Topic: What's up with the flaunting of irreversibility? (Read 292 times)

It's a double edged sword, I don't think anyone would be foolish enough to argue that irreversibility in p2p transactions is the epitome of a pristine economic system, it's far from it. You incur risk any time you send a transaction because there is no do-overs, that risk is mitigated by common sense, and that risk becomes your advantage when the roles are reversed and you become the seller.

This has always been a problem with crypto. It is why reputation is so important and frivolous use of the trust system should not be accepted by the community. I haven’t seen anyone come up with a good solution for this issue, but perhaps we must accept that cryptocurrencies have their limitations and in the end it comes down to dealing with people who have solid reputations and honest intentions.

This, exactly. If you allow reversing some bitcoin transactions when fraud was involved, then bitcoin becomes no better than any other centralized currency. If you allow spying on some users' communication, then everyone's communication is at risk. If you ban some speech because you don't like it, then nobody has free speech anymore.

If you want bitcoin to be decentralized and censorship resistant, then you cannot possibly have some centralized entity deciding which transactions can be unilaterally reversed.

Not only that, but what if someone reverses a transaction I've already spent? You send me coins, I spend the coins at a merchant, and then you reverse your payment, leaving the merchant out of pocket and me responsible for it. Not to mention you could end up invalidating whole chains of transactions. Unless you say once the coins have moved they can't be reversed, which would just flood the network with absolutely everybody sending every transaction they receive to another address they own to bypass the reversibility feature. Completely unworkable.

paypal is not dollar.

paypal is an escrow
you cannot compare paypal to bitcoin

paypal is comparable to all the bitcoin escrow services.
a bank note has no reversibility

if you deposit into an escrow (localbitcoins) they have their own claims process.

so in your arguments. try to keep to the correct analogies
bank note=bitcoin
paypal=escrow(localbitcoins)

after all in the fiat world you would not trust sending bank notes to a strangers PO box when buying something on ebay, that WHY YOU CHOOSE TO USE PAYPAL
so with bitcoin if you dont trust sending bitcoin direct USE AN ESCROW

oh, and if bitcoin did have a reversibility feature. what stops them reversing the reserve of the reverse. meaning no one can trust a confirmation anymore, even a refund of a fraud cant be trusted as the fraudster can then reverse their funds seizure.
it just opens up a whole bag of trouble of killing the purpose of bitoin..
.. oh wait your one of the altnet 'channel routing' lovers that want to break bitcoin to promote your altnet..
.. now i understand why your so emotionally hyped about wanting to break a bitcoin fundamental feature

maybe i have got you all wrong and you simply were recruited into these altnets before having time to learn what bitcoin is and does. so i hope you can take the time to learn about confirmation finality and its purpose, utility, benefit. and not simply ignore it to try tearing it apart in efforts to promote how your altnet is better

Simply, in most cases is involving theft.
A guy could put a knife at your throat ask you to unlock your phone and that's it all your coins are gone. With a bank account or a credit card, you still have a chance! Same for everyone that gets its computer infected with malware or anything else, if I get an alert that at 2 pm my cc is being used somewhere in a store in Dubai I get on the phone and block it, if I get an alert that my transaction just get confirmed...well fuck...
By mistake entered the wrong address, you're at the mercy of the one who holds it, you sent btc to bshit, the same thing.

Cases and cases.
Could somebody force me to go to an atm and withdraw the maximum allowed money, yeah he could, does he know I have access to x10 more in btc he could get in a split second if I'm smart enough? Nope!  

Pros and cons in everything, if we will have all the cars on the earth automatically stop 2 meters from a person to prevent things like the last even in Waukesha, there will be a band that will simply enter the highway stopping everybody and robbing them, if you piss your neighbor he will just send his kid in your drive way every time you get close to the car and block you. Every single thing can be abused and has flaws and in some situations, there is always a better one.

Merchants are doing what's best for their profits, and reducing risks means minimizing loses, which means more profits. They don't exist to purely serve the clients, serving clients is means to an end, not the end itself.

However, I think this factor is not very relevant, because merchants don't see any point in supporting a payment method that their customers are not using, it would just be a waste of resources to implement it.

I sometimes forget to return from the Joe's view. Yep, these are decent reasons.

Because of all the other benefits bitcoin brings. Sovereignty over my own money. Privacy if I want it. Censorship resistant. No third parties. Etc.

Sure, irreversibility provides a greater benefit for the merchant than for the buyer, but I have never once been discouraged from using bitcoin as a currency because of its irreversibility, and I have never once been scammed or lost bitcoin because I actually pay attention to what I'm doing and who I'm trading with. If you can't trust yourself to pay attention to your money or not to be scammed, then sure, maybe a reversible currency where a third party can step in and save you from yourself is a better option in your case.

I'm leaving this question for anyone who's willing to enlighten me:  If Bitcoin doesn't favor the buyer, but we want it to be adopted, how will we convince the buyer to use that, instead, if this very reason discourages them?

I didn't mean that irreversibility is a complete disadvantage for the people in general, but it really depends on which side of the shopping you're at. Could you name me these few, other things that are a lot worse?

I never said that bitcoin should change to a highly censoring currency with reversible transactions. I'm just thinking what's better for me to use. It seems it's bitcoin, because I don't want from anybody to know what I'm buying, but the downside is this.

I didn't badmouth bitcoin.

Couldn't agree more.

One of the big features of Bitcoin is this.

The answer is simple: If you allow reverses, you are letting someone the power to discriminate you, if you want that, go back to fiat.

The responsibility falls entirely in you. So don't get scammed, and if you do, go after the culprit, leave Bitcoin alone.
If someone makes an altcoin such as Ethereum, where one or few people can decide what transaction goes and what doesn't, go back to fiat.

The whole point of Bitcoin is to remove the power from these (any) people, otherwise they may decide tomorrow to block your transactions on a whim.

Its all or nothing. Either it works for ALL, or it works for NOBODY.
This is one reason why Bitcoin is so valuable, while the rest are not.

The power to discriminate should never exist. If someone is a criminal or not, that is outside of the code, its none of Bitcoin business. Otherwise you open a can of worms, some selected elites will abuse this power, because you are not of their country, or share their beliefs, or whatever.

The whole point of Bitcoin is freedom from all this nonsense.

Transactions are FINAL, there is no turning back. Want protection? Use a mutually trusted middle party, so called escrow, etc. That is your choice, just like you can ask a bank to store your bitcoins and handle them your keys. A foolish choice in my opinion, but a choice that is OPTIONAL, and not MANDATORY.

Reverse a transaction and you will lose trust forever. You are declaring the world that your garbage coin is as trusty as the whim of their creator or dev team or whatever small group of elite controls it or get coerced to. NOBODY can turn back a transaction in bitcoin, not even Satoshi, and that is PRICELESS.

Yes, it is.
Understand for every great opportunity there must be a great sacrifice. I know if the cryptocurrency transaction reverse is introduced it will be a great benefit to everyone but what makes you think the same people that abused the freedom and decentralization of Bitcoin won't abuse the reverse features since Bitcoin is not governed when you and I?

I think the irreversibility of crypto is still a great advantage since only the sender has to be security conscious.

If me, because that "irreversibility" is part of crypto, since i joined in this kind of community then i will accept something that can't be change, maybe keep suspicious to other people is something that we must do. Because once we're careless, scammer will take it as their advantage and then stole our money. And for Paypal, sometimes scammer can made that reversible thing as advantage too because they can ask refund and if we lose in position, we can lose our money because refunded to scammer. My point is scammer will have a lot of ways to steal people's money and it is better that we always guard ourself.

Why should it be considered as an advantage and where did you read it as an advantage of btc? The irreversible transaction is part of the things you should be aware of while using btc for transactions since that's the way it was designed, in the case of having a buyer's protection like ebay for refunds on item not received or things like, it is not possible with crypto as it is in fiat, you can see it as a disadvantage and not advantage.

I was talking about PayPal. Reversing a transaction in PayPal requires to address them. A bitcoin transaction cannot be reversed, however you may get your money back if you make a complaint to the police.

And I'm wondering, what counts as evidence with Bitcoin?

Nonetheless, PayPal gives you tips to avoid these cases.

And yet, much less scams happen from the merchants' side. Isn't it a double-edged sword?

No, the first method is a reversible method (like PayPal) and lots of merchants receiving payment through reversible methods are getting scammed every day.
You can search the keyword "PayPal chargeback scam" and see the complaints.

Irreversible like Bitcoin? They don't. You mean reversible like PayPal?