Hacker News Reader

Comment by JohnTHaller | Hacker News Reader

No consumer protection is why bitcoin simply won't take off as a method of legally spending money online. I have no promise a merchant will deliver me what's promised (or anything at all, for that matter). And no recourse if they don't.

Bitcoin needs a solution to address this for it to be a valid way of spending money. And irreversibility, pseudonymity, and no regulation make it impossible.

View on HN

This is what third party escrow services are for. They can use the Bitcoin as a framework to utilize customer protection if it's implemented right.

A 3rd party escrow I have to trust. Also without regulation. Likely, consumers wouldn't trust such an entity unless it was rather large, already known, and otherwise regulated. Like a bank. Consumers can trust those. Of course, the bank would want an escrow fee. Probably on par with the standard credit card fees.

Or much much lower cause you bring worldwide competition with no infrastructure.

Disclaimer: I'm with GreenAddress.it

Yeah, see, consumers like infrastructure. Someone they can call with issues. And to know that it's not just a server rack in some random semi-secure data center run by another fly-by-night-hacked-next-week bitcoin startup. And that you have insurance on the whole thing against theft, fire, hacks, etc. And that you're properly following all the government regulations for being a money transmitter.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com