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Comment by u-rate | Hacker News Reader

Isn‘t that exactly like the status quo with banks?

It's exactly the same with banks, except "we" (normal plebs) cannot actually see when it happens, as compared to blockchains where all data is public. With banks it happens all the time, but no one knows, so it doesn't make the news. When it happens in blockchains (that one time), it's very obvious so it makes the news.

Why is it such a hot feature that you can see every transaction, though? Why do you care if I got my bank to revert one of my transactions?

I'll make no argument for/against cryptocurrencies here, as the discussion if it's good/bad is futile. My comment is just a statement of fact about the differences/similarities of what we have now, and what cryptocurrencies offer.

How is it at all the same? The banking system is not immutable, the chargeback for example is available to all the "plebs" and we make regular use of it when transactions go awry.

Bank transactions are mutable/reversible by design and by law. It's quite the opposite from banks.

Really? Access to the legal system doesn’t vary based on how pleb you are?

Normally you do not have to actually directly interact with the legal system to reverse a fraudulent bank transaction. The banks have internal policies to comply with the legal system, because the other outcome is more expensive for them.

Um, what? I did. Banks didn’t do anything when I got defrauded by wire except tell me they can’t do anything.

If you initiated a wire to the wrong account, that's one thing. The banks will not reverse this sort of transaction, to my understanding. If someone else fraudulently initiated a wire from your account, then that's another thing. This type of transaction will be reversed. I'm not sure which situation you're talking about. ACH transactions are a whole other ballgame.

I’m talking about me wiring money to someone who was actually a scammer, same as AI said before.

If your response is “oh well you should have been more careful about that”, congratulations on endorsing the very same defense crypto enthusiasts were giving and validating that they’re not all that different.

I reckon that the wire transfer is one of those things where you get a ton of warnings from your bank that the transaction is normally not reversible, at least it is at my bank. I think it's unfortunate that there are any legitimate transactions that require wire transfers -- I definitely am not someone who endorses the status quo here.

I guess my take is that all crypto transactions have properties strictly worse than the worst type of bank transfer. In addition to being irreversible when you initiate them, they are also irreversible if someone fraudulently initiates them on your behalf. And there is no more secure option that you can use with crypto. There is to my knowledge nothing in the crypto space with security properties similar to an ACH transfer.

Too bad for you, my sympathies. But there is still a huge difference here: Someone has your money; it didn't cease to exist. (So from the bank's viewpoint: "Our books are balanced, it went from one account to another.") In this crypto case though, the money was destroyed by the system; the "bank" "ate" it. At least that shit doesn't happen in the old Alfa Romeo banking system.

Yes, there is a difference in that respect. But I was replying to the parent’t point that, because the banking system is run by humans, obviously they will fix anything for you that a human can identify as a bad result. (Like sending the money to the wrong place or to a scammer.)

It’s kind of missing the point to focus on the narrow issue of “can you accidentally destroy money in the conventional banking system?”

> It’s kind of missing the point to focus on the narrow issue of “can you accidentally destroy money in the conventional banking system?”

No it isn't. That's a huge difference. On the contrary, focusing on “Shit happens in the conventional banking system too!”, that's missing the point, IMO.

It’s not really a difference because you can destroy money in the conventional banking system eg by burning paper money. And it’s extremely important if the defense you’re giving I’d wrong, which it is, if that defense is “humans can come in and correct obviously unreasonable things”.

In both conventional banking and crypto, yes, there are situations of “sorry, you’re fucked, but like, you’re just supposed to know not to do that” (where “that” is send wires you’re not 100% sure of or guard your physical cash carefully).

No offense, but you really seem to be drawing the abstraction boundaries poorly here.

> you can destroy money in the conventional banking system eg by burning paper money.

But that's an accident or intentional vandalism by a user of the system; it isn't built into the system itself.

> In both conventional banking and crypto, yes, there are situations of “sorry, you’re fucked, but like, you’re just supposed to know not to do that” (where “that” is send wires you’re not 100% sure of or guard your physical cash carefully).

In conventional banking the “sorry, you’re fucked” situations don't destroy the money banking is all about handling.

> you really seem to be drawing the abstraction boundaries poorly here.

My "abstraction boundary" (if I understand the term correctly?) is: A system that can have parts that do this -- destroy the very thing it's supposed to handle, "money" -- is a crap system. "Yeah, but you can burn cash!" (vandalism) or "Mistype an account number and the money is lost (to you)!" (not destructive) are not system critiques but whataboutism.

Currency-changing ATMs (do such things exist? If not, why not?) or vending machines like for petrol don't have built-in banknote shredders.

[Edit: Left off half a sentence, screwed up emphases.]

In the banking system every day there are reversals for many mistakes of different kinds even if the amounts are tiny and only ordinary people are involved, and if $500k is at stake, the legal system can be used to "convince" banks to do what's right even if they don't want to.

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