> 1. People have out-of-band trust relationships in real life which reduce the likelihood of malice. Bitcoin-style anonymous identities undermine trust relation

> 1. People have out-of-band trust relationships in real life which reduce the likelihood of malice. Bitcoin-style anonymous identities undermine trust relationships and are not needed for legitimate (not illegal) transactions. Bitcoin provides pseudononymous identities. Just like how someone can move to a new domain or amazon account after word gets out that they are selling deffective goods. Trust only goes so far, even when dealing with people you should be able to trust. If this were not the case, then close-to-home scams would not exist. E.g. embezellment and other forms of stealing from people you work with face-to-face. . >2. Real life legal systems encourage good behaviors. If you have a dispute with someone, you can sue them. Bitcoin and related systems lack these protections. The legal system is complex, slow, and _EXPENSIVE_. A lot of bad behaviour also goes unpunished when the cost to rectify is greater than the amount stolen. Offering an alternative, low-cost and quick system, and accepting the downside of there being no "takebacks", who is to say this is a strictly negative thing? There is also nothing stopping a service provider from stepping in and providing dispute resolution by way of mostly automated eskrow. If the transaction of goods for money happens without flaw, then the money is released automatically. If an issue occurs but the buyer and seller can resolve it amicably, that two is automated. In the unlikely case that one or both parties are malicious, the service provider reviews the case and releases funds as appropriate (e.g. checking that the parcel was actually posted, reviewing images of the good if it was damaged in transit, resolving as best able in case of scams). . >3. Existing tools such as public-key cryptography and digital signatures can provide most of the functionality that applications need without the problems that blockchain-based systems have. They can, but there are very few examples of such tools. This is hackernews, and this opinion is repeated ad nauseum, yet I don't see anyone actually going out and hacking something together. Just like how it has been possible for financial houses to open up APIs to allow people to better manage, automate or make their money work exactly they want; it should come at no surprise when something comes along that actually allows this, no matter how much people cry that this was all possible and much more efficient without $NewTech, the people that have adopted said $NewTech aren't going to care too much.