5 ms·

Yep. Also one of the reasons crypto will never work (as-is) for online, digital currency/payments. Customers don't want irreversible transactions.

by geph2021 4y ago

leesalminen 4y ago
I think it depends on the scenario. If you’re buying $0.50 worth of bananas at a farmer's market, then maybe irreversibility doesn’t matter. Could be even a $20 lunch bill, I've never done a chargeback at a restaurant before.
- moffkalast 4y ago
  So what you're saying is that it's only useful for meaningless amounts? Sounds pretty pointless.
  - leesalminen 4y ago
    Something that is a meaningless amount for you surely isn’t meaningless for the person receiving it. To extrapolate the idea some, I’d be comfortable using an irreversible payment method for various B2B SaaS subscriptions. Those can reach perhaps more meaningful amounts to you. It seems that you’re rather dismissive of this conversation, so I’ll wish you a pleasant day/evening.
    - geph2021 4y ago
      I think you make an interesting point about micro payments. Micro payments could be an avenue for crypto to actually achieve some legitimacy and usefulness. Not only is the irreversibility less important, but potentially some of the usability/security issues for users (hacked/stolen wallets etc...) become less important as well (assuming users keep only smallish balances in crypto wallets).
      - leesalminen 4y ago
        > I think you make an interesting point about micro payments. Micro payments could be an avenue for crypto to actually achieve some legitimacy and usefulness. I've been testing out the Lightning Network (Layer 2 of BTC) recently and it seems that the future has arrived. I can accept micropayments in BTC over LN, which get immediately converted to dollars and deposited to a bank account in USD. All for ~$0.01 fee per transaction. Here's how: 1.) Open an account at https://strike.me https://strike.me. This app is very similar to CashApp, but supports getting paid on the Lightning Network. I believe CashApp is also working on this functionality. 2.) Set up your own self-hosted install of https://lnbits.com https://lnbits.com (or use cloud hosted version at https://voltage.cloud https://voltage.cloud for ~$10 USD/mo). 3.) Connect LNBits to Strike. (Note: there is an open PR for this, if you want to test then check out the PR on Github) 4.) Set up a Point of Sale (or paywall, or event tickets, or tip jar, or line-item invoices, or anything else) on LNBits. 5.) Collect a payment in LNBits. 6.) That BTC is immediately forwarded to Strike, converted to USD and available for withdrawal to your bank account. Following these steps you can collect micropayments in USD for next-to-nothing fees and have no exposure to the volatility of BTC. Your potential customers can hold their balance in USD as well, if they don't want to hold any crypto. They just deposit some USD into their Strike account to pay these micropayments.
jrvarela56 4y ago
Whoever comes up with a way to encode this dynamic in a smart contract(s) could make a killing - or at least raise a lot of money hehe.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  The dynamic is having some trusted 3rd party to manage disputes. Which defeats the point of crypto.
  - jrvarela56 4y ago
    It's just a useful feature the fiat system has. The bigger point of crypto is that this trust can be parametrized and made transparent in a public ledger with less intermediaries. I see it as getting to feature parity, not as something that undermines trustless-ness - don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      What actual value does this provide the buyer or seller? All of these blockchain solutions throw out a lot of buzzwords but after over a decade, I'm still yet to see any kind of benefit being provided.
- searchableguy 4y ago
  Plenty of escrow services exist to resolve this and there are a few variation of on-chain court for dispute handling such as kleros. The reality is very few people know they can chargeback and most use debt & instant payment option for low ticket high volume transactions. If something was holding crypto from being used to pay for daily essentials, it is not charge back ability.
  - guntab-dan 4y ago
    Yep this is true. I work in online escrow. It's basically the original "smart contract", and until we are able to reliably digitize purchase events it's hard to beat. I have friends who talk about smart contracts, not understanding that it's currently very difficult for a computer to recognize events like "buyer has taken possession of merchandise", whereas it's pretty easy for a human.
klabb3 4y ago
There's nothing about cryptocurrencies that mandates irreversible transactions. A decentralized buffer/escrow system is quite possible, it wouldn't surprise me if it already exists.
- kube-system 4y ago
  True, but then you need someone to manage the escrow payouts. And doing that requires a trusted third party to do work, and so they charge fees to finance that. So, basically reinventing a credit card company, but on a blockchain. And these services do exist and are in use on some tor network marketplaces.
  - klabb3 4y ago
    > So, basically reinventing a credit card company, but on a blockchain. I don't expect fees to be much lower for a third party human-in-the-loop escrow system. And there's nothing wrong with "re-inventing" either. I think it's critical however that you can have strong censorship resistance and opportunity for innovation. So personally I'm more interested in the unknown unknowns, rather than recreating exactly the same.

Yep. Also one of the reasons crypto will never work (as-is) for online, digital currency/payments. Customers don't want irreversible transactions.

leesalminen 4y ago

I think it depends on the scenario. If you’re buying $0.50 worth of bananas at a farmer's market, then maybe irreversibility doesn’t matter. Could be even a $20 lunch bill, I've never done a chargeback at a restaurant before.

moffkalast 4y ago
So what you're saying is that it's only useful for meaningless amounts? Sounds pretty pointless.
- leesalminen 4y ago
  Something that is a meaningless amount for you surely isn’t meaningless for the person receiving it. To extrapolate the idea some, I’d be comfortable using an irreversible payment method for various B2B SaaS subscriptions. Those can reach perhaps more meaningful amounts to you. It seems that you’re rather dismissive of this conversation, so I’ll wish you a pleasant day/evening.
  - geph2021 4y ago
    I think you make an interesting point about micro payments. Micro payments could be an avenue for crypto to actually achieve some legitimacy and usefulness. Not only is the irreversibility less important, but potentially some of the usability/security issues for users (hacked/stolen wallets etc...) become less important as well (assuming users keep only smallish balances in crypto wallets).
    - leesalminen 4y ago
      > I think you make an interesting point about micro payments. Micro payments could be an avenue for crypto to actually achieve some legitimacy and usefulness. I've been testing out the Lightning Network (Layer 2 of BTC) recently and it seems that the future has arrived. I can accept micropayments in BTC over LN, which get immediately converted to dollars and deposited to a bank account in USD. All for ~$0.01 fee per transaction. Here's how: 1.) Open an account at https://strike.me https://strike.me. This app is very similar to CashApp, but supports getting paid on the Lightning Network. I believe CashApp is also working on this functionality. 2.) Set up your own self-hosted install of https://lnbits.com https://lnbits.com (or use cloud hosted version at https://voltage.cloud https://voltage.cloud for ~$10 USD/mo). 3.) Connect LNBits to Strike. (Note: there is an open PR for this, if you want to test then check out the PR on Github) 4.) Set up a Point of Sale (or paywall, or event tickets, or tip jar, or line-item invoices, or anything else) on LNBits. 5.) Collect a payment in LNBits. 6.) That BTC is immediately forwarded to Strike, converted to USD and available for withdrawal to your bank account. Following these steps you can collect micropayments in USD for next-to-nothing fees and have no exposure to the volatility of BTC. Your potential customers can hold their balance in USD as well, if they don't want to hold any crypto. They just deposit some USD into their Strike account to pay these micropayments.

jrvarela56 4y ago

Whoever comes up with a way to encode this dynamic in a smart contract(s) could make a killing - or at least raise a lot of money hehe.

Gigachad 4y ago
The dynamic is having some trusted 3rd party to manage disputes. Which defeats the point of crypto.
- jrvarela56 4y ago
  It's just a useful feature the fiat system has. The bigger point of crypto is that this trust can be parametrized and made transparent in a public ledger with less intermediaries. I see it as getting to feature parity, not as something that undermines trustless-ness - don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    What actual value does this provide the buyer or seller? All of these blockchain solutions throw out a lot of buzzwords but after over a decade, I'm still yet to see any kind of benefit being provided.
searchableguy 4y ago
Plenty of escrow services exist to resolve this and there are a few variation of on-chain court for dispute handling such as kleros. The reality is very few people know they can chargeback and most use debt & instant payment option for low ticket high volume transactions. If something was holding crypto from being used to pay for daily essentials, it is not charge back ability.
- guntab-dan 4y ago
  Yep this is true. I work in online escrow. It's basically the original "smart contract", and until we are able to reliably digitize purchase events it's hard to beat. I have friends who talk about smart contracts, not understanding that it's currently very difficult for a computer to recognize events like "buyer has taken possession of merchandise", whereas it's pretty easy for a human.

klabb3 4y ago

There's nothing about cryptocurrencies that mandates irreversible transactions. A decentralized buffer/escrow system is quite possible, it wouldn't surprise me if it already exists.

kube-system 4y ago
True, but then you need someone to manage the escrow payouts. And doing that requires a trusted third party to do work, and so they charge fees to finance that. So, basically reinventing a credit card company, but on a blockchain. And these services do exist and are in use on some tor network marketplaces.
- klabb3 4y ago
  > So, basically reinventing a credit card company, but on a blockchain. I don't expect fees to be much lower for a third party human-in-the-loop escrow system. And there's nothing wrong with "re-inventing" either. I think it's critical however that you can have strong censorship resistance and opportunity for innovation. So personally I'm more interested in the unknown unknowns, rather than recreating exactly the same.