[mrb]

"Someone steals my credit card, and if I notice within 2 months, I can get everything back."

No. You may still be liable for $500 if you fail to report it within 48 HOURS: http://consumer.findlaw.com/credit-banking-finance/are-you-l...

"Another advantage is that it doesn't take several hours"

You hold a common misconception of how transactions work. Bitcoin transactions are transmitted/notified instantly (like credit cards). Transactions will be confirmed and spendable by the recipient within 10min on average (with CCs it takes 1-3 days until the merchant gets the money). Finally transactions are considered irreversible/definitely non-fraudulent after 6 blocks or 60min on average (with CCs it takes 60 days since charge backs are possible for 60 days).

So if you compares apples to apples, Bitcoin is always faster than credit cards.

"huge amounts of wasted electricity"

This is not wasteful: http://blog.zorinaq.com/bitcoin-mining-is-not-wasteful/

[rtpg]

that argument about bitcoin mining not being wasteful just shows it's not wasteful compared to other decentralized, trustless currencies. It still loses out to traditional payment methods.

"It will only use 1% of the world's electricity consumption". We can only do that for 100 things. Does "decentralisation of currency" belong in the top 100 things to devote electricity generation to?

EDIT: do you have a link to a fuller explanation about transaction speeds? I do not understand how transfers can happen so quickly without introducing a risk of double spend

[mrb]

Why would the argument be only valid when compared to other decentralized, trustless currencies? The benefits indirectly extracted from Bitcoin mining ($1B invested in 729 companies, thousands of jobs created, etc) exist precisely because Bitcoin has advantages over other traditional payment systems.

"Does "decentralisation of currency" belong in the top 100 things to devote electricity generation to?"

I think so. If (big if) Bitcoin ever becomes so successful that 1% of the energy is spent on it, think about the massive scale of positive social and economic changes it means it will have brought: freeing people from economic censorship and persecution, reducing international payment friction hence increasing economic trade, etc.

But I think neither you nor I can envision the scale of such potential social and economic changes. It is like asking a random person from the 1890s how much do they think automobiles will change the world, and almost nobody would have predicted automobiles are a major enabler of the economic expansion of the 20th century.

Transaction speeds: zero-conf txs are at risk of a double-spend, but in practice this happens extremely rarely.

[hueving]

>No. You may still be liable for $500 if you fail to report it within 48 HOURS

"may" is much different than "are". I've had it happen 3 different times and didn't realize until many days later and was never asked to pay for any of it.

Guess how much you lose if someone steals $50,000 of bitcoin from you and you don't notice for 48 hours?

>Transactions will be confirmed and spendable by the recipient within 10min on average

Almost nobody gives two shits about how long it takes for the recipient to be able to spend it in the majority of credit card transactions.

>Finally transactions are considered irreversible/definitely non-fraudulent after 6 blocks or 60min on average (with CCs it takes 60 days since charge backs are possible for 60 days).

Worse for the consumer, better for the merchant. But again, nobody cares about the merchant in these cases. Merchants already hate credit cards so you don't need to convince them. You need to convince consumers, who drove the credit card adoption in the first place.

[mrb]

""may" is much different than "are""

Which is why I corrected the poster who made it sound like credit cards "always" protect you, when it's not true. "Often" and "mostly", but not "always".

"Guess how much you lose if someone steals $50,000 of bitcoins"

Hardware wallets solve the theft problem. To date there have been no verifiable incidents of Bitcoins stolen from hardware wallets.

Credit cards as they are implemented will NEVER solve the theft problem without constant anti-fraud efforts. Bitcoin uses cryptography to authorize a specific transaction. Credit cards rely blindly on the merchant's good will and security to charge for the right amount and to prevent the CC info from being stolen. The more you transact the more merchants the CC info circulate through, and the higher the risk of fraud. Which is why CC fraud has been rising and rising for many years.

"Almost nobody gives two shits about how long it takes"

Listen, I was just pointing out people who say "CCs transactions are quicker than Bitcoin transactions" are wrong. Accepting a zero-conf Bitcoin transaction is similar ("as risky as") accepting a CC transaction after swiping/chip-and-pin. Therefore that's what should be compared, and both Bitcoin and CC transactions are just as fast as each other (seconds).

I actually agree that the immutability of a Bitcoin transaction is a negative for the consumer. (But I don't think it is a cons big enough to seriously hamper Bitcoin's adoption.)

[hueving]

>Which is why I corrected the poster who made it sound like credit cards "always" protect you, when it's not true. "Often" and "mostly", but not "always".

This is a distinction irrelevant in the real world where the status quo (at least in the US) is that companies protect you. Bitcoin has to compete with what exists, not a potential strawman based on what the laws say.

>Hardware wallets solve the theft problem. To date there have been no verifiable incidents of Bitcoins stolen from hardware wallets.

Can hardware wallets be stolen? If so, you just lost $50k regardless of the attacker gaining access to it. If not, it means you have keys backed up somewhere that can be stolen.

>>"Almost nobody gives two shits about how long it takes"

>Listen, I was just pointing out people who say "CCs transactions are quicker than Bitcoin transactions" are wrong.

Don't quote out of context. The rest of my sentence clearly shows I'm referring to the speed for the consumer. From a consumer perspective, the transaction is done right when the credit card machine returns (a.k.a within seconds).

>Accepting a zero-conf Bitcoin transaction is similar ("as risky as") accepting a CC transaction after swiping/chip-and-pin.

No it's not. A zero-conf transaction someone can double-spend against and the merchant has no recourse and the consumer has no risk. Merchants will be forced to wait for confirmation unless they have other leverage against the consumer to use on bad behavior.

In CC transactions, the risk to the merchant is a chargeback. A consumer can only lie about these a few times in their life before they get caught by a combination of the credit card company and a merchant and they will be arrested for credit card fraud.

Until the government steps in and writes laws making double-spending fraud, CC will be safe than zero-conf transactions.