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You order an item, pay in bitcoin, yet the merchant never ships the item. What now? With credit cards, you can dispute the charge and get your money back. With

by 4ggr0 4y ago

You order an item, pay in bitcoin, yet the merchant never ships the item. What now? With credit cards, you can dispute the charge and get your money back. With bitcoin, it's gone forever.

oceanplexian 4y ago
I’ve had that exact scenario happen with credit cards and didn’t get my money back. Not sure what the point is.
mikegreenberg 4y ago
Bitcoin transactions can be written to support escrow use cases. *Edit: Transactions can be sent to a script which requires multiple keys to forward the funds from that script address to a wallet address. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Multi-signature https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Multi-signature This is the primary mechanism for escrow services to function. If the need for a CC-like refund feature is important to the user, one could potentially use a service over Bitcoin which is party to a 2-of-3 multisig transaction. The payment may be settled immediately by the buyer and seller. Or either party may dispute with the service provider to settle according to some agreement.
- djbusby 4y ago
  How? It's direct from wallet to wallet
- lxgr 4y ago
  True, but then we‘re no longer talking about Bitcoin. The settlement layer is rarely the most interesting part of a retail payment system.
- kube-system 4y ago
  To perform escrow with that technology a trusted third party is required, at which point, you are resolving disputes exactly the same way it works with credit cards: you are convincing some organization that the transaction wasn’t satisfied.
junofan 4y ago
Isn’t that due to regulation? Surely we can also apply some rules to payment processors that use a decentralized network under the hood and get the best of all worlds? Visa’s operating margins are insane. I think we can do better than a global oligopoly skimming %ages of every transaction.
- sgammon 4y ago
  yes but that regulation is based on the root of trust of strong KYC and AML. bitcoin just uses a private key that anyone can generate and use. again by design
- eptcyka 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure running the Visa network is a lot more energy efficient today. And you cannot discount the fact that miners will also skim percentages of every transaction.
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    Visa has a huge footprint and those plastic cards are not organic. The toxic material for printing plus the buildings and employees who drive in to work each day to keep the system going or the millions of miles Visa sales, repair, security, etc drive each year need to be counted. Miners are cheap.. Visa execs flying in private planes are worse for the environment.

by 4ggr0 4y ago

You order an item, pay in bitcoin, yet the merchant never ships the item. What now? With credit cards, you can dispute the charge and get your money back. With bitcoin, it's gone forever.

oceanplexian 4y ago

I’ve had that exact scenario happen with credit cards and didn’t get my money back. Not sure what the point is.

mikegreenberg 4y ago

Bitcoin transactions can be written to support escrow use cases. *Edit: Transactions can be sent to a script which requires multiple keys to forward the funds from that script address to a wallet address. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Multi-signature https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Multi-signature This is the primary mechanism for escrow services to function. If the need for a CC-like refund feature is important to the user, one could potentially use a service over Bitcoin which is party to a 2-of-3 multisig transaction. The payment may be settled immediately by the buyer and seller. Or either party may dispute with the service provider to settle according to some agreement.

djbusby 4y ago
How? It's direct from wallet to wallet
lxgr 4y ago
True, but then we‘re no longer talking about Bitcoin. The settlement layer is rarely the most interesting part of a retail payment system.
kube-system 4y ago
To perform escrow with that technology a trusted third party is required, at which point, you are resolving disputes exactly the same way it works with credit cards: you are convincing some organization that the transaction wasn’t satisfied.

junofan 4y ago

Isn’t that due to regulation? Surely we can also apply some rules to payment processors that use a decentralized network under the hood and get the best of all worlds? Visa’s operating margins are insane. I think we can do better than a global oligopoly skimming %ages of every transaction.

sgammon 4y ago
yes but that regulation is based on the root of trust of strong KYC and AML. bitcoin just uses a private key that anyone can generate and use. again by design
eptcyka 4y ago
I'm pretty sure running the Visa network is a lot more energy efficient today. And you cannot discount the fact that miners will also skim percentages of every transaction.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  Visa has a huge footprint and those plastic cards are not organic. The toxic material for printing plus the buildings and employees who drive in to work each day to keep the system going or the millions of miles Visa sales, repair, security, etc drive each year need to be counted. Miners are cheap.. Visa execs flying in private planes are worse for the environment.