Do bitcoins have promissory notes?

[jp123]

Isn't that necessary?

[odolvlobo]

Bitcoin is not based on debt. When you have a bitcoin, you actually have it and nobody owes you anything. There is no single entity that creates, manages, or holds all of the bitcoins.

[mk4]

More like unnecessary. Having a promissory note totally defeats the purpose of being self custody. One of the main advantages of bitcoin is having your bitcoin in a non-custodial wallet so nobody can take your funds away, and that you don't need to trust anyone.

[mk4]

(on the assumption that there are assets)Will short-term promissory notes make settlement smoother?

How will it make settlement smoother? It's not like Bitcoin transaction are slow, and fees aren't close to being bad either especially when we're talking about mid-sized to bigger amounts of money transfers.

If you want to sacrifice centralization for speed, you can already use the likes of Cash App and Coinbase for quick off-chain transactions.

[Scripture]

Isn't that necessary?

Owning Bitcoin doesn't need any promissory note, this is not a debt that you owe to anyone not unless you ask someone to provide some funds for you and your Bitcoin will serves as a collateral.

(on the assumption that there are assets)Will short-term promissory notes make settlement smoother?

Bitcoin network is not that slow, you can have a smoother transactions once you already know more details about Bitcoin, promissory notes doesn't work with Bitcoin directly.

[pooya87]

(on the assumption that there are assets)Will short-term promissory notes make settlement smoother?

You can't have decentralization and promissory notes at the same time. The whole purpose of bitcoin was to introduce the decentralized payment system that doesn't need any third parties to handle transactions and "promises of payment". Bitcoin is working very well too without needing any change.

If you like promissory notes there are already centralized payment systems (like banks) that do that well with fiat, you shouldn't use bitcoin.

[nakamura12]

More like unnecessary. Having a promissory note totally defeats the purpose of being self custody. One of the main advantages of bitcoin is having your bitcoin in a non-custodial wallet so nobody can take your funds away, and that you don't need to trust anyone.

Talking about trust issues then custodial wallets are not recommended. I may not be of full custody of my crypto funds but it still let me do transactions like send, receive, buy, sell crypto to fiat then cash out in my country since it is regulated by bank.


Many people won't use crypto like bitcoin if owning Bitcoin comes with promissory note where you have to pay. Well, when you want a crypto you have to pay for it and it doesn't need a person or a group who will take control of the payment, payment fee which defeat the aim to make it a decentralized asset.

[mk4]

Talking about trust issues then custodial wallets are not recommended. I may not be of full custody of my crypto funds but it still let me do transactions like send, receive, buy, sell crypto to fiat then cash out in my country since it is regulated by bank.

Well, using exchanges aren't necessarily bad per se; because it's totally understandable that most people will need an easy-to-use on/off ramp. Just make sure you won't end up being a part of the bad side of Bitcoin's history.

https://cryptosec.info/exchange-hacks

[PrimeNumber7]

(on the assumption that there are assets)Will short-term promissory notes make settlement smoother?

Bitcoin transactions are "settled" (confirmed) every 10 minutes on average, and if there is a transaction with a sufficiently high fee attached, it will settle (confirm) the next time bitcoin transactions are settled (a new block is found).

Any debt transaction will almost certainly take longer for you to have access to your money.

As a side note, there are many debt transactions that take place for reasons unrelated to the type of money being transacted. For example, some merchants will receive inventory from a vendor, and will finance the payment for said inventory via a lender with a maturity of when the inventory is expected to sell. Merchants use these types of debt facilities because they do not have the money to pay for their inventory up front, and is typically slower than a hypothetical situation in which the merchant was able to pay for the inventory up front.

The above is not explicitly what you are asking about, but your question reminded me of the above situation.

[NeuroticFish]

(on the assumption that there are assets)Will short-term promissory notes make settlement smoother?

Just imagine gold. Digital. So the value doesn't need to be "promised".
Also at the point the transaction is confirmed (saved into the blockchain), no further things are necessary.
The whole point is to not need to trust a central authority, nor the sender. Promissory notes would be just an unnecessary complication.

[pooya87]

Talking about trust issues then custodial wallets are not recommended. I may not be of full custody of my crypto funds but it still let me do transactions like send, receive, buy, sell crypto to fiat then cash out in my country since it is regulated by bank.

It's like saying "I bought a car but I never drive it. However, I can still sit in it and blast the radio".

If creating your own wallet and storing your bitcoins (like through one of the easiest to use wallets called Electrum) were difficult then what you said made some sense but it is not. There is simply no excuse to use a custodial wallet.
Using exchanges to "trade" bitcoin is a different story than storing your coins with them though.

[dbc23]

Why the promissory note when all you need as credit evidence of payment to who ever we need to get a certain amount to  is visible on the blockchain open ledger which constantly updates its block with current transactions and by the way there is no need for a physical format for Bitcoin since we have grown to trust the network and in the absence of a physical Bitcoin representation there would also be no use for a promissory note

[qwertyup23]

Isn't that necessary?

A promissory note is something that is convertible to cash (or considered good as cash) that can be circulated in the market. Since it does represent cash, you can primarily sell it to other people or endorse its value thereby making the holder of the note the owner of it. The problem with promissory notes is that it has the tendency of being faked out (i.e. fraud signatures, material alteration on the price, fake indorsements, etc.) which pose a problem to the current holder.

Unlike normal promissory notes, bitcoin has a record of its transaction through the blockchain technology. A block cannot be changed as it will constantly be checked in the blockchain which somehow defeats the purpose in the first place if it were to be considered as a PN.

[Odusko]

Isn't that necessary?

No,bitcoin doesn't have a promissory note, promissory note is when a party promised to pay another party some amount in a particular time,but bitcoin is not like that, its a ledger system.