4 ms·

You can dispute transactions because of your legal agreement with the credit card company - not because of any technical reason. For example your bank also insu

You can dispute transactions because of your legal agreement with the credit card company - not because of any technical reason. For example your bank also insures itself against having untraceable cash stolen by robbers. You could have a bank account where the bank claims no liability if your debit account was emptied by a hacked chip+pin reader - they just wouldn't have many customers! Similarly a bank could decide to offer a bitcoin account where it will offer you the option of a chargeback. It will simply charge a commission on the transaction to cover itself.

btilly 15y ago
Not true! Merchants would have never come up with that on their own. It was forced on them with credit cards by consumer protection laws. Debit cards don't have that legal requirement, but consumers have come to expect it.
- excuse-me 15y ago
  The point is it's a legal invention - introduced by the banks so that people would actually trust credit cards - it's not a necessary feature of a traceable transaction.
  - Retric 15y ago
    It's a feature of having a 3rd party as part of the transaction. A random merchant trusts Visa to ban people who abuse the system. And merchants are threatened by with being banned if they don't keep quiet about the occasional charge back. However with a pure digital currency there is no independent party, so all transactions are either provisional or finalized with the merchants and customers having total power at different parts of the process. PS: I am not going to sue if some random website fails to ship a 200$ graphics card. So reputation becomes even more important, but only because fraud will also become far easier.
    - jpadkins 15y ago
      P2P currency doesn't preclude 3rd party (escrow) transactions. In fact, it will likely be a popular option for large transactions and it will cost less than CC/debit card security overhead.
  - MrMan 15y ago
    the genius of the credit card system is that not all of its features rely on what programmers would think of as technical mechanisms. legal and contractual constructs can be highly effective.

btilly 15y ago

Not true! Merchants would have never come up with that on their own. It was forced on them with credit cards by consumer protection laws. Debit cards don't have that legal requirement, but consumers have come to expect it.

excuse-me 15y ago
The point is it's a legal invention - introduced by the banks so that people would actually trust credit cards - it's not a necessary feature of a traceable transaction.
- Retric 15y ago
  It's a feature of having a 3rd party as part of the transaction. A random merchant trusts Visa to ban people who abuse the system. And merchants are threatened by with being banned if they don't keep quiet about the occasional charge back. However with a pure digital currency there is no independent party, so all transactions are either provisional or finalized with the merchants and customers having total power at different parts of the process. PS: I am not going to sue if some random website fails to ship a 200$ graphics card. So reputation becomes even more important, but only because fraud will also become far easier.
  - jpadkins 15y ago
    P2P currency doesn't preclude 3rd party (escrow) transactions. In fact, it will likely be a popular option for large transactions and it will cost less than CC/debit card security overhead.
- MrMan 15y ago
  the genius of the credit card system is that not all of its features rely on what programmers would think of as technical mechanisms. legal and contractual constructs can be highly effective.