Hacker News Reader

Comment by Shacklz | Hacker News Reader

Except that it doesn't. You still need someone to put up and maintain ATMs, apps, exchange-sites etc. that allow for quick and easy transfer and exchange of bitcoin. People think this is all easy until things go wrong: Who do you appeal to if you get scammed? What do you do if you pay someone online with bitcoin who then just doesn't deliver what you've ordered? Who do you call if someone attached some kind of skimmer to a bitcoin ATM?

Don't get me wrong, there's so much wrong with the current banking system, and I really hope someone or something manages to disrupt it, but Bitcoin is no solution to that.

View on HN

this is not a leading question. what do you see as wrong with the banking system? It has taken 600 years to evolve, roughly. what does the next banking system look like? and do you really mean monetary system?

people are constantly conflating bitcoin the currency alternative with some kind of new way do banking, finance, monetary policy, and never explain what needs disrupting and what the new world look like. is it just better, faster, cheaper? or some fundamental disruption, not just incrementally less costly.

I think people have more of an issue with the rampant criminal financial sector than with banking itself. The problem is that banking has intermingled more and more in the last 30-40 years with finance, not sure if it's been overall positive for people's wellbeing.

> What do you do if you pay someone online with bitcoin who then just doesn't deliver what you've ordered?

This is the big problem with crypto. Trust moves around. But there is one solution: escrow backed by smart contracts - see here for one implementation [1]

Personally I think what we'll see in future is people being offered the option of going through existing institutions as a form of insurance for the reasons you mention, but an alternative on offer for people who just want to minimize fees or who don't think they'll need those conflict resolution services.

[1] https://particl.wiki/learn/marketplace/mad-escrow/

what if the "smart" contract has a bug?

Also now I have to trust the smart contract developer

TBH I imagine developing smart contracts is clunky right now, like developing using AWS Lambda frameworks was a few years ago. But the tooling will improve. Perhaps it could be possible to digitally sign a smart contract's version, linking it to some proof of automated test coverage, or some other open way of verifying that it works as intended - e.g. attach the test suite and test results to the contract somehow and sign them. If you weren't happy with the quality of tests or their coverage, etc, you could decide not to use the smart contract.

Wouldn't that deposit requirement cause issues for high volume/low margin sellers?

Potentially. Or for sellers of particularly high value goods where buyers and sellers both have to put up the same amount again as a deposit. It still seems like a novel approach and I'm curious how it'll pan out.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com