There wouldn’t be one (and indeed, there isn’t one): ETH is now just a shitty clone of the current fiat banking system, but with even less transparency and more corruption (and to put the cherry on it, it’s an environmental catastrophe to boot). It’ll be a few more years before the starry-eyed libertarians figure that out though.

You don't see a difference between banks that undo transactions constantly, and a system that might undo one or two a year?

Disclaimer: I do not recall my bank undoing my transaction. Ever, that is.

But, yes, I assume that banks do undo transactions somewhat regularly. And I do see a difference. With regards to the banks, there are regulatory bodies with necessary tools to oversee banks and force (of course, they do fail occasionally...) them to behave properly. With Ethereum, there is no such body, but I am expected to trust a bunch of people who claim to have developed a currency which requires no trust. The oxymoron in the last sentence is in itself enough for me to prefer banks, thank you very much.

> but I am expected to trust a bunch of people who claim to have developed a currency which requires no trust

It does require trust just as you require trust from the seeders/peers of a BitTorrent shared file. If these seeders/peers agree that they should modify the said file, you either agree with them or not. If latter, then you end up with a two versions.

I don't recall "trustless" being one of bittorrent's main selling points?

Further, to accept crypto as payment very much requires trust (or faith or belief or whatever you want to call it) that you later find some third party that is willing to accept your coins as payment, preferably with roughly the same value that you assigned to it in the first place.

Awfully lot of trust flying around in a trustless system in my opinion.

You'll have to understand that the trust in 'trustless system' is in the technical sense. Think of traditional RDBMS versus blockchain for sharing data between two companies. The former needs trust because it is mutable and controlled by an admin. The latter is more designed to be 'trustless'.

I hope your technical ability helps me here in conveying my point to you.

You don’t see a difference between a regulated system in a state were people are sovereign and one system where the people at the top of it can do whatever they want? It’s kind of sad to see a lot of people enjoying fascism barely 70 years after the most terrible war to date...

> You don’t see a difference

I don't know how to reply to this. That's the opposite of what I said.

> It’s kind of sad to see a lot of people enjoying

I hope you're not talking about me, because I wasn't expressing a preference between entire systems. I was just pointing out a single aspect.

(If you must know, I think having a court system is best, but having the EIP system is better than nothing.)

It's confusing to see my comment go from a positive score to negative while replies show up all agreeing with me...

Undoing transactions is one of the most useful features of real banks. It helps prevent fraud.

Yeah, people arguing against this are so far removed from what the vast majority of people want that it's not really possible to have a discussion with them.

Most people like that you can have your bank or credit card company hold or reverse a suspicious transaction, and don't regard that as evil statist chains of slavery.

Not just undoing them; if my bank's ML fraud algorithm doesn't like my purchase, it won't let me make it at all! And the customer service rep doesn't know why it's happening and tells me he can't override it and "could I please stop using www.grabtaxi.com"

Happens to me multiple times a year, it's unbelievably bad.

That sounds unacceptable, why haven't you changed banks?!

I am with a different bank now, but previously the bank above (Chase) was the only bank in Canada that offered foreign transactions without an annual fee or a 2.5% currency conversion fee.

>You don't see a difference between banks that undo transactions constantly

You should use a different bank if this is actually true. This is not a common experience.

Some bounced checks, most fake checks, all chargebacks...

I don't have to experience these personally to know there is a vast landscape of transactions that get unraveled days to months later.

Some of these benefit the consumer, and some hurt the consumer.

But they apply to all banks.

There are no absolutes. Is Bitcoin decentralized? Sure, but not 100%, not every human has perfectly equal say and ability in its functioning - but it is much more decentralized than other systems and that has value.

Smart contracts are similarly high on the code-is-law spectrum relative to other systems. Day-to-day transactions are near perfectly transparent, predictable and repeatable. Changes require highly visible and discussed EIPs or similar.

As time goes on and lessons are learned they will likely increase in desired qualities, never fully achieving them, always in a state of pursuit.

> but it is much more decentralized than other systems

By which measure? There are more than six thousand banks[1] in US, all of which are perfectly capable to create significant amounts of USD currency. My understanding is that even if the number of Bitcoin miners may be higher, it is still much more concentrated to a hand of a few pools.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banking_in_the_United_States#A...

Generally the central bank dictates the money supply through interest rates.

Miners do not wield all the power, it is a dance between miners, economic nodes, developers and finally users. If those stakeholders are not on board it is unlikely for changes to occur.

Pools are different from being a single entity. If a thousand miners pooled together to lower their earnings volatility, that is much more decentralized than if one person owned a thousand miners. The individuals can choose to leave the pool or switch at any time. The pool is only a temporary agent.

The transactability of crypto is much more decentralized. In traditional banking you must ask for permission to send your money from one bank to another to eventually reach the intended recipient. In crypto it is peer-to-peer.

The US has a decent amount of banks, other countries like Canada do not, countries like Venezuela centrally destroyed their currency.

The central bank has only indirect control over how much money a bank is willing to lend, same goes for other financial instruments like collaterized debt obligations (ways of moving debt of the book of a bank, so that they can lend (i.e. create) more money) and credit default swaps.

Giving all the power to a bunch of Chinese miners doesn’t fit my definition of decentralisation honestly. I still believe much more in the banking system subject to different governments than anything that is (or can easily be with a minimum effort) in direct control of one single government quite famous for his absolute control over everyone and everything.

There is nothing systemic or inherent to China having a lot of hash power. They just happen to be strong in silicon manufacturing. This will likely decrease over time and is different from being centralized by rule.