[olalonde]

- decentralised: why is this good?

Imagine a world where the web is controlled by a single entity, say Facebook. They get to decide who is allowed to create a website. They get to decide how much it cost. If they're not happy with the site's content, they can take it offline. Do you believe that would be a better world to live in?

- trustless: I trust the companies I use, it works

That's because there's usually no alternative. But when there's a trustless alternative, you may find that it is less risky or costly. Many people chose e2e encrypted messengers because they don't trust a third party with their private messages.

- censure resistance: OK, fringe case for most

"[...] Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

It may be fringe but it's a massive issue for those who are censored. It's also not that uncommon. It is estimated that there are over 1 billion unbanked people worldwide. Also, try "PayPal horror stories" on Google.

- pseudonymous: why do I want anyone to be able to see my transaction history?

What parent meant is you can transact with people without knowing their real identity. I could send you a BTC tip on HN without knowing your name or address. Regarding your concern about privacy, no one can really determine your transaction history by looking at the blockchain. It's possible to do some guessing but all you really see are transactions going from opaque addresses to other opaque addresses with no attached identity information. Also, this can be further solved with CoinJoin[0].

[0] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/CoinJoin

[dmitriid]

> you may find that it is less risky or costly. Many people chose e2e encrypted messengers because they don't trust a third party with their private messages

Private messages are not money. Example: you ordered some goods and those arrived in bad shape. What's your recourse in the trustless world?

[olalonde]

There are some semi-trustless systems that work with escrows [0]. But realistically, an arbitration system does indeed require a trusted party.

There is no trustless world, just a world where trustless is an option and where "trustful" systems can be built on trustless foundations.

[0] Those systems give some guarantees about the trusted party (e.g. that they can't just run with the money).

[dmitriid]

> where the "trustful" systems are built on trustless foundations.

You cannot build trust on a trustless foundation. As, again, the crypto world is busy rediscovering.

[olalonde]

What do you mean by that? I don't see why there couldn't be a centralized service offering payment dispute arbitration on top of Bitcoin (this is what I meant by building "trustful" systems being built on top of trustless foundations).

[dmitriid]

> why there couldn't be a centralized service offering payment dispute arbitration on top of Bitcoin

What exactly does Bitcoin provide in this case?

> this is what I meant by building "trustful" systems being built on top of trustless foundations

So, a service that exists outside bitcoin, has a trust system built entirely outside bitcoin and only doing something with bitcoin because reasons... is "building trustful systems on top of trustless systems".

I don't think you know what "building on top" means.

Edit: grammar and mobile typos

[olalonde]

Do you extend the same reasoning to fiat?

There are many centralized services that do dispute arbitration on top of USD. Those systems are built entirely outside of USD. PayPal for example doesn't have an account at the Federal reserve nor does it handle physical cash. They are effectively "off-chain" payment systems for USD.

So I guess your question is, what are the advantages of BTC over a fiat currency like USD. The answer is two folds:

1) BTC has an open network (the Bitcoin blockchain) allowing users to exit payment systems for the purpose of self-custody or for interconnecting with other payment systems. There's no equivalent system with fiat. Self-custody of USD literally requires transporting and storing pieces of paper. You also can't directly transfer USD from PayPal to say, CashApp.

2) BTC has a predictable money supply. Fiat currency doesn't: money supply can be arbitrarily inflated.

In addition to the above, Bitcoin enables the creation of payment systems that are more tightly built on top of it, like the Lightning network, which preserves many of the properties of Bitcoin (e.g. trustless). You could also build a dispute arbitration system where the arbiter just needs to be semi-trusted (e.g. there are schemes that can cryptographically prevent the arbiter from stealing escrowed funds, etc.).