Bitcoin is irreversible: strength and weakness

[acheampong64]

This was the same thing that Binance CEO mentioned and it caused mayhem in the whole space. Nevertheless, I think personally that blockchain is smart this way and should be allowed to be so. Fact is that, for crypto and blockchain to be very different from the normal fiat we know, we should have these exceptional features. Binance isn't the first exchange to be hacked and honestly many people have experienced worse. We all need to be careful and cautious so we don't fall as victims for anyone.

[maxreish]

That's the saddest part in cryptocurrency. Each successful transactions is irreversible and that is the weakness as you have mentioned when the transactions are meant in some illegal purposes like scams, hacking issues. Once it was settled, we can not do something about it. It can only be refunded by a person if you know him personally. Unfortunately, there isn't any device to returned the amount or to get the transactions invalid.

[talkbitcoin]

the irreversible transaction feature was introduced to bitcoin by Satoshi in order to solve a very serious issue that everyone using the old payment systems have been facing for years and have led to millions of scams. that feature was charge back of systems such as Paypal.
right now bitcoin offers a strong security and another level of security specific to merchants who are receiving the payments and don't have to worry about it being reversed and the headaches of proving they were scammed to that centralized system.

[Karamabit_209]

I think it is a good thing. It makes us cautious on every transactions that we do. It makes us think about every decisions we do in payments. It is like gaming on a gaming site where you have an asset or an advantage but you must be cautious on playing it because if you doesn't, it might give you the opposite, a disadvantage in the end.

[_Django05_]

One of the most important feature of cryptocurrency is its being irreversible. One the coin is sent, the only way for it to be back to the sender is if the receiver will do the same thing in reverse.

Irreversible transactions were built into blockchain’s original design as a positive feature to address banks’ privilege of reversing transactions, even when the contract states that they were final. But these features are a problem for many people. Most people are used to relying on the reputation of the the 2nd party to decide whether or not to send bitcoins to.

[Nnuego]

That's the main reason you should always keep your private key safe and be mindful of whatever you type or send. Once you click send,there's no irreversible of transaction. So be care and crosscheck before carrying any transaction

[fiulpro]

One of the most important feature of cryptocurrency is its being irreversible. One the coin is sent, the only way for it to be back to the sender is if the receiver will do the same thing in reverse. Now, in cases of hacks, scams and frauds, it means that you better forget what you already lost as there is no way for you to recover the lost coins.

In other words, once you click the send button there is no turning back. I know that a lot of us are actually considering this a major advantage of Bitcoin or any cryptocurrency for that matter because unlike PayPal there can be no refund requests to happen.

Therefore when you are a victim of a theft, expect no one to be able to help you in recovering the coins. As one author said it, the bitcoin genie cannot be put back into the blockchain bottle.

I am wondering, can we not devise an effective and special technology that can be utilize in case of hacks or frauds? Given the advances of cryptocurrency and the blockchain we are experiencing right now, is it even possible?

Isn't it like a mindful safer option ??
If this same thing started working for banks and stuff they will start using it to do frauds instead of preventing them.
It's people you are talking about ; they will use it for bad practices first and foremost and then that irreversible scams and frauds you are talking about is something that we can avoid by personally checking thoroughly everything.
Also we have to click like 3 confirms to send our coins , we could stop for every and then see everything again.

[hatshepsut93]

Merchants don't like the chargeback features, because it can be abused against them, but for users this is a pretty good thing. But Bitcoin will never have this feature, because they all require centralization - unless someone solves it in a decentralized manner, just like Saotshi solved the problem of how to create decentralized electronic currency.

So, for now this is just how Bitcoin is, and if you want to protect yourself from scammers, you need to escrow all your deals. Just because Bitcoin was made to remove intermediaries, doesn't mean that you should avoid them all the time, the point of Bitcoin is that it gave us a choice.

[YuginKadoya]

I guess the real solution in this matter is just prevention, We can always related to the saying that prevention and better than cure. And you are right there are no irreversible thing when you send bitcoin or another cryptocurrency to other wallets available, Well, I am saying these things because now I guess all you need to do is to double check your amount and the wallet you will need to send it because there is no undo button on this platforms transaction, I guess this was included for certain protection I guess.

[Rufsilf]

That's the main reason you should always keep your private key safe and be mindful of whatever you type or send. Once you click send,there's no irreversible of transaction. So be care and crosscheck before carrying any transaction

Exactly, we already know that once we click sent then there's no way for it to be traced back and reverse hence as a responsible investor we should make sure all the information are correct and before we make transactions we also have to make sure it is not a scam because if it is then you can't do anything to get it back unless if the other person will get it to you.

[coolcoinz]

I like the irreversibility and don't see it as a weakness. Reversibility is also a weakness and you can see a good example of this in paypal chargeback scams. Now, the important part is to see which of these two are more annoying for the end user. We are used to the banking system and being able to call for help to the higher power whenever something goes wrong, therefore irreversible transactions will be a burden. IMO it's a matter of getting used to. A matter of perspective.

[valentin68]

The strength of the Bitcoin is that every transaction is registered on the blockchain. That is everyone has a proof of that transaction and of the value of the transaction when it has been done. No one can come and say, I have given you the money, or I have given you 10 USD, please give me the change to this money, when in reality he has given nothing.

 Then the weakness of Bitcoin is the confirmation time. There are necessary 3 confirmations for the money to arrive. 3 confirmations take from 15 minutes to 1 hour. When you send money with PayPal they arrive in 30 seconds.

Another strength of the bitcoin is that you can go with the Bitcoin to the Bitcoin ATM and withdraw it to cash. To withdraw money from PayPal you have to send the money to a card (or to a bank account) and this takes 2 or 3 days.

[finaleshot2016]

I guess the real solution in this matter is just prevention, ~

The other one is controlling, you need to control your actions and think to secure your money in the wallet.
Prevention and control is the key to every situation that we're facing.

I like the irreversibility and don't see it as a weakness.

Same goes with me, It's not actually a weakness because it's normal for a digital platform to be secured. If the process is reversible then we can bypass that easily and do some tricks to abuse the system.

[lepbagong]

With the convenience that can be returned from hacking or its own mistakes, finally it cannot distinguish the advantages of bitcoin. Bitcoin has advantages that are different from others and it is actually a comparison of the others.
careful attention and care is needed to make it happen.

[Mike Mayor]

This is why you use buyer protection when shopping with bitcoin. If I make a transfer from my bank I can't reverse it either. I have had refunds twice paid to me in bitcoins because I trade with reputable websites.
The method of pay doesn't matter. Btw you only looking at things from one side. You forget the side of the merchant selling goods. A merchant doesn't want people reversing payments and rightfully slow. Once a deal is done it is done. Unless you want to return something. If you dealing with place you might not get your bitcoin back then it will be that way for any payment method.

I guess the real solution in this matter is just prevention, ~

The other one is controlling, you need to control your actions and think to secure your money in the wallet.
Prevention and control is the key to every situation that we're facing.

I like the irreversibility and don't see it as a weakness.

Same goes with me, It's not actually a weakness because it's normal for a digital platform to be secured. If the process is reversible then we can bypass that easily and do some tricks to abuse the system.

Just make sure you make your transactions in the right state of mind as well. Thus avoiding silly costly mistakes. I use a separate spending wallet with a qr scanner to pay for things with. This way I know I can never lose more then what is in that wallet. The other wallet is my ledger and savings wallet.

[osahorc]

I am new here

[imstillthebest]

I like the irreversibility and don't see it as a weakness. Reversibility is also a weakness and you can see a good example of this in paypal chargeback scams.

i thought chargebacks or reversible payments can help us return our money when we were got scammed  . its rarely been used on hacking because they will be caught since regular payment methods such as paypal are not anonymous as when compared to cryptocurrencies  .

ireversibility can be considered as a weakness of bitcoin because once we got scammed there is no way to trace the scammers and get the money back  .

[spadormie]

Bitcoin is truly irreversible. I have a story regarding this. I suppose to send someone a .045 bitcoin. I put it on a wrong address.  Sadly, that's so worth it right now. It's just sad that once you click send, there's no way to get it back. And there's another one, my friend wants to join an investment on ICX I think with me, but he sent his bitcoin to a different address. Sadly, that was .1 btc yikes.

[seoincorporation]

Bitcoin and most of the altcoins are irreversible because that's the blockchain nature, but we have seen some scenarios where a massive hack makes the blockchain go back to recover the lost coins, this happened with ETH and the DAO hack, where tons of coins were lost and 89% of users get agree about make a hardfork on the block 1920000th (20th July 2016).

So, we could take this as a lesson, if some bug or exploit comes and try to kill bitcoin, we always can move back in the blockchain to fix the issue, and this is like traveling back in time.

Source: https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/guides/the-dao-the-hack-the-soft-fork-and-the-hard-fork/

[pixie85]

I like the irreversibility and don't see it as a weakness. Reversibility is also a weakness and you can see a good example of this in paypal chargeback scams.

i thought chargebacks or reversible payments can help us return our money when we were got scammed  . its rarely been used on hacking because they will be caught since regular payment methods such as paypal are not anonymous as when compared to cryptocurrencies  .

ireversibility can be considered as a weakness of bitcoin because once we got scammed there is no way to trace the scammers and get the money back  .

The trick is not to get scammed in the first place.

It's much easier to scam people who think they can always reverse the payment. Why should they even spend time to research the party they're doing business with. Why should they ask about colateral?

Smart people will get fake bank accounts and withdraw from ATM before you can file your complaint.