Crypto is an unproductive bubble

Re:Crypto is an unproductive bubble by Consultant32452 on Saturday March 19, 2022 @12:31AM (#30731037)

Crypto transactions are no less reversible than ACH or wire transfers. The warm fuzzy feeling you have about ACH is you have a trusted third party intermediary that contractually or legally guarantees they will give you the same amount of currency back under certain conditions. If something goes wrong with that ACH/wire transfer and you don't get your money back, you'll have to sue, just like you would crypto.

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Re:Crypto is an unproductive bubble by katbyte on Saturday March 19, 2022 @02:11AM (#30731571)

The destination of a wire is an account at a bank, who’s owner can be tracked down to recover the money from.

Crypto wallet owners can be entirely hidden and impossible to sue.

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Re:Crypto is an unproductive bubble by Consultant32452 on Saturday March 19, 2022 @02:44AM (#30731722)

Wire fraud is a massive problem. I recently bought a house and I was given very specific instructions about how to verify the wire destination and it was made quite clear that if I was taken in by a fraudster I would never get my money back. Lots of money, like buy a house lots of money. Almost zero chance I would get my money back.

Have you ever worked a retail/food chain job and gotten to see how many CC transactions are invalid/fraudulent resulting in the business losing money? I worked at a pizza place where 5-10% of CC transactions were bogus (college town). Checks were more like 20%.

All financial transactions are trust relationships. Some are higher trust than others. If you could buy groceries at Wal-Mart or a new iPhone from apple.com with bitcoin you would have no concern about that. If you send money to a rando on the internet, well it doesn't matter all that much whether it's crypto or dollars.

Sometimes you will have third party intermediaries, like VISA, who will offer certain guarantees/insurance for a fee. It's as simple as that.

It's silly to compare transactions with known/trusted entities like a physical business or trusted insurance provider/intermediary like VISA with sending your money to a random anonymous bitcoin address. You would not generally be wiring money to a random anonymous bank account either.

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