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It's hardly a banal point for certain uses of cash. It doesn't matter for me buying a 6-pack of beer at the corner store. But if, say, one of your employees has
by wpietri 5y ago
It's hardly a banal point for certain uses of cash. It doesn't matter for me buying a 6-pack of beer at the corner store. But if, say, one of your employees has walked off with the day's cash, the reversibility of the transaction becomes extremely important to you.
Given that the relative advantage of cryptocurrencies is strongest for a variety of financial crime, I think the distinction matters even more. As the Bitfinex thieves are learning, cryptocurrency transactions are not as final as they would like.
- audleman 5y agoBut the transactions were final, just as it would be if your employee stole the day's cash and escaped somewhere you couldn't find them. Reversible would mean you could press a few buttons on the cash register and poof, the money's back in it and not the pocket of the thief. Tracking down said thief and taking the bag of money back in this metaphor constitutes a new transaction. As is subpoenaing Dropbox and gaining access to the poorly encrypted list of private keys from these Bitfinex rapper/hackers.
- wpietri 5y agoI don't think that's true from the perspective of the employer with the stolen money. The employee took the cash. The employer just wants to hit undo on that. They don't see it as a new transaction, but the reversal of the old one. Of course, this is all a bit arbitrary. So I don't think we'd have much to disagree if cryptocurrency proponents were open about that. But what we get is a lot of them talking about 100% irreversible transactions. That may be true in the technical jargon of a particular system, but is definitely not always true in the broader social context or in casual uses of the term.