Is the irreversibility of Bitcoin transactions a downside for an average person?

Abiky

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Quote from: oktana on November 07, 2023, 02:35:32 PM

But then, is there irreversiblility of cash transactions? For what I know, cash transactions can be reversed. If I made a payment to a wrong person, it will be traced and because it is a centralized system where you’re not just the only owner of your account, the money can be duely reversed from your account with or without your knowledge or permission. Hence, it is reversible and very much unlike Bitcoin.

By "cash", I think he meant paper money transactions. If that is the case, then yes, you can't reverse cash transactions. Only if that "cash" is stored in a bank account, and sent to another person from there. That's because the "cash" is essentially "digitized", allowing a middleman to easily reverse the transaction if something goes wrong. Same goes with credit cards.

But with Bitcoin, it's another story. It's more akin to cash, because transactions are completely irreversible. The only way to "reverse" a transaction would be for miners to reach a consensus and rollback the Blockchain. And that's practically impossible to achieve. Therefore, people should be more responsible when using Bitcoin to avoid getting scammed or sending coins by mistake. As long as BTC stays decentralized forever, there should be nothing to worry about. Wink

South Park

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Quote from: hatshepsut93 on October 31, 2023, 06:41:36 PM

So I saw this topic about succesfully returned accidental transaction and it provoked some thoughts.

Those that send money generally want to have an option to reverse the transaction if there's a mistake or if they didn't receive what they wanted. Those that receive money want transactions be irreversible to not get scammed by chargebacks.

In our world a lot more people are senders rather than receivers. An average person receives money once or typically a few times per month and then does dozens or hundreds of payments. And since they receive money from an employer, it's unlikely they will get scammed.

So why should the people who almost always send money praise Bitcoin's irreversibility if they personally don't directly benefit from it? Should they hope that merchants will lower the prices because they won't have to deal with chargebacks?

P. S. - this is not a topic about whether Bitcoin's irreversibility is objectively good or bad; it's about the perspective of average person today and what they need from their payment system in their life.

I can definitely see why many people may not like this, but there is not really any other option, the balance you see in your bank account and that you think as yours can be easily confiscated in a matter of seconds and disappear without you having too much of a recourse to object this decision, and while having irreversible transactions has its cons, it has the massive advantage that whatever coins you have in your wallet are yours and no one can take them away from you, and as a customer I am willing to take those drawbacks in order to have the certainty that my money is really mine.

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Quote from: adaseb on November 02, 2023, 09:56:19 PM

Remember ebay/Paypal?

They basically had a system which sided with the buyers generally. It got to the point where many people stopped selling on eBay altogether because there were too many claims opened against sellers and the transactions were easily reversed and the seller was stuck with no product and no money.

This is a bad centralised system where it doesn't work in general. Hence payments like bitcoin are better because if people can trust one another then it can work as a exchange. Its easier to learn how to spot scams and protect yourself to not get your crypto stolen so you don't have to reverse it rather than have not and have to deal with transactions which can get reversed.

As a long time miner here are 4 'truths'

1) eBay is great if you are buying gear.
2) and eBay sucks if you are selling gear.
3) btc is great if you are selling gear.
4) btc sucks if you are buying gear.

So the irreversibility of BTC makes it very useful for number

3) selling gear.

stomachgrowls

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Quote from: franky1 on October 31, 2023, 09:30:23 PM

for centuries people used cash/coins. where it got physically handed over to a recipient and if you wanted it back you had to plead to the receiver with good reason

with digital bank accounts you still need to ask a bank.. *

no money has ever been independently retrievable without requesting a drawback/chargeback/clawback/refund from someone

*yes banks have got lazy and just accept any reason to clawback funds.. but thats banks problem

Totally agree with this point on which it is really that true that making some cashbacks or retrieval couldnt really be done be someone personally not unless they would really be making out such request or something
do talks to that receiver on giving those funds back but if you dont do such thing then there's no way that you could really be able to get it back. Irreversibility on what makes Bitcoin do really get that popular in the sense that once those funds being sent out then there's no way that it could really be able to retrieve or modify it out. We've seen into those banking sectors or centralized coins which
transactions could be locked up and those funds could really be that controlled on which it do really shows about centralization stuffs on which possibility of reverse transactions or
holding up a certain account would really be that possible.

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Quote from: Dunamisx on November 07, 2023, 05:37:04 AM

Quote from: hatshepsut93 on October 31, 2023, 06:41:36 PM

P. S. - this is not a topic about whether Bitcoin's irreversibility is objectively good or bad; it's about the perspective of average person today and what they need from their payment system in their life.

I can see this irreversibility of bitcoin transaction as being the best option to deal away with people's imperfections when it comes to dealing with financial digital currency, since bitcoin is protocols on the block are immutable it pays for the transa to be a one way forward to avoid any unnecessary demands and request, considering that bitcoin is a decentralized digital network and uses a p2p network to perform it's transactions.

Once the terms and conditions are fulfilled by the set network protocols, it accept and process every transactions without reversals ones it's being confirmed, those that cannot abide by this consensus would rather be rejected by the network or they take their leave for non compliance, this is part of what every newbies must know before starting.

The problem with transactions that could be reversible is that who has the power to do that?
Who is in charge of deciding what will be reversible and what's not? In that case it makes things centralized and that's what I am against, I do not want anything that would be centralized and should be avoided at all costs.

I get that it is not simple but it could not be any harder on the long run neither, could be something that would change the bitcoin world from the bottom. Even if we make it decentralized and only the people who are part of it could make it reversible, that would be used to convince and fool people, send the money, then reverse it.

We have seen this a million times at paypal, people who does chargebacks even after getting the product, and a lot of companies ended up being in bankrupt zone because of those chargebacks and stopped using paypal all together because of it as well. That is an important part of the deal and bitcoin should avoid it.

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Quote from: NotATether on November 07, 2023, 05:20:29 AM

Quote from: Jet Cash on November 07, 2023, 02:56:46 AM

Is the irreversibility of a cash transactions a downside for an average person?

Apologies if somebody has already posted this.

I guess so, because the average subscription company makes it hella difficult to cancel your subscription, almost as if you are legally required to keep paying them a living wage.

You pay subscriptions in cash? Am I missing something here? I always loved cash, since I exactly knew how much money I have with me and how much I'm spending.
Also, don't give them your card. Pay subscriptions from your bank account. I usually look for sales where you can buy a whole year for 50% off and I pay that straight from my bank account, which doesn't leave them any options to charge me later. When my subscription finishes I'll simply lose access to the service.

There's no such thing as average person. My father was illiterate when it comes to online payments. My friend pays using a phone app every day. Where's the average between them?
There's a large group of people who don't use online payments at all, so for them irreversible transactions are normal.

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Quote from: Jet Cash on November 07, 2023, 02:56:46 AM

Is the irreversibility of a cash transactions a downside for an average person?

Apologies if somebody has already posted this.

But then, is there irreversiblility of cash transactions? For what I know, cash transactions can be reversed. If I made a payment to a wrong person, it will be traced and because it is a centralized system where you’re not just the only owner of your account, the money can be duely reversed from your account with or without your knowledge or permission. Hence, it is reversible and very much unlike Bitcoin.

n00ber

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We cannot claim 100% perfect bitcoin without any defect. Irreversibility will sometimes cause difficulties and disadvantages in some situations and for some people, but for bitcoin to be decentralized and secure, it is necessary. Just like many people complain about bitcoin being slow, transaction processing takes longer than other blockchains, but in return, bitcoin transactions are completely secure and decentralized, unlike other fast blockchains, cheap but concentrated. Therefore, anyone using bitcoin needs to have basic knowledge to avoid errors during use.

Abiky

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Quote from: oktana on November 06, 2023, 01:14:32 AM

If Bitcoin were reversible, it’ll mean that there is a middle man involved who decides the status of the transaction. But we don’t want that. People want to know that when they receive or send their Bitcoin, it’s gone and no one has the power to make any changes. There’s a feeling of security that it gives especially when you send money very often. So, if you sent a large amount of money in Bitcoin, you can for sure go to sleep with peace of mind. We just need to be careful when carrying out transactions. If we put up a poll to see how many people have lost their crypto just because they sent it to the wrong address, it won’t be a lot compared to those who have never made the mistake.

The idea was to use Bitcoin as digital cash. Not as a credit/debit card whose transactions can be easily reversed at will. In BTC, any transaction with more than 6 confirmations is considered irreversible. There needs to be a consensus of a 51% majority to successfully rollback the chain. Unless the person you've sent the BTC by mistake does the courtesy of returning your coins, don't expect to get lucky anytime soon.

It's always important to do your own due diligence before sending money to an unknown person. Bitcoin wouldn't be decentralized if there was an entity behind transaction dispute/resolution. For that, we have PayPal and/or traditional debit/credit cards. I'm sure people will learn a valuable lesson once they find out that no one is responsible for lost/stolen BTC (or coins sent by mistake). Just buy, "hodl", and forget about the rest. Grin

Dunamisx

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Quote from: hatshepsut93 on October 31, 2023, 06:41:36 PM

P. S. - this is not a topic about whether Bitcoin's irreversibility is objectively good or bad; it's about the perspective of average person today and what they need from their payment system in their life.

I can see this irreversibility of bitcoin transaction as being the best option to deal away with people's imperfections when it comes to dealing with financial digital currency, since bitcoin is protocols on the block are immutable it pays for the transa to be a one way forward to avoid any unnecessary demands and request, considering that bitcoin is a decentralized digital network and uses a p2p network to perform it's transactions.

Once the terms and conditions are fulfilled by the set network protocols, it accept and process every transactions without reversals ones it's being confirmed, those that cannot abide by this consensus would rather be rejected by the network or they take their leave for non compliance, this is part of what every newbies must know before starting.

NotATether

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Quote from: BlackBoss_ on October 31, 2023, 07:31:11 PM

They want irreversibility because it makes their trades safer. Reverse is like chargeback that benefits scammers more than solid users. We can not make reversibility to benefit minority of users because of their carelessness. The majority are carefully with their transaction broadcast, double check and more so they don't actually need to have reversibility.

Scammers use charge-backs, and scammers also use transaction finality. Is there anything they would not use to make an extra $100? (You know, like a starving artist who can't feed himself from his living.)

Quote from: Jet Cash on November 07, 2023, 02:56:46 AM

Is the irreversibility of a cash transactions a downside for an average person?

Apologies if somebody has already posted this.

I guess so, because the average subscription company makes it hella difficult to cancel your subscription, almost as if you are legally required to keep paying them a living wage.

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I already posted that bitcoin transactions aren't irreversible and still everyone missed it, I hope you won't miss this again.
You can cancel bitcoin transactions, yes, that's possible if you use the latest version of Electrum. You can cancel bitcoin transaction before it gets confirmed and that's done by double-spending it, electrum has that option. So yes, you can reverse them. By the way, exchanges don't offer you that option and you are very limited to features when you use them but you should be using non-custodial wallets instead of them.

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Is the irreversibility of a cash transactions a downside for an average person?

Apologies if somebody has already posted this.

Cryptomultiplier

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I have often given this a hard thought, hence why I try to triple check before sending out a transaction payment. The decentralized nature of Bitcoin makes irreversibility difficult but with an escrow account used for large asset of BTC, I think reversibility is possible if one party fails to fulfil the terms of transaction.

For normal traders, it would be hard to get hold of the block of transaction and reverse it, but if it were a fiat bank, the possibility is certain.

YUriy1991

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Quote from: Alpha Marine on November 06, 2023, 02:36:33 PM

The main problem, if Bitcoin was reversible would be when to be reversible and when to be irreversible.
If someone pays for goods and after receiving the goods reverses the payment? What happens then? How do we know when the person makes an honest mistake and needs to reverse the transaction or when it's a fraudulent activity?
Even with the traditional banking system that is centralized and controlled by third parties, you can't reverse a transaction. If you paid money into the wrong account or overpay for instance then the goodwill of the beneficiary will determine what happens next.

In transactions, both payments and purchases cannot be canceled once they have been made and no one can block them. So, to reduce errors, enter the Bitcoin address and amount correctly. This means that the irreversible nature of Bitcoin transactions does give users greater control over their funds, but also responsibility for the mistakes they make. Bitcoin is the way to go. To use Bitcoin, however, we have to know a few things about it first

bayu7adi

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For some people, it might seem like a good idea if Bitcoin transactions could be reversed without needing the recipient's approval... but I believe that such a feature would not have brought Bitcoin to where it is today. I consider irreversibility to be a fair characteristic of Bitcoin, where a sender needs to be cautious when handling their Bitcoin. We shouldn't send Bitcoin when we are not paying attention and being careful, as it could have serious consequences.

I know that most people in the world really like money... however, Im not sure how many people would want to engage in dishonest practices by taking advantage of the imperfect nature of a product or transaction tool. The truth is, there are still good hearted people who are willing to return their BTC to the original sender because the recipient may not deserve the BTC they received. this means that there are people who appreciate the irreversibility feature, and there are those who do not.

I'm one of the people who appreciate it because this feature is fair for everyone.

krishnaverma

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This irreversibility is a book for online goods and services seller as once they get paid by buyer, the buyer cannot charge back. On other payment mediums like PayPal, there is always a chance of charge back which leads to considerable loss for the seller. If we see felm the point of buyer, he might not be happy with this medium as in some cases seller can also cheat.

BitDane

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Quote from: adaseb on November 02, 2023, 09:56:19 PM

Remember ebay/Paypal?

They basically had a system which sided with the buyers generally. It got to the point where many people stopped selling on eBay altogether because there were too many claims opened against sellers and the transactions were easily reversed and the seller was stuck with no product and no money.

This is a bad centralised system where it doesn't work in general. Hence payments like bitcoin are better because if people can trust one another then it can work as a exchange. Its easier to learn how to spot scams and protect yourself to not get your crypto stolen so you don't have to reverse it rather than have not and have to deal with transactions which can get reversed.

I believe reversible and irreversible type of payment has its strength and weakness. While centralized services that allows payment to be reversed and favors the buyers but create unfavorable environment to seller, irreversible payment also has its flaw when the seller intend to scam its buyer.

If spotting scammers are too easy then client should have easily detected scam offers and can easily avoid them but we have seen many people getting scammed even though they are very careful with their dealings.

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I remember one of bitcoin's innovations and that was Dispute mediation. The service allows third parties to approve or reject a transaction in the event of a dispute as explained in its description - so this may be just what you need.

Source: https://bitcoin.org/en/innovation#mediation

Quote

Bitcoin can be used to develop innovative dispute mediation services using multiple signatures. Such services could make it possible for a third party to approve or reject a transaction in case of disagreement between the other parties without having control of their money. Since these services would be compatible with any user and merchant using Bitcoin, this would likely lead to free competition and higher quality standards.

OP – there will be pros and cons. Some people need these features developed - while most others don't want them. I don't really need it - but I'm sure others might. This may be subjective - but ideas like these have their uses too.

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Quote from: Alpha Marine on November 06, 2023, 02:36:33 PM

The main problem, if Bitcoin was reversible would be when to be reversible and when to be irreversible.
If someone pays for goods and after receiving the goods reverses the payment? What happens then? How do we know when the person makes an honest mistake and needs to reverse the transaction or when it's a fraudulent activity?
Even with the traditional banking system that is centralized and controlled by third parties, you can't reverse a transaction. If you paid money into the wrong account or overpay for instance then the goodwill of the beneficiary will determine what happens next.

I would have loved for Bitcoin transactions to be reversible if it were possible, but there will be too much inconsistency and this can be a very big problem for it.

Not only with Bitcoin but also with fiat transactions. Reversal of payments would be a bad thing and is prone to abuse from bad people unless there will be ‘something’ to regulate and check each transaction’s legitimacy which is quite of an impossible thing. Even with fiat digital payment, reversal of payments are not absolute. In some instances perhaps with active accounts receiving mistakenly sent amount, they could easily transfer it or withdraw it. I have experienced reversing a transaction before but that is only because the account where I’ve sent it is inactive; can’t imagine if it is. And with Bitcoin wherein transactions are anonymous, I think it would be harder for such function to imply.

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