3 ms·

>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 wi

by cube13 13y ago

>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. But your wallet is only as secure as the place it's stored at. If it's on an internet connected machine, you need to make sure that you're as protected as possible. If it's on a third party's server, you need to have faith in their security. Bitcoin wallets are identical to CC numbers in this regard, because if the wallet or CC # is stolen, you can clean out the account. But with Bitcoin, there is no way to undo the damage once everything was taken. If your system gets compromised and your wallet stolen(or the service you're using to store the wallet gets compromised), you're out of luck.

oleganza 13y ago
That's all true. Two more things, though: 1. Many big shops like Wal-Mart that you trade with every day can resolve disputes by themselves: they have enough trust of their customers to lose. So when you pay with CC, you make them bear extra risks and costs that you are ultimately paying for in the end. If they give you a convenient and cheaper way to pay them directly and irreversibly, would you choose that option? Same for smaller guys that you happen to trust. Github is not the biggest place on earth, but if it's cheaper for you to pay $12 with BTC instead of $15 with CC, would you trust them not to steal $12 from you? (They cannot steal more than that.) 2. Now, to solve the problem of lousy wallet and forgotten passwords, you may use something like BitcoinPayPal which you trust and store your wallet with them. How is it different from normal PayPal? BitcoinPayPal does not have to charge your CC, so bears no risk of chargebacks. So they can make fees much lower and provide you with "all sales are final" option (see previous paragraph why it's good) or more efficient dispute resolution without taking money from merchant blindly (if PayPal tries to be more merchant-friendly at disputes, you'd simply call Visa to make a chargeback from PayPal itself). This will allow merchant to make a 3-7% discount for you. I myself can see how many shops I trust with irreversible transactions, so I'd prefer paying like that and cheaper. And possibly using 3rd party wallet keeper without dispute resolution (with two-factor auth, of course).

by cube13 13y ago

oleganza 13y ago

That's all true. Two more things, though: 1. Many big shops like Wal-Mart that you trade with every day can resolve disputes by themselves: they have enough trust of their customers to lose. So when you pay with CC, you make them bear extra risks and costs that you are ultimately paying for in the end. If they give you a convenient and cheaper way to pay them directly and irreversibly, would you choose that option? Same for smaller guys that you happen to trust. Github is not the biggest place on earth, but if it's cheaper for you to pay $12 with BTC instead of $15 with CC, would you trust them not to steal $12 from you? (They cannot steal more than that.) 2. Now, to solve the problem of lousy wallet and forgotten passwords, you may use something like BitcoinPayPal which you trust and store your wallet with them. How is it different from normal PayPal? BitcoinPayPal does not have to charge your CC, so bears no risk of chargebacks. So they can make fees much lower and provide you with "all sales are final" option (see previous paragraph why it's good) or more efficient dispute resolution without taking money from merchant blindly (if PayPal tries to be more merchant-friendly at disputes, you'd simply call Visa to make a chargeback from PayPal itself). This will allow merchant to make a 3-7% discount for you. I myself can see how many shops I trust with irreversible transactions, so I'd prefer paying like that and cheaper. And possibly using 3rd party wallet keeper without dispute resolution (with two-factor auth, of course).