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Comment by rdl | Hacker News Reader

Being able to link your bank account is a big deal; everyone wins if Bitcoin becomes more "a currency you buy to buy stuff" vs. just something your speculatively hoard -- including hoarders, ironically.

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How does that really work though? If you're arguing for BitCoin to become the next PayPal, in what way is it not a worse PayPal? (Fees for senders, confirmation delays, no fraud protection, etc)

There are probably ways for "wallet providers" to retrofit much of the problems with base bitcoin, including the ones you mention.

But then it's not Bitcoin. It's another fucking dodgy 3rd party payment provider.

Point is you always have the option of sending the old fashioned way if you want. You don't have to use a 3rd party unless there's a specific function they provide for certain specific cases that you want. You don't have that option with regular money. You have to use some service to transfer money for you.

You can't have fraud protection without a 3rd party.

Of course, but 3rd parties are not all the same. Bitcoin 3rd parties have historically been incredibly untrustworthy.

How about not having your wallet locked because you failed to notify paypal that you were going to receive large amounts of money in the near future?

Bitcoin gives you flexibility that PayPal doesn't. You can't opt-out of protections that PayPal gives you in order to streamline your process; you either use PayPal or you don't. Bitcoin allows you to potentially chose any number of companies to provide services to you, or just roll your own solution.

The main problem I see with BTC as compared to PayPal is that transactions can't be cancelled, as they are added into the blockchain.

You consider it a problem others see it as a feature

Bitcoin transaction fees are a tiny fraction of the amount of fees PayPal charges. Confirmation takes about an hour and there is no possibility of chargebacks. As far as fraud protection, if you purchase groceries with cash what kind of protection do you have? Hopefully the reputation and integrity of the seller is enough in most cases. If you can't trust someone, use an escrow service (which still costs less than PayPal fees).

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