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Comment by misterbwong | Hacker News Reader

Wow. No chargebacks? I know almost zip about BTC but this seems a bit dangerous for the consumer, though VERY merchant friendly. If BTC goes mainstream, do we expect a middleman-type escrow service to arise for everyday purchases?

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You can do clever things with BTC to make them reversible in cases where reversibility is nice. First, you can implement a centralized PayPal-type company that clears after X days to implement chargebacks. Boring, but easy to understand and effective. The clever way to do it is with M-of-N transactions, http://www.bitescrow.org/

PS. When I order from Amazon, etc. I trust them. I get 2% back using bitcoins (from Coinbase.com (-1%) -> Gyft (+3%)). I like the 2% discount more than the credit risk of Amazon not making me happy at the end of the day : )

Fidelity offers a 2% cash back on everything card. Amazon's credit card also gives you higher than 2% on Amazon purchases. Could you elaborate more why you do a double conversion to buy something rather than a straight credit card transaction?

Basically at this point it is tax avoidance. By using btc you avoid paying capital gains tax since basically everyone who holds bitcoins right now has seen their investment go up in value. Converting back to usd is not as good as spending the btc.

It is kind of nice having a currency that appreciates in value over time vs slowly getting robbed by inflation or capital gains tax.

You can't reverse an ACH or a wire, yet, both are widely used. Once company duped an ACH payment for nearly $1,000 and then they went out of business (one can wonder if this was done on purpose), and I couldn't do anything to get it back working with Bank of America. So, every time you write somebody a check, think twice!

Bitcoin definitely favours the merchant/receiver in this aspect. Escrow can be used where desired, though it probably won't make sense for all everyday purchases (escrow for a cup of coffee over the counter is probably a bit overkill). The upcoming payment protocol in Bitcoin 0.9 explicitly allows the merchant to issue refunds if he wants to.

it's basically "electronic cash"

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