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I dunno I’m an over-halfway believer in crypto. The other day I wanted to invest in a token. So I transferred ETH out of Coinbase to MetaMask wallet, then trad

by Dwolb 5y ago

I dunno I’m an over-halfway believer in crypto. The other day I wanted to invest in a token. So I transferred ETH out of Coinbase to MetaMask wallet, then traded my ETH for the token. Each transaction took about 30sec and cost ~$25. That sounds like a lot! Until you realize ETH has been around only 8 years and the transaction is entirely irreversible by an enterprising (invasive? dictatorial?) third party. To me it’s entirely insane that I can almost instantly transfer dollars across the world (galaxy?) for so little AND the protocol delivers incredible flexibility through smart contracts. IMO the future is bright.

goatsi 5y ago
>the transaction is entirely irreversible by an enterprising (invasive? dictatorial?) third party. Are you aware of the history of Ethereum?
- Dwolb 5y ago
  Good point on ETH Classic. I guess I didn’t think of that bc I don’t consider myself important enough to be overruled by so many people. Possibly the good thing about the ecosystem is anyone can make a protocol or form the existing open source ones and then users and miners can vote with their feet.
300bps 5y ago
Until you realize ETH has been around only 8 years and the transaction is entirely irreversible It’s funny you make this comment specifically about ETH since it literally exists today as a result of a hard fork that reversed transactions in 2016. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/ethereum-classic.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/ethereum-classic.asp
- bouncycastle 5y ago
  The fork did not reverse the transactions. Instead, it made new transactions. Meanwhile, bitcoin reversed 53 blocks in the 2010 "inflation bug" incident.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - acjohnson55 5y ago
    I was pretty surprised to learn this several months ago, given how much people still cite the Ethereum fork as a putative smoking gun.
  - midmagico 5y ago
    This is a hilarious lie.
Volundr 5y ago
My memory is fuzzy and I'm having a hard time finding details, but didn't Eth actually go through a hard fork to reverse a theft or bug in a smart contract or something?
- iends 5y ago
  Yeah, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO_(organization) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO_(organization)
judge2020 5y ago
irreversibility is mostly a negative for anyone who is interested in getting a scam/fraudulent charge taken back. What happens when you purchase an item from some web shop with ETH and it never arrives?
- seibelj 5y ago
  This is actually an argument I totally disagree with. Businesses are long-lived, have reputations to maintain, and need to build trust. They have every incentive possible to treat their customers right, and issue refunds on valid issues. It is the customers that are sketchy and usually one-offs, and thus use stolen credit cards to burn the business with chargebacks. Businesses lose a huge amount to fraudulent payments. I would rather let businesses decide whether to choose payment options that allow chargebacks or not, and then customers can choose which businesses to support. The method of payment becomes one factor in shopping decisions. Businesses that eliminate chargeback risk are ultimately more competitive and can pass savings onto consumers. The whole chargeback thing is a ridiculous byproduct of our antiquated payment rails.
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    > They have every incentive possible to treat their customers right, and issue refunds on valid issues. There are plenty of fly-by-night operations that will smash and grab as many transactions as they can and not care about their reputations because they'll just set up under another alias. Further, if your account/wallet gets compromised there is also no irreversibility. Whereas with the 'regular' banking system transactions can usually get reversed.
    - herendin2 5y ago
      So, just don't do business with those obvious fly-by-night companies who have no established reputation or brand? From a company's point of view almost every individual consumer looks like a potential fly-by-nighter, so companies are forced to accept that risk, and we all share the costs of that. It could be useful to offer an alternative to this paradigm.
ALittleLight 5y ago
Isn't that really bad though? I paid for a VPS with my credit card recently. The transaction appeared to complete instantly. No 25 dollar transaction fee, no multiple hops through different software interfaces, just click and done. If it turned out the VPS company was a scam, I could've made a single phone call and reversed the charge saving my money. Crypto is slower, more expensive, and less safe. True, it's only eight years old, but the important thing is it's much worse than current solutions - at least on the dimensions that I think most people care about. Plus, it's not like online credit cards are that much older.
- twelve40 5y ago
  > No 25 dollar transaction fee to be fair, in your case there was also certainly a transaction fee, paid for you by your merchant (and probably rolled up into the price of the product)
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
    Sure, and it also wasn't anywhere near 25 dollars.
- boogies 5y ago
  > The transaction appeared to complete instantly. I recently made a donation from a new bank account that took ~20-30 hours to finish processing. Meanwhile Monero trasactions have the 10-15 blocks needed for irreversibility mined in ~20-30 minutes, and the first block in ~2.
- Dwolb 5y ago
  Is that the really important thing? It’s a nascent technology.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by Dwolb 5y ago

goatsi 5y ago

>the transaction is entirely irreversible by an enterprising (invasive? dictatorial?) third party. Are you aware of the history of Ethereum?

Dwolb 5y ago
Good point on ETH Classic. I guess I didn’t think of that bc I don’t consider myself important enough to be overruled by so many people. Possibly the good thing about the ecosystem is anyone can make a protocol or form the existing open source ones and then users and miners can vote with their feet.

300bps 5y ago

Until you realize ETH has been around only 8 years and the transaction is entirely irreversible It’s funny you make this comment specifically about ETH since it literally exists today as a result of a hard fork that reversed transactions in 2016. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/ethereum-classic.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/ethereum-classic.asp

bouncycastle 5y ago
The fork did not reverse the transactions. Instead, it made new transactions. Meanwhile, bitcoin reversed 53 blocks in the 2010 "inflation bug" incident.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- acjohnson55 5y ago
  I was pretty surprised to learn this several months ago, given how much people still cite the Ethereum fork as a putative smoking gun.
- midmagico 5y ago
  This is a hilarious lie.

Volundr 5y ago

My memory is fuzzy and I'm having a hard time finding details, but didn't Eth actually go through a hard fork to reverse a theft or bug in a smart contract or something?

iends 5y ago
Yeah, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO_(organization) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO_(organization)

judge2020 5y ago

irreversibility is mostly a negative for anyone who is interested in getting a scam/fraudulent charge taken back. What happens when you purchase an item from some web shop with ETH and it never arrives?

seibelj 5y ago
This is actually an argument I totally disagree with. Businesses are long-lived, have reputations to maintain, and need to build trust. They have every incentive possible to treat their customers right, and issue refunds on valid issues. It is the customers that are sketchy and usually one-offs, and thus use stolen credit cards to burn the business with chargebacks. Businesses lose a huge amount to fraudulent payments. I would rather let businesses decide whether to choose payment options that allow chargebacks or not, and then customers can choose which businesses to support. The method of payment becomes one factor in shopping decisions. Businesses that eliminate chargeback risk are ultimately more competitive and can pass savings onto consumers. The whole chargeback thing is a ridiculous byproduct of our antiquated payment rails.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > They have every incentive possible to treat their customers right, and issue refunds on valid issues. There are plenty of fly-by-night operations that will smash and grab as many transactions as they can and not care about their reputations because they'll just set up under another alias. Further, if your account/wallet gets compromised there is also no irreversibility. Whereas with the 'regular' banking system transactions can usually get reversed.
  - herendin2 5y ago
    So, just don't do business with those obvious fly-by-night companies who have no established reputation or brand? From a company's point of view almost every individual consumer looks like a potential fly-by-nighter, so companies are forced to accept that risk, and we all share the costs of that. It could be useful to offer an alternative to this paradigm.

ALittleLight 5y ago

Isn't that really bad though? I paid for a VPS with my credit card recently. The transaction appeared to complete instantly. No 25 dollar transaction fee, no multiple hops through different software interfaces, just click and done. If it turned out the VPS company was a scam, I could've made a single phone call and reversed the charge saving my money. Crypto is slower, more expensive, and less safe. True, it's only eight years old, but the important thing is it's much worse than current solutions - at least on the dimensions that I think most people care about. Plus, it's not like online credit cards are that much older.

twelve40 5y ago
> No 25 dollar transaction fee to be fair, in your case there was also certainly a transaction fee, paid for you by your merchant (and probably rolled up into the price of the product)
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  Sure, and it also wasn't anywhere near 25 dollars.
boogies 5y ago
> The transaction appeared to complete instantly. I recently made a donation from a new bank account that took ~20-30 hours to finish processing. Meanwhile Monero trasactions have the 10-15 blocks needed for irreversibility mined in ~20-30 minutes, and the first block in ~2.
Dwolb 5y ago
Is that the really important thing? It’s a nascent technology.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]