[JoeAltmaier]

Fundamentally, Bitcoin is about not having any of that info. If it were a responsible financial institution, then there would have been federal regulations regarding reporting, reserves etc. But the miracle of bitcoins is, somehow it isn't subject to any reasonable oversight.

[IkmoIkmo]

Bitcoin is pretty much digital cash. There is no institution that governs the transfer of cash, as in if you pay at a store with cash, or pay a friend cash, or pay a criminal cash, or buy some drugs with cash, there's no 3rd party involved here like say a Paypal or bank transfer.

Bitcoin is like that.

But like bitcoin and cash, institutions are part of the ecosystem. You likely get paid by regulated organisations such as an employer or company, you may store your cash with a third party like Paypal, a bank or a bitcoin wallet service like Coinbase. You may exchange your cash into a different currency, or have a company send your cash somewhere, and institutions are involved just like with bitcoin.

And all these organisations are generally subject to the same, or stricter regulatory oversight. In most states for example, bitcoin companies are considered money transmitters and subject to your regular money transmitter laws. And in some states like New York, actual bitlicenses are being designed to specifically provide bitcoin/cryptocurrency regulations in addition to these laws, not replacing them.

The fact that not everyone uses institutions, or that some illegal institutions exist (just like how some use cash without using banks see [0], or use illegal organisations for their financial services (e.g. Hawala remittance services instead of Western Union, illegal in many countries), is no different from people using bitcoin without involving an institution, or using bitcoin services that don't follow their regulatory obligations. (the minority of popular wallet companies, exchanges etc, btw).

So... no miracle here. It's extremely similar to cash as we know it. Not exactly similar of course.

[07d046]

Yes, almost all of the advantages of Bitcoin are because it currently has practically no regulatory oversight. If it was to get mainstream usage, regulation would also grow, and at least if you want to play in licit channels, it would be almost exactly the same as what already exists. Being your own bank is much too hard and risky for the average consumer, and payment systems that provide useful consumer protections like chargebacks would be formed, so in the end, most people would be doing their banking at BitChase and using a BitVisa credit card.

[IkmoIkmo]

Bitcoin companies in e.g. the US have quite a lot of regulatory oversight. Not sure where you're coming from.

Chargebacks are a different topic, I know it's a cop out but I can't be bothered right now. I'll just say they're not as nice as people make them out to be, they're a big cost factor, they invite quite a bit of fraud, carry an awkward burden of proof, and socialise the costs (which I normally don't mind, but in this particular case it makes little sense).

I agree it's not unlikely that we'll still use institutions with bitcoin. The difference is that unlike something silly like Swift, we can have an open money protocol that is global, works with currency-agnostic tokens (bitcoins) that can present any value given the right derivatives market. It's more global, cheaper, faster, but perhaps most importantly more open and democratic, even with regulations in play. It's a bit like the Internet, even if companies individually are regulated, an open network is massively important. Anyway I won't stretch that comparison too far, most people dislike comparisons of something that's still very small to something grand. In addition to that, an open money protocol that is not proprietary or regional is a lot easier to disintermediate with software solutions. Even if institutions will still play a role, they'll be more software companies than brick & mortar administrative financial companies.

[07d046]

There are plenty of people who recommend against using those US companies like Coinbase because of they follow the regulations. This is on the front page of /r/Bitcoin at the moment: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/335lqi/coinbase_fl...

[IkmoIkmo]

So, did you change your point and agree with me, or does this somehow refute what I said? I don't follow.

[yc1010]

I like how the reason for "chargebacks" is often touted as "consumer protection" when the real reason it to line the pockets of the credit card duopoly and ensure the merchant always gets screwed.

In many developed countries there are consumer protection laws which entitle the buyer to Replacement, Repair, Refund (in that order usually), so a merchant not adhering to these laws could endup in serious legal trouble as is.

Bitcoin at least gives a choice to both buyers and sellers just like plain old cash does

Bitcoin, Cash and Traditional Banking (SEPA etc) provide an alternative for commerce where one is free from Visa/Mastecard stupidities and ensure that the Visa/Mastercard duopoly is actually forced to compete and not grow into a more dominant and more abusive entities than they already are. They provide an alternative to being tracked and data-mined and having personal information sold to god knows who :( People do not value their privacy until they lose it, and by then its too late.

* Cash allows me to pay (quite anonymously and without fear of being an entry in some datamine) for things locally

* SEPA bank transfer allows me to pay EUwide for goods and services reasonably quickly and for no fees (thank you EU! credit card duopoly must hate SEPA)

* Bitcoin allows me to instantly pay world wide with ultralow fees, its basically electronic Cash (credit card duopoly do hate bitcoin with a passion, just yesterday they prevented neteller from bridging bitcoin and credit card worlds which IMHO is anticompetitive! http://blog.neteller.com/2015/04/new-deposit-option-bitcoin/)

I forgot the last time I had to use a credit card (or paypal and their "consumer protection") in the last year, and my life both personal and business is easier and better for it.

[bduerst]

Insurance (and chargebacks) is one of those things you don't care about until you need it.

When someone stole my debit card number (probably through a compromised reader) and began using it fraudulently, my bank contact me, shut down the card, and eventually gave me my money back. How many people at Mt. Gox were insured?

You can make contrived hypotheticals about the "benefits" of not having these services, but they get harder to explain away when you do need them.

[yc1010]

Bitcoin != Mt Gox

The people using Mt Gox knew it was not an insured service and for most part ignored all warning signs for a long time that it was basically a scam.

They CHOSE to trust a shady service with a ridiculous name for the storage of their bitcoins when they could have stored them locally in a quite a secure manner. They CHOSE to send bitcoins and fiat to service that had warning lights flashing above it for months and months on end. The people who lost money in Mt Gox knew exactly what they were getting into and got burned for it.

Their stupidity is not the fault of bitcoin protocol/platform yet you and many others equate bitcoin to MtGox unfortunately.

BTW > http://blog.ycombinator.com/coinbase-yc-s12-is-becoming-the-... There are services being build around bitcoin including Ycombinator funded ones that build on bitcoin and start to offer things such as insurance and good professional trading tools and api's etc etc on top.

Bitcoin is a technology which gives users more options and choice (including choice to spend their money on scams such as MtGox if they so wish)

[bduerst]

Mt. Gox used bitcoin, just as my bank uses USD and has FDIC insurance. Stop splitting hairs.

Any number of the fraudulant/hacked bitcoin exchanges or marketplaces could be used in place of Mt. Gox as an example of when you need insurance: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794.0

You can't claim that no insurance/chargebacks is a competitive benefit and then say the ensuing consequences aren't a problem because of "expectations". People on a daily basis do not expect accidents or fraud, but when it does happen it is needed.

[yc1010]

You got it backwards it is the person I replied to earlier who claims that credit cards are superior because they have the "chargeback" feature.

Most of the worlds commerce is done in cash, Bitcoin is very much like electronic cash and it does this very very well. Like any other well designed protocol it does not attempt to do more than it was designed to do.

Things like insurance and chargebacks etc etc will be provided (already are!) by startups in the bitcoin space, and thats great.

In my opinion the credit card "chargeback" process is not a feature it gives too much control to the consumer while shafting them merchant (which in turns leads to higher prices for the consumer) all while making money for the credit card duopoly. If anything it makes fraud (against the merchant) more possible and likely this once again results in the consumers being indirectly harmed when merchants have to price in credit card fraud and chargebacks into their prices.

[Nursie]

>. I like how the reason for "chargebacks" is often touted as "consumer protection" when the real reason it to line the pockets of the credit card duopoly and ensure the merchant always gets screwed.

No, it's consumer protection.

Without chargeback being available many people wouldn't shop online, ever. I might not go that far but I would certainly only ever shop at stores whose names I already know. There's no way in hell I'd send money to some unknown vendor that may never fulfil my order without the ability to get the money back.

[wongarsu]

I have different observations. In Germany most people don't own a credit card, yet online shopping is alive and well. From my observation, when people don't fully trust a store they even prefer wire transfers (which are common, easy, and free, but offer no way to get your money back).

People simply trust the law to protect them. Doing a chargeback already implies that one of both sides is committing fraud. If an online shop is committing fraud we trust the police to get our money back.

[Nursie]

Chargebacks are quicker and easier than trying to drag a vendor through the courts, especially when your only relationship to the vendor is online, the vendor may be in another country and they may have just packed up and disappeared, or for whatever reason it is they just don't have the money.

Further, under UK law, the credit card issuer is a party to the debt and acts as a guarantor - they're on the hook if the merchant does somehow manage to get away with the cash.

>> Doing a chargeback already implies that one of both sides is committing fraud.

Yes, and we have thousands of years of 'Caveat Emptor' shenanigans to point out just how necessary consumer protections are in this space.

>> If an online shop is committing fraud we trust the police to get our money back.

Then you must be prepared to wait a long time and frequently be disappointed.

[chimeracoder]

> to line the pockets of the credit card duopoly and ensure the merchant always gets screwed.

First, in the US there are four companies, not two (or three, if you don't want to count Discover). And chargebacks aren't the reason that there are so few players - they're far from the biggest barrier to entry for an upstart, aspiring credit card provider.

> In many developed countries there are consumer protection laws which entitle the buyer to Replacement, Repair, Refund (in that order usually), so a merchant not adhering to these laws could endup in serious legal trouble as is.

That's not what chargebacks are generally for, and in fact using a chargeback for any of those three things is oftentimes considered misuse of the chargeback system. Chargebacks are for handling disputes regarding the actual goods or services promised or rendered.

Furthermore, having laws in place means nothing if it's prohibitively expensive for consumers to actually get them to be enforced in all but the largest disputes. Chargebacks are a tool that consumers can (and do) use to ensure that merchants adhere to these agreements. No individual is going to go to court with a merchant over a few hundred dollars on a disputed credit card charge. The consumer delegates this authority to the credit card company, who is more than happy to aggregate this risk across multiple customers, in exchange for a cut[0]. This is not a problem; it is the system working as intended!

I'm saying this both as a consumer and as a merchant who has gotten screwed over by one of the four (not two) major credit card companies[1] - chargebacks suck, but they provide an essential protection for consumers that the judicial system cannot.

(All of this is separate from fraud, which is a different matter entirely.)

> I forgot the last time I had to use a credit card (or paypal and their "consumer protection") in the last year, and my life both personal and business is easier and better for it.

I've had to make a few chargebacks in my life. The largest was for almost $2000. Even though the vendor was clearly in the wrong (and I had the written contract to prove it), it would have been way too expensive to actually try and get our money back through the judicial system. Fortunately, my credit card company was more than happy to settle the matter for us.

[0] The consumer doesn't pay for this service directly, but they do indirectly (which isn't fundamentally different from many other products and services, in which the actual cashflow is invisible to the end consumer - this can be problematic in its own right, but that's a separate matter of discussion).

[1] I have plenty of chargeback horror stories as a merchant, but that's the topic of another post. And that doesn't mean I don't see the value in chargebacks in general.

[curun1r]

> First, in the US there are four companies, not two (or three, if you don't want to count Discover). And chargebacks aren't the reason that there are so few players - they're far from the biggest barrier to entry for an upstart, aspiring credit card provider.

Regardless of how many players there are, it's hard to deny that they behave like a cartel, which I think was the point of GP's use of duopoly.

I don't really see chargebacks as an anti-competitive practice, but I do see them as shifting the burden for their shockingly-bad security practices to merchants and consumers and focusing on ease of use (even for criminals) to increase the amount of credit card spending and profits for the payment networks. Europe has had chip and pin for decades now (it was already well established on my first trip there in 1998) and we're just getting it now after a ton of major breaches that should have been easily prevented. But merchants are forced to take credit cards because consumers love the convenience of paying that way and they're prevented from knowing the added cost that it imposes. That's where the cartel behavior comes into play...the policies that prevent merchants from advertising different prices for credit card transactions to reflect that added cost of accepting credit cards adds a silent ~5% tax onto everything we buy. Even for informed consumers, it creates tragedy of the commons situation because you'd be foolish to buy with cash when you can pay the same price and get 1% cash back.

All of this follows from the chargeback system that places all the burden for fraud on merchants. If the payment networks bore the burden for fraud out of their cut, we would have seen credible security features long ago. And somehow, when breaches like Target and Home Depot come to light, we blame those companies rather than the payment networks who should have been responsible for solving these issues many years ago.

[chimeracoder]

> Europe has had chip and pin for decades now (it was already well established on my first trip there in 1998) and we're just getting it now after a ton of major breaches that should have been easily prevented.

There's a lot of misinformation about chip-and-pin (which is not surprising, because a lot of well-funded companies currently have a financial interest not to clarify the misinformation). This has been explained in more detail on the threads about the breaches by others who work on payment systems, but chip-and-pin would not actually have prevented several of the breaches that have happened recently in the US.

Furthermore, the main benefit to chip-and-pin has to do with the liability, not actual security. I'm not talking about the liability shift onto merchants who don't accept chip-and-pin; I'm talking about the situation in which fraud or suspected fraud occurs using a chip-and-pin system. In this case, though, the benefit is entirely for Mastercard/Visa/etc., and not for the consumer.

[yc1010]

Mass use of credit cards must be an American thing, here in Europe we actually do have descent consumer friendly payment methods (beside cash) in most countries and also fairly efficient Small Claims Courts.

Visa/Mastercard must absolute hate the EU and its consumer friendly policies that actually focus on making lives easier and cheaper for people here.

[TTPrograms]

Even going to a "fairly efficient" small claims court is infinitely less convenient than not going at all.

I think the consumer wins on this one.

[yc1010]

The consumer doesn't win, the consumer pays 1-3% more for everything than they should for good/services and the merchants ALWAYS endsup being shafted which leads them to raise prices more to account for fraud and chargebacks.

The only who actually wins is the credit card cartel.

[cookiecaper]

Chargebacks remove all responsibility from the buyer. Perhaps we'd be better off if the consumer did have to put some thought into the quality of the goods and services they're purchasing and the vendor they're purchasing from? In particular I don't think chargebacks should be allowed for sales under (at least) $50. In many cases where the sum is below that amount, the chargeback fee and man-time cost asssociated with filing a dispute makes it an automatic loss of money for the vendor, even if he/she wins the dispute.

[mikeash]

It's not like merchants are required to accept credit cards, or customers are required to use them. If you don't like using credit cards, don't. If you don't like merchants who accept them, patronize those who don't.

Of course, that last bit is pretty hard, but only because merchants have mostly decided that the cost and hassle of accepting credit cards is well worth it.

[yc1010]

If you want to sell anything over the internet your choice is either credit cards (and wallets such as paypal build on credit cards) or bank transfer or bitcoin

Once the again the keyword here is "choice" Bitcoin gives yet another option for eCommerce at ultralow fees. and thats great.

[s73v3r]

If the vendor has screwed me, why should it only count if it's above a certain amount?

[wongarsu]

Bitcoin exchanges are requiring more and more information to conform to money laundering regulations. In most countries Bitcoins are regulated either as currency, foreign currency or investment similar to stock. Some countries haven't quite made up their mind yet, but the real reason for the lack of comprehensive oversight is that it's so easy to operate a bitcoin business anonymously, escaping all regulation.

[wyager]

>If it were a responsible financial institution

Are you under the impression that it's an institution at all?

The whole reason Bitcoin is interesting is that it's not under the control of a company, group, or government.

[Nursie]

>> The whole reason Bitcoin is interesting is that it's not under the control of a company, group, or government.

In reality it's under the control of the lead developers and the people that run the very few large mining pools. As shown by their collusion to fix blockchain forks etc etc.

[wyager]

>In reality it's under the control of the lead developers

Only because they've done nothing wrong (thus far). If there was any hint of foul play, they would be out.

The people that run the mining pools don't "control" bitcoin to any substantial degree. And, again, if they seriously abused their power, a trivial software fix would be to change the proof-of-work algorithm, instantly obsoleting the miners' equipment.

[Nursie]

At the very least any action like that would create a huge schism and split the community and the currency.

I'm not trying to say that these actors have done anything bad, just the idea that it's not under control of a few central authorities isn't really grounded in observable fact...

[yc1010]

While Bitcoin use is currently small the actual concept of a working "electronic cash" that negates the need for the credit card network with the use of cryptography and maths must be a serious threat to Visa/Mastercard since it provides yet another alternative to their duopoly when it comes to commerce. No wonder they do everything in their power to spread fud about bitcoin, seed doubt and make life difficult for cryptotechnology related startups. Some banks (especially in UK) are in a similar boat.

Somewhat how traditional car companies were schizophrenic when it came to electric cars and have done everything to kill them despite posing little threat being such a small market until Tesla came along at shown that electric cars are 1) better in many ways and 2) actually profitable

[JoeAltmaier]

And yet, Mt. Gox.

[wyager]

What about Mt. Gox?