and card transactions. There was certainly never anything comparable to "exchange absconds with customer funds" that happens every few years in crypto. The "large company payment database was compromised and now all their customers are being defrauded" problem does seem to have improved recently.

pjc50 5y ago

> transact with trusted people and businesses What, like paypal and ebay? The problem is that in reality there are (a) small businesses whose trust is difficult to verify and stability may not be guaranteed and (b) large companies who have a proportion of incidents of very bad customer service. For many services there may only be (b). > do your due diligence before buying How much do you do exactly? How long does it take, what does it cost (do you pull company financial reports?) and shouldn't the extra time it takes to do this be counted as a transaction fee? > Just like online payments and credit cards had their "wild west" period Not really? It's been the same customer-not-present process since the days of export-restricted SSL. In fact that's kind of the problem, it's the same insecure process designed for paper and card transactions. There was certainly never anything comparable to "exchange absconds with customer funds" that happens every few years in crypto. The "large company payment database was compromised and now all their customers are being defrauded" problem does seem to have improved recently.