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> There are many context where a 0conf tx makes sense, mostly IRL. I'm curious, like what? To me this is more like "someone wrote a cheque but there's no guara

> There are many context where a 0conf tx makes sense, mostly IRL. I'm curious, like what? To me this is more like "someone wrote a cheque but there's no guarantee that they'll give it to you".

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
qvrjuec 5y ago
I think more like "someone wrote a check and there's no guarantee it won't bounce". So really, it's quite analogous to how 0conf works in practice.
- tomc1985 5y ago
  There are laws in place that specifically handle writing bad checks. While I'm sure double-spending Bitcoin transactiosn is illegal in some way, it is probably covered under a more nebulous fraud-type statute. I'd be curious to see the percentage likelihood on both, as well, as I suspect they are very different. Would businesses accept checks if half of them were bad?
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    The general fraud crimes you would get convicted of have a pretty nasty set of penalties. But good luck convincing a federal prosecutor to care about $20 worth of online goods that can be revoked.
alickz 5y ago
I only have a layman understanding of bitcoin, and I've never used a cheque in my life, but would it not be more like "someone wrote you a cheque and there's no guarantee it won't bounce when you try to cash it in"? Which, again maybe showing my complete lack of knowledge of cheques, is how I thought they worked in the first place.
- egberts1 5y ago
  Personal check is a quasi-promissory note binded whose legal-teeth for recovery through law enforcement. “0-conf bitcoin” has no legal teeth for recovery … yet so there is no enforcement (except for the merchant to chase after the scofflaw). “Money is forthcoming”. Bank cheque is a bank-guarantee binded by banker self-verification (almost always good) with no takeback (voiding) mechanism. “block-chain confirmed” is always a good transaction with no clawback mechanism so you must wait until it’s confirmed before receiving your merchandise. “Cash is king.”
  - PretzelPirate 5y ago
    > has no legal teeth for recovery … yet so there is no enforcement In this case, Steam was selling a digital good that they could be fully revoke if the funds never arrived, so the check ability works very well. It would have been even better on a smart contract platform where the game license would exist on the chain itself and couldn’t be purchased via a double spend, Chain re-orgs would also sort themselves out in a fully on-chain system.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  Watch "Catch me if you can" for some fun history on bank cheque fraud.
- onion2k 5y ago
  Here in the UK we had "cheque guarantee cards" - essentially a debit card without a live connection to the bank. When you wrote the cheque the shop took your card details as well and that meant the bank guaranteed to cover the value of the cheque if it bounced (up to a maximum amount). If your cheque bounced your account went into an overdraft for that amount plus a hefty fee. It meant shops didn't need to worry about bounced cheques which customers could pay using them. It worked pretty well.
  - withinboredom 5y ago
    The US banks I worked with would just overdraw your account (up to an amount), then, overnight, reorder the transactions so the big ones came first and all the little ones came “after” the account went negative and hit you with hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees. I don’t miss the early 2000s.
doomroot 5y ago
Anything where the buyer doesn't leave 15-30 mins after making the payment or the purchaser is id'd.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  This is why it's always been absurd to believe that standard retail purchases would be regularly done with layer 1 base chain transactions. You can't even say that you're ok with waiting for 1 block confirmation, because the time between each block is only an average of 10 minutes, with high variance. It's fairly common to experience over an hour between blocks, or as little as a minute. The security and confirmation of a transaction is not a function of number of blocks, but time since inclusion in a block and total amount of work (hashes) piled on top of your transaction. Generally, 6 blocks (1 hour on average) is considered sufficient certainty of immutability for normal functioning of the blockchain (i.e. not under active attack). One hour for final, and completely irreversible, settlement is absurdly fast in the context of the traditional financial system, which takes days at least for final settlement, and can be much longer for some international transfers. Small, individual scale purchases only really make sense to do on higher layer transaction protocols, like lightning network (non-custodial and open) or some custodial networks (like a bitcoin backed Visa credit card). The only model that makes sense for bitcoin is the layer one base chain is a settlement network, with payment networks build on top that aggregate many transactions into one on chain transaction. Think OSI model for networking.
  - AniseAbyss 5y ago
    Instantaneous payments exist, I use them several times a day, with traditional banking. I never quite understood what problem bitcoin was supposed to solve beyond anonymity.
    - anonporridge 5y ago
      These are instant payments, not instant settlement. Your bank abstracts the underlying inter bank settlement complexity and aggregates all the minor transactions and transfers that individuals do to a small number of larger settlement transactions, likely on the SWIFT network. When you make a payment, that transfer of money isn't instantly settled. The instantaneous feeling is a service that the bank provides you, but it's an illusion. There are similar experiences being built now on top of bitcoin, like http://strike.me http://strike.me, although the lightning network that Strike and CashApp are building upon actually is instant finality, unlike Visa/Paypal. This is why comparing bitcoin to Visa or PayPal is fundamentally flawed, since those are both layer 2/3 networks on top of SWIFT. The proper comparison is with other settlement networks that create finality, like SWIFT. Where SWIFT may take days to create final settlement of a transfer, bitcoin takes ~1 hour depending on how much confidence you want. Where SWIFT is secured by nation state monopolies on violence and global banking gatekeeping, bitcoin is secured by the most powerful computer network on the planet that no single nation state has the power to disrupt. Bitcoin is open and permissionless and anyone and everyone can join. SWIFT is tightly permissioned because it relies heavily on exclusive networks of humans who trust each other.
snissn 5y ago
so anywhere where a check makes sense, in a trusted or doxxed environment for example like IRL

> There are many context where a 0conf tx makes sense, mostly IRL. I'm curious, like what? To me this is more like "someone wrote a cheque but there's no guarantee that they'll give it to you".

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

qvrjuec 5y ago

I think more like "someone wrote a check and there's no guarantee it won't bounce". So really, it's quite analogous to how 0conf works in practice.

tomc1985 5y ago
There are laws in place that specifically handle writing bad checks. While I'm sure double-spending Bitcoin transactiosn is illegal in some way, it is probably covered under a more nebulous fraud-type statute. I'd be curious to see the percentage likelihood on both, as well, as I suspect they are very different. Would businesses accept checks if half of them were bad?
- HWR_14 5y ago
  The general fraud crimes you would get convicted of have a pretty nasty set of penalties. But good luck convincing a federal prosecutor to care about $20 worth of online goods that can be revoked.

alickz 5y ago

I only have a layman understanding of bitcoin, and I've never used a cheque in my life, but would it not be more like "someone wrote you a cheque and there's no guarantee it won't bounce when you try to cash it in"? Which, again maybe showing my complete lack of knowledge of cheques, is how I thought they worked in the first place.

egberts1 5y ago
Personal check is a quasi-promissory note binded whose legal-teeth for recovery through law enforcement. “0-conf bitcoin” has no legal teeth for recovery … yet so there is no enforcement (except for the merchant to chase after the scofflaw). “Money is forthcoming”. Bank cheque is a bank-guarantee binded by banker self-verification (almost always good) with no takeback (voiding) mechanism. “block-chain confirmed” is always a good transaction with no clawback mechanism so you must wait until it’s confirmed before receiving your merchandise. “Cash is king.”
- PretzelPirate 5y ago
  > has no legal teeth for recovery … yet so there is no enforcement In this case, Steam was selling a digital good that they could be fully revoke if the funds never arrived, so the check ability works very well. It would have been even better on a smart contract platform where the game license would exist on the chain itself and couldn’t be purchased via a double spend, Chain re-orgs would also sort themselves out in a fully on-chain system.
anonporridge 5y ago
Watch "Catch me if you can" for some fun history on bank cheque fraud.
onion2k 5y ago
Here in the UK we had "cheque guarantee cards" - essentially a debit card without a live connection to the bank. When you wrote the cheque the shop took your card details as well and that meant the bank guaranteed to cover the value of the cheque if it bounced (up to a maximum amount). If your cheque bounced your account went into an overdraft for that amount plus a hefty fee. It meant shops didn't need to worry about bounced cheques which customers could pay using them. It worked pretty well.
- withinboredom 5y ago
  The US banks I worked with would just overdraw your account (up to an amount), then, overnight, reorder the transactions so the big ones came first and all the little ones came “after” the account went negative and hit you with hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees. I don’t miss the early 2000s.

doomroot 5y ago

Anything where the buyer doesn't leave 15-30 mins after making the payment or the purchaser is id'd.

anonporridge 5y ago
This is why it's always been absurd to believe that standard retail purchases would be regularly done with layer 1 base chain transactions. You can't even say that you're ok with waiting for 1 block confirmation, because the time between each block is only an average of 10 minutes, with high variance. It's fairly common to experience over an hour between blocks, or as little as a minute. The security and confirmation of a transaction is not a function of number of blocks, but time since inclusion in a block and total amount of work (hashes) piled on top of your transaction. Generally, 6 blocks (1 hour on average) is considered sufficient certainty of immutability for normal functioning of the blockchain (i.e. not under active attack). One hour for final, and completely irreversible, settlement is absurdly fast in the context of the traditional financial system, which takes days at least for final settlement, and can be much longer for some international transfers. Small, individual scale purchases only really make sense to do on higher layer transaction protocols, like lightning network (non-custodial and open) or some custodial networks (like a bitcoin backed Visa credit card). The only model that makes sense for bitcoin is the layer one base chain is a settlement network, with payment networks build on top that aggregate many transactions into one on chain transaction. Think OSI model for networking.
- AniseAbyss 5y ago
  Instantaneous payments exist, I use them several times a day, with traditional banking. I never quite understood what problem bitcoin was supposed to solve beyond anonymity.
  - anonporridge 5y ago
    These are instant payments, not instant settlement. Your bank abstracts the underlying inter bank settlement complexity and aggregates all the minor transactions and transfers that individuals do to a small number of larger settlement transactions, likely on the SWIFT network. When you make a payment, that transfer of money isn't instantly settled. The instantaneous feeling is a service that the bank provides you, but it's an illusion. There are similar experiences being built now on top of bitcoin, like http://strike.me http://strike.me, although the lightning network that Strike and CashApp are building upon actually is instant finality, unlike Visa/Paypal. This is why comparing bitcoin to Visa or PayPal is fundamentally flawed, since those are both layer 2/3 networks on top of SWIFT. The proper comparison is with other settlement networks that create finality, like SWIFT. Where SWIFT may take days to create final settlement of a transfer, bitcoin takes ~1 hour depending on how much confidence you want. Where SWIFT is secured by nation state monopolies on violence and global banking gatekeeping, bitcoin is secured by the most powerful computer network on the planet that no single nation state has the power to disrupt. Bitcoin is open and permissionless and anyone and everyone can join. SWIFT is tightly permissioned because it relies heavily on exclusive networks of humans who trust each other.

snissn 5y ago

so anywhere where a check makes sense, in a trusted or doxxed environment for example like IRL