7 ms·

Someday, you may use bitcoin without knowing it

41 points by gamechangr 13y ago

Nursie 13y ago
“Bitcoin is basically based on mistrust rather than trust” In some ways, but when we're talking about the reversability of transactions we're really just putting trust in different places. I trust the bank waaaaaaay more than I trust any online vendor. Particularly one with whom I don't have an existing relationship, but even then. For the folks that love BTC at the moment that seems to be reversed. --edit-- I'm also not sure how doing two trades on an international currency transfer is supposed to be cheaper than one....
- hnolable 13y ago
  Totally agree with you on that. But let's compare your trust of your bank vs your trust of your mattress or your safe or your brain password that no one but you can produce.
  - Nursie 13y ago
    vs mattress - bank wins vs home safe - bank wins and I'm always forgetting passwords! These are places to store stuff though, not transaction systems, which is what I was driving at. Bitcoin as a transaction system requires me to place trust in a vendor (or potentially an escrow service). I trust my bank's payment systems and chargeback facility more than either of those things. Bitcoin as a store of money? Well I still prefer the legal protections afforded me in a regulated bank.
    - gamechangr 13y ago
      Your last line gets right to the heart of the problem. " I still prefer the legal protection afforded me in a regulated bank". What system can provide legal protection without governmental abuse?
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
    - hnolable 13y ago
      Here's something to ponder... Sure once in a while your bank/CC payment system protects you from a shady merchant... saving you what... 100$ (max?). Personally in my entire life I can't remember charging back once due to a shady merchant but let's assume you've saved 1000$ because of chargebacks. Here's one of the risks you have to bear to enable your chargebacks: http://mashable.com/2011/01/28/identity-theft-infographic/ http://mashable.com/2011/01/28/identity-theft-infographic/ ... worth it? Think how many insecure databases your name and address and credit card # (and sometimes phone number) are stored in across the net...
      - Nursie 13y ago
        And how many shady merchants have I not had to chargeback to because they are deterred? Also I'm not in the US, I get the impression that I'm much better protected by consumer law here in the UK.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
- oleganza 13y ago
  Chargebacks are useful to consumers not because of evil merchants who can steal their money (merchants in general are not evil and care about reputation). The real problem is giving away full access to your credit card. Someone can steal your CC number from any shop you used it before and then make a purchase. Since CC is so fragile, Visa offers you a chargeback capacity putting merchants under huge risk of fraud. With bitcoin you don't show your whole wallet to anyone. You only make a single transaction to a single address. Merchant cannot possibly leak anything that will give someone ability to spend your money. Instead of spreading your identifying information to 1000s of shops you only keep it in a single place that you control directly (but you should be careful here). So you don't need chargebacks if no one can easily steal your money. To avoid fraud from merchants, people use "reputation" and escrows. Typically, you will be okay to risk paying 3 bucks almost anyone, but you'd pay 300 dollars only to people you already trust (think Apple Store, WalMart etc.) For very rare cases when you need extra security, go to an intermediate escrow service. (E.g. ebay.)
  - Nursie 13y ago
    Umm, no. I exactly want protection from unscrupulous merchants. Stolen CC detail fraud is on the decline thanks to the likes of EMV cards, and I also have legal protection from it via my bank for when that fails. Reputation and escrows are really no equivalent to legal protection from merchant fraud and instant refunds on dispute. We have centuries of history with shysters and scammers (CAVEAT EMPTOR) to show us why this stuff is useful and it's pretty trivial to fake reputation and to fake escrow. >> you'd pay 300 dollars only to people you already trust Nicely cementing the big boys in the market and locking out smaller vendors forever. I'm sorry people feel so affronted by consumer protections and chargeback, but without them I wouldn't buy stuff off the net at all.
    - gamechangr 13y ago
      Trust is central to all net purchases. No way around that.
      - socillion 13y ago
droopyEyelids 13y ago
You know how there are certain words or phrases that make you feel the sands of time wastefully slipping through your fingers? They're hard to notice, because they're coupled with the habit of scanning to the next article, or moving to the next link. The description of Bitcoin as "untraceable" makes my close-tab reflex trigger like a doctor bumping my knee. Seems like describing a human as invincible because the bodies will forever persist as some configuration of mass and energy.
- gcr 13y ago
  No kidding. If every coin carries its immutable transaction history with it, Bitcoin is the antithesis of "untraceable."
  - gamechangr 13y ago
    Well put. I hadn't thought of it in those terms.
swalsh 13y ago
" dreams of reinventing the financial system based around a currency not issued by governments and not subject to the whims of central banks." Lets ask Greece how not having control over its currency is going... Bitcoin is a primitive financial system wrapped up in a high tech envelope.
- genwin 13y ago
  Someone else having control of your currency is a lot different than no one having control over it.
  - hencq 13y ago
    It might be different, but it doesn't seem to matter much in practice. But fine, instead of comparing it to Greece, you could compare it to the gold standard. That didn't work so well either.
    - the_rosentotter 13y ago
      Somehow civilizations and empires flourished before modern financial instruments.
      - bayesianhorse 13y ago
        They actually didn't. Banks have been around for centuries and where instrumental in any economic growth beyond medieval farming methods...
        icebraining 13y ago
        But "banks" aren't a currency. They may have issued their own currencies during the gold standard, but then again nothing prevents banks from issuing their own currency in an (absolutely hypothetical) bitcoin standard.
        13y ago
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
zemanel 13y ago
Every other article describing the nature of Bitcoin, if not all, mention how it is used to sell drugs online (Silk Road), transaction anonymity [as a facilitator of crime] and this one forgot to state how Bitcoin is apparently the preferred currency of dictators, as if oficial currencies are not being used, as i type this, and have been used over the ages to facilitate every crime in the book. I think this is important because it may be transpiring a very bad image to the less informed, because i see Bitcoin as a tool, which will be used for wrong doing as any other. Wish i had the link to a recent article that bashed Bitcoin into oblivion.
- gamechangr 13y ago
  Agreed. I think Bitcoin has amazing potential as a tool. It's hard to create no government control without opening pandora's box.
sunsu 13y ago
Interestingly, I just had a local law enforcement official ask me to "explain bitcoin" to him yesterday. He said that "it came up" in a case they were working on and he had no idea what it was. This is just evidence that its becoming a lot more mainstream.
mtowle 13y ago
>If our experts can't agree on the value of bitcoin, why should consumers? This is quite possibly the dumbest rhetorical question I've ever heard. On like 3 different levels. Replace 'bitcoin' with, like, anything. Oranges. Trees. Cars. What the eff are you talking about, lady.
- gamechangr 13y ago
  Funny. I posted this and didn't catch that. Good eye. Karma point to u
  - mtowle 13y ago
    In fairness, I thought it was a quality piece otherwise. It was probably just something her editor threw in.

41 points by gamechangr 13y ago

“Bitcoin is basically based on mistrust rather than trust” In some ways, but when we're talking about the reversability of transactions we're really just putting trust in different places. I trust the bank waaaaaaay more than I trust any online vendor. Particularly one with whom I don't have an existing relationship, but even then. For the folks that love BTC at the moment that seems to be reversed. --edit-- I'm also not sure how doing two trades on an international currency transfer is supposed to be cheaper than one....

hnolable 13y ago
Totally agree with you on that. But let's compare your trust of your bank vs your trust of your mattress or your safe or your brain password that no one but you can produce.
- Nursie 13y ago
  vs mattress - bank wins vs home safe - bank wins and I'm always forgetting passwords! These are places to store stuff though, not transaction systems, which is what I was driving at. Bitcoin as a transaction system requires me to place trust in a vendor (or potentially an escrow service). I trust my bank's payment systems and chargeback facility more than either of those things. Bitcoin as a store of money? Well I still prefer the legal protections afforded me in a regulated bank.
  - gamechangr 13y ago
    Your last line gets right to the heart of the problem. " I still prefer the legal protection afforded me in a regulated bank". What system can provide legal protection without governmental abuse?
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - hnolable 13y ago
    Here's something to ponder... Sure once in a while your bank/CC payment system protects you from a shady merchant... saving you what... 100$ (max?). Personally in my entire life I can't remember charging back once due to a shady merchant but let's assume you've saved 1000$ because of chargebacks. Here's one of the risks you have to bear to enable your chargebacks: http://mashable.com/2011/01/28/identity-theft-infographic/ http://mashable.com/2011/01/28/identity-theft-infographic/ ... worth it? Think how many insecure databases your name and address and credit card # (and sometimes phone number) are stored in across the net...
    - Nursie 13y ago
      And how many shady merchants have I not had to chargeback to because they are deterred? Also I'm not in the US, I get the impression that I'm much better protected by consumer law here in the UK.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
oleganza 13y ago
Chargebacks are useful to consumers not because of evil merchants who can steal their money (merchants in general are not evil and care about reputation). The real problem is giving away full access to your credit card. Someone can steal your CC number from any shop you used it before and then make a purchase. Since CC is so fragile, Visa offers you a chargeback capacity putting merchants under huge risk of fraud. With bitcoin you don't show your whole wallet to anyone. You only make a single transaction to a single address. Merchant cannot possibly leak anything that will give someone ability to spend your money. Instead of spreading your identifying information to 1000s of shops you only keep it in a single place that you control directly (but you should be careful here). So you don't need chargebacks if no one can easily steal your money. To avoid fraud from merchants, people use "reputation" and escrows. Typically, you will be okay to risk paying 3 bucks almost anyone, but you'd pay 300 dollars only to people you already trust (think Apple Store, WalMart etc.) For very rare cases when you need extra security, go to an intermediate escrow service. (E.g. ebay.)
- Nursie 13y ago
  Umm, no. I exactly want protection from unscrupulous merchants. Stolen CC detail fraud is on the decline thanks to the likes of EMV cards, and I also have legal protection from it via my bank for when that fails. Reputation and escrows are really no equivalent to legal protection from merchant fraud and instant refunds on dispute. We have centuries of history with shysters and scammers (CAVEAT EMPTOR) to show us why this stuff is useful and it's pretty trivial to fake reputation and to fake escrow. >> you'd pay 300 dollars only to people you already trust Nicely cementing the big boys in the market and locking out smaller vendors forever. I'm sorry people feel so affronted by consumer protections and chargeback, but without them I wouldn't buy stuff off the net at all.
  - gamechangr 13y ago
    Trust is central to all net purchases. No way around that.
    - socillion 13y ago

droopyEyelids 13y ago

You know how there are certain words or phrases that make you feel the sands of time wastefully slipping through your fingers? They're hard to notice, because they're coupled with the habit of scanning to the next article, or moving to the next link. The description of Bitcoin as "untraceable" makes my close-tab reflex trigger like a doctor bumping my knee. Seems like describing a human as invincible because the bodies will forever persist as some configuration of mass and energy.

gcr 13y ago
No kidding. If every coin carries its immutable transaction history with it, Bitcoin is the antithesis of "untraceable."
- gamechangr 13y ago
  Well put. I hadn't thought of it in those terms.

swalsh 13y ago

" dreams of reinventing the financial system based around a currency not issued by governments and not subject to the whims of central banks." Lets ask Greece how not having control over its currency is going... Bitcoin is a primitive financial system wrapped up in a high tech envelope.

genwin 13y ago
Someone else having control of your currency is a lot different than no one having control over it.
- hencq 13y ago
  It might be different, but it doesn't seem to matter much in practice. But fine, instead of comparing it to Greece, you could compare it to the gold standard. That didn't work so well either.
  - the_rosentotter 13y ago
    Somehow civilizations and empires flourished before modern financial instruments.
    - bayesianhorse 13y ago
      They actually didn't. Banks have been around for centuries and where instrumental in any economic growth beyond medieval farming methods...
      - icebraining 13y ago
        But "banks" aren't a currency. They may have issued their own currencies during the gold standard, but then again nothing prevents banks from issuing their own currency in an (absolutely hypothetical) bitcoin standard.
        13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

zemanel 13y ago

Every other article describing the nature of Bitcoin, if not all, mention how it is used to sell drugs online (Silk Road), transaction anonymity [as a facilitator of crime] and this one forgot to state how Bitcoin is apparently the preferred currency of dictators, as if oficial currencies are not being used, as i type this, and have been used over the ages to facilitate every crime in the book. I think this is important because it may be transpiring a very bad image to the less informed, because i see Bitcoin as a tool, which will be used for wrong doing as any other. Wish i had the link to a recent article that bashed Bitcoin into oblivion.

gamechangr 13y ago
Agreed. I think Bitcoin has amazing potential as a tool. It's hard to create no government control without opening pandora's box.

sunsu 13y ago

Interestingly, I just had a local law enforcement official ask me to "explain bitcoin" to him yesterday. He said that "it came up" in a case they were working on and he had no idea what it was. This is just evidence that its becoming a lot more mainstream.

mtowle 13y ago

>If our experts can't agree on the value of bitcoin, why should consumers? This is quite possibly the dumbest rhetorical question I've ever heard. On like 3 different levels. Replace 'bitcoin' with, like, anything. Oranges. Trees. Cars. What the eff are you talking about, lady.

gamechangr 13y ago
Funny. I posted this and didn't catch that. Good eye. Karma point to u
- mtowle 13y ago
  In fairness, I thought it was a quality piece otherwise. It was probably just something her editor threw in.