I have been considering the impact of the new American regulations, and they are looking more and more hostile to the fundamentals of Bitcoin every time I think about them.
Lets look at charge backs.
Currently, they do not exist, unless you do a rollback of the entire network as Mint has recently demonstrated.
The lack of charge backs has been a significant aspect and benefit of Bitcoin. If you transact with someone or a vendor, you can't get your crypto back.
There is a checksum to prevent sending to a completely bogus address.
However, if you send to the wrong address, you lose your money. If you send to the wrong address and you happen to know who it is, you can ask them to give your money back, but it's on their honor to actually do so.
Vendors like the idea of one-way transactions, because it prevents bogus charge backs being imposed by card issuers and banks. The onus is on the individual to get their money back through civil legal proceedings.
This aspect has spurred vendors to accept Bitcoin as the costs are significantly lower than the 1%-4% surcharges they incur by having card facilities. A significant aspect of this fee goes towards insurance for fraud and administering charge backs.
Now we have regulations that will require many different vendors and network choke points to keep records of their users - so the consumer protection aspect of the regulations will end up not protecting consumers but instead imposing new ways to achieve charge backs against them.
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fr6kkmJW.png&t=665&c=sJSDB6T1sCgdqg)
If you're trying to remain anonymous (pseudonymous, really), be careful not to reveal any information linking your bitcoin addresses to your identity.
Tracking bitcoin transactions against the variety of data that will become available on individuals will make it easy for vendors and the like to write to customers asking for funds to be returned.
This could lead to alternative types of charge backs:
1. Customers being put on banned lists that vendors would be able to purchase from 'bitcoin credit reference agencies' that keep track of bitcoin transactions and the owners of addresses.
2. Ambulance chasing lawyers sending out threats of civil proceedings for a percentage of the recovery.
3. Individuals tracking each other down and turning up on doorsteps to get their money back.
These highlight good and bad outcomes, but these scenarios could actually see higher costs imposed against bitcoin transactions?
Edit
I think Darkcoin still gets caught in some of this potential mess, but it avoids so many of the problems.