[hn_throwaway_99]

> Are there plans to build equivalent features on Blockchain for crypto currencies?

Basically every crypto enthusiast out there touts the non-reversibility of crypto transactions as its primary feature, not a bug, and that is why I see crypto as generally useless for your average person.

[pelario]

Not a fan of crypto, but your argument applies to cash, wish is still widely used (not only by shady people ;) )

[vishnugupta]

> but your argument applies to cash,

Right, so it's important to understand the context in which cash is used.

The vast majority of cash transactions take place in exchange for goods/services rendered immediately. Like I go to a grocery store, buy a pound of bread and pay cash. So disputes are settled right there and then, merchant and customer talk it out. Also, about 90% of cases ticket size is ~20$ so even if a dispute isn't settled in spender's favour it's no big deal. The spender will not transact at the merchant again so in fact more often than not merchants are willing to settle in favour of customers.

Now for larger ticket items I'd hypothesise that 99% of them are done through online through credit-card, bank transfer and what not. Due to safety reasons customer as well as merchant wouldn't want to deal with big sums of physical cash.

That leaves us with suitcase piles of cash being paid; and it's not hard to guess it's mostly being done to avoid authorities. Note that there is a legitimate use case for moving large piles of cash, say casino depositing daily earnings at their local bank. That is not a transaction in a meaningful sense.

[hn_throwaway_99]

I think this is really a key insight. The physical nature of cash actually puts limits its fraudulent use cases.

I mean, think of all the movie plot points that center around having a drop point for ransom payments. Remember that scene from Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol in 2011 where they are doing an exchange and the best form of illicit payment is a bag of diamonds.

Not only does crypto make giant illicit ransom payments feasible on a previously unimaginable scale, it's going to make our movies more boring ;)

[vishnugupta]

Since you mentioned movie, my favourite one is No Country for Old Men :-). If that movie doesn't put the fear of a bag full of cash, I don't know what will!

[linspace]

I really don't know anything about the subject but I think stolen cash is much more hard to conceal and to move. It can be marked also and tracked (or so they say in the movies). You need to justify its possession. You cannot go to the airport with an arbitrary amount of money.

[jhauris]

> You cannot go to the airport with an arbitrary amount of money.

This is actually a major problem in the U.S. where the fourth amendment is supposed to protect against unreasonable seizure. It is not illegal to carry cash, but federal and local law enforcement agencies will by policy seize cash without charging anyone with a crime. The victim needs to sue to get their money back, and then the agencies use tax-payer dollars to fight it. This is a clear violation of the 4th amendment, but is absolutely rampant.

If we don't fix these problems with cash, you can bet they'll come for your crypto when it becomes popular enough.

[wombatpm]

I don’t keep me entire net worth in cash. ATMs have limits, and banks typically require in person presence and reporting when dealing with large amounts of cash. Crypto not so much.

[SlapperKoala]

Yeah and there's a reason people stopped keeping money in cash

[rastapasta42]

Banks basically act as escrow service, and it's not difficult to build this feature with smart contracts (as long as vendor is comfortable with the money being held by Escrow for a period of time, say a month).

[hn_throwaway_99]

So, in other words, build in all the parts of the modern banking system into crypto, which was specifically designed to be decentralized without a single arbiter of the correctness of transactions. Talk about the worst of all possible worlds...

At the end of the day, there is a fundamental judgement call when it comes to disputes: was the product "substantially not as described"? who has better evidence? etc. Once you put an arbiter in the middle, making this decision (which, again, I argue is an essential point of the modern financial system) the entire raison d'etre of crypto goes away.

[swiley]

It is, bitcoin is cash on the internet. If you want reversible transactions and credit then use a credit card, I'm pretty sure there are credit cards for crypto now and if there aren't there probably will be soon.

[hooplah]

It is for merchants. Chargebacks are abused and can kill your profitability in certain industries. Stripe and PayPal label these has high risks and will shut your account down if you receive too many chargebacks.

As someone who uses crypto on both ends, I think no reversal is the fairest way. Both sides lie, but the customer lies quite a bit and is usually favored in CC reversals.

[Nursie]

We have literally millennia of evidence that merchants are not to be trusted. “Both sides lie” covers a massive power imbalance as well as just ignoring history.