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You can prove the transaction has occurred if the buyer posts his wallet address. The proof will be in the blockchain paper wallets and usb drives arn't proof

You can prove the transaction has occurred if the buyer posts his wallet address. The proof will be in the blockchain paper wallets and usb drives arn't proof of anything. Unfortunetly, to prove that you did send the coins to the right address, the buyer must publically provide his wallets address. At least as far as I can tell.

Istof 13y ago
if the buyer wants to claim that he didn't receive the coins, what is wrong with that?
- GhotiFish 13y ago
  The buyer can make a fraudulent claim and get his money back. There is no way to prove he got the money if he claims he doesn't own the wallet, and there's no way to prove he owns the wallet unless he ties that wallet to himself somehow. (which is possible but not reliable, and countermeasures exist anyway)
kalleboo 13y ago
The question here isn't what makes sense logically, but what makes sense to the claims department at PayPal/eBay. They won't listen to you explain how the blockchain works, they'll ask for a shipping tracking number, and when you can't provide one, they'll say "we don't offer seller protection on virtual goods".
sliverstorm 13y ago
How, exactly, do you propose the buyer receive bitcoins without sharing his wallet address?
- dully 13y ago
  If the buyer is getting a wallet shipped on a USB drive then the seller doesn't need to know the buyer's wallet address.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    The seller can easily find out. Record the address of the wallet you put on the USB drive. Wait a week. Check out the block chain to see where the coins went from there. Nothing that happens on the bitcoin network is private. The best you can do is try to guard the points of entry and exit, and mailing a USB stick announces where you live.
  - GhotiFish 13y ago
    Also, the seller could just transfer the coins out of the wallet after he ships them. I can't see a way to prevent the seller from doing this. The USB drives and the paper wallets are meaningless. Only the transactions can be trusted.
- GhotiFish 13y ago
  I wasn't saying the buyer wouldn't have to share his wallets address normally. Of course the buyer must share his wallets address, but the caveat is that he must do so publicly so that everyone can see that he owns that wallet, so that everyone can see that he received that money. If the buyer didn't reveal his wallets address, he could claim that the seller owned the wallet where the bitcoins were transferred, or that they were transferred to someone else. There's no way of proving otherwise unless the buyer did something to tie the address to himself. (he bought some movie tickets and the theatre disclosed it was him, for example.) Of course, that's looking at it from a pragmatic view. As others have explained, payment services don't care at all about what's actually happening, only that what HAS happened fits protocol. So this won't matter until the world has come to terms with crypto-currencies.

Istof 13y ago

if the buyer wants to claim that he didn't receive the coins, what is wrong with that?

GhotiFish 13y ago
The buyer can make a fraudulent claim and get his money back. There is no way to prove he got the money if he claims he doesn't own the wallet, and there's no way to prove he owns the wallet unless he ties that wallet to himself somehow. (which is possible but not reliable, and countermeasures exist anyway)

kalleboo 13y ago

The question here isn't what makes sense logically, but what makes sense to the claims department at PayPal/eBay. They won't listen to you explain how the blockchain works, they'll ask for a shipping tracking number, and when you can't provide one, they'll say "we don't offer seller protection on virtual goods".

sliverstorm 13y ago

How, exactly, do you propose the buyer receive bitcoins without sharing his wallet address?

dully 13y ago
If the buyer is getting a wallet shipped on a USB drive then the seller doesn't need to know the buyer's wallet address.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  The seller can easily find out. Record the address of the wallet you put on the USB drive. Wait a week. Check out the block chain to see where the coins went from there. Nothing that happens on the bitcoin network is private. The best you can do is try to guard the points of entry and exit, and mailing a USB stick announces where you live.
- GhotiFish 13y ago
  Also, the seller could just transfer the coins out of the wallet after he ships them. I can't see a way to prevent the seller from doing this. The USB drives and the paper wallets are meaningless. Only the transactions can be trusted.
GhotiFish 13y ago
I wasn't saying the buyer wouldn't have to share his wallets address normally. Of course the buyer must share his wallets address, but the caveat is that he must do so publicly so that everyone can see that he owns that wallet, so that everyone can see that he received that money. If the buyer didn't reveal his wallets address, he could claim that the seller owned the wallet where the bitcoins were transferred, or that they were transferred to someone else. There's no way of proving otherwise unless the buyer did something to tie the address to himself. (he bought some movie tickets and the theatre disclosed it was him, for example.) Of course, that's looking at it from a pragmatic view. As others have explained, payment services don't care at all about what's actually happening, only that what HAS happened fits protocol. So this won't matter until the world has come to terms with crypto-currencies.