[dastx]

This is one of very few reasons why having centralised banks is going to be necessary. Whether the pros of having banks outweigh the cons decentralised currencies, is yet to be determined. Personally, I still don't believe they do.

Anyway, the usual bank transaction care should still apply, especially _because_ there is no central authority to reverse charges. Normally when I send money to anyone, I check it first by sending a small amount, then I get confirmation that it's received, then I'll send the rest.

I don't know if such a precaution would have made sense in this scenario (as I don't know enough about LINK or smart contracts for that matter), but it's something that I take especially serious when transacting large amounts in crypto currencies.

[metalliqaz]

What you are said contradicts all of my current life experience. Established banks are very good at handling reversed charges in the case of mistakes, fraud, and ESPECIALLY glitches. In the case of a glitch, banks _do_ have authorities that can mutate the system to fix things.

Now, I don't have experience with very large sums of cash, but I own a house and I have opened and closed a few investment accounts. I never felt the need to sent test payments through the system first. If the bank had screwed up, I'm sure it would have been a lot of trouble to fix, but it would have been fixable, no doubt.

[tlarkworthy]

I send test payments through the tubes first when a big one is following. I want to remove the risk of typos for the real payments, so I want the receiver already keyed in with an account that I have already used > once. The stress of having to fill out admin for a big payout gone awry is too much to risk for a few days of expedience.

[moltar]

Same here. When I’m TransferWising someone large sums, I always do a minimal transfer first.

[cjfd]

Well, it is also possible to send money to the wrong account number by bank transfer. In that case the banks also generally say that they cannot do anything about it.

[ceejayoz]

Wrong account is one of the three specific scenarios the National Automated Clearing House Association permits an ACH reversal for.

(The others are wrong amount and duplicate transactions.)

[atian]

Wire transfers are a better comparison to crypto transactions, and they are less forgiving.

[nabla9]

That's not correct. At least not in general and not in most developed countries. If it's international transfer, it's more complicated.

You should transfer to be stopped or reversed as fast as possible. If it can't be done, receiving bank can freeze the funds.

Sometimes the person who receives the money may be held liable if they just spend large sums of money that were transferred to their account.

[danpalmer]

But the point is that it's a blurred line that can be argued with banks or even in courts, rather than a hard line defined cryptographically.

Having money that is almost entirely usable "correctly", but that with enough effort can be changed slightly in some cases is often useful.

This is the harsh reality of "zero trust" cryptocurrencies, but I think it's often one that is overlooked by proponents.

[jtbayly]

Generally they just fix it for you, actually.

[DubiousPusher]

I don't think this is true. I think usually an obvious error like a large sum sent to an incorrect account is reversible. Though certain specific transactions such as wires are harder to recover than others such as intrabank transfers.

[atian]

Yes, which you go through a governance system (our legal system) to recover it. Crypto governance works similarly where it exists in varied forms (e.g. replace the contract or hard fork).

It’s not mature yet but the parallels exist and crypto’s will continue to develop.