Is the irreversibility of Bitcoin transactions a downside for an average person?

[Poker Player]

I don't think it's a problem in general. If you are attracted to Bitcoin for what it is and its properties, such as limiting supply and decentralization you have to put up with the irreversibility of transactions, whether you like it or not. These are the rules of the game, and seeing that Bitcoin is increasingly trending more as an investment vehicle than as a P2P currency I don't see the problem. Now when spot ETFs start to be approved people who want to invest and escape irreversibility will buy Bitcoin ETFs through their bank or broker, and when they want to spend they will first sell the ETF (or part of it) and spend with their card or CBDC afterwards.

[yhiaali3]

For the average user who does not have sufficient knowledge about the Bitcoin network and the security and protection factors, yes, the possibility of reversing Bitcoin transactions is a negative aspect, because he may not realize that he will be the first victim if there is a possibility of reversing a Bitcoin transaction.

This problem appears especially during times of congestion, as many inexperienced users want to know the required fees or users who do not want to pay more fees to speed up their transactions. When the transaction is delayed due to network congestion, the average user begins to get upset and search for solutions to restart the transaction.

[Kakmakr]

I personally support the irreversibility of Bitcoin, because it adds trust to a system that should in theory be better than it's competitors. Yes, it is bad when you are on the sender side and when you made a mistake with the transactions, but when you are the receiver and the sender cannot reverse a transaction... then it is a added bonus.

In any way..... we signed up for this, because we wanted financial freedom and also because we want zero third parties being able to reverse transactions... so we should accept the consequences and just be responsible. 

[davis196]

If somebody wants reversible transactions, he(or she) can use the fiat payments processors like PayPal and Skrill. The people have choice, which is great.
Bitcoin/crypto transactions should remain irreversible, because there won't be any centralized entity, that decides which payment reversal is a scam attempt and which one is simply a wrong transaction. I agree that "the average Joe" might have some difficulties with irreversible crypto transactions and maybe the irreversible transactions are one of the reasons why crypto isn't mass adopted, but there's no way around this.
If you want refunds, choose fiat, if you don't want refunds, just use crypto.

[Synchronice]

Those that send money generally want to have an option to reverse the transaction if there's a mistake or if they didn't receive what they wanted. Those that receive money want transactions be irreversible to not get scammed by chargebacks.

Both of them are possible together and I don't understand what's the problem? You can reverse transaction on Electrum by using Cancel Transaction option. Electrum uses Replace By Fee option and cancels transaction by double-spending its inputs back to your wallet with an increased fee than you had on original TX. You can use this option before your transaction gets confirmed, when it gets confirmed, it's gone permanently. So, if you made a mistake, you have some minutes to fix it, that's a perfect possibility!

[CarnagexD]

Bitcoin should teach us responsibility and knowing that this kind of thing is going to happen, shouldn't we be prepared that this will happen to us? Plus, if we were to remove or even make a lot of exceptions when this kind of thing happen then it will snowball into more and more exceptions that will end up bitcoin network being known to easily cave to pressure from people. Irreversible transactions also teaches us to be responsible on how we do our transactions which I think is a better thing to have more than people exploiting the implementation of reversible transactions.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

For me, the irreversibility in bitcoin transactions is always one of the features that makes bitcoin transaction highly secure, no matter which way we try to look at it. I tell for sure that there would have been more scams, much more than any of us can or would have imagined if it was actually possible to reverse a bitcoin transaction after hitting the send button.

And even come to think of this, like sending or transferring fiat money to other people in the region where we live, ones you send money to someone and the transaction reports comes back as successful, that transaction cannot be reversed expect if network from the receiving bank is so bad that the transaction has to bounce back. and if for example, you mistakenly sent money to a wrong account, and you want the transaction reversed, you have to visit the bank you made the transfer from, and they may ask you to get a court order which you must submit back to them, without it, your money is probably gone, except the person that received the money is a good Samaritan and decides to return the money to the account it came from.

This is also somewhat similar to a bitcoin transaction, i don't see any way being able to reverse a bitcoin transaction would have been something to celebrate.

[Z-tight]

Those that send money generally want to have an option to reverse the transaction if there's a mistake or if they didn't receive what they wanted.

Even in centralized payment systems that tx reversal is possible, it is not so easy to do, you have to report to the centralized body with proof of a mistake or scam, and this process can take a long time without it being resolved, so it isn't as if you the sender has the power to just send tx's and reverse them yourself.

In the BTC network there is no central authority nor a single point of failure, tx's can only be reversed if a malicious miner controls 51% of the network's hashrate and the chances of it happening is slim to none. BTC is decentralized and it is safe because tx's cannot be reversed once it has be confirmed, it is surely not a downside and people should double check their tx before broadcasting it to the network.

[Blitzboy]

Senders often want to be able to undo a transaction if something goes wrong, but receivers often want to be sure that the transaction cant be undone to protect themselves against bogus chargebacks. Since most people often put on the sender's hat, it does make you think about why people would praise Bitcoin's irreversible transfers.

But one has to wonder if this praised inability to be undone doesnt also help senders feel better about themselves. By getting rid of the chance of chargebacks, businesses might be able to lower their prices, which would save customers money. The question here is whether the consumer's faith in possible price cuts is greater than the perceived hassle of deals that cant be undone.

[Husires]

Bitcoin can be used on services or networks that provide a refund feature, where you can deposit your money into a payment card that accepts Bitcoin and use the Visa or MasterCard network to make settlements and return funds, or use the Bitcoin network, in which transactions are final and cannot be reversed. So, in the case of Bitcoin, you have several options and you can Choose the most suitable one according to your need.

[hatshepsut93]

for centuries people used cash/coins. where it got physically handed over to a recipient and if you wanted it back you had to plead to the receiver with good reason

with digital bank accounts you still need to ask a bank.. *

With physical money you will likely be able to talk with the receiver, but with digital money you might accidentally send it to someone you don't know, or the receiver might be unresponsive for some reason.

I think that the average user must be happy to know that once in his wallet, his BTC has no chance of disappearing because of a potentially reversible transaction. Nope?

Especially long term HODLers

The average user receives their coins from a "reliable" source - an exchange, their employer, etc. Those are not likely to chargeback if they could.

[Peanutswar]

In a centralized platform can be possible this can of feature for have a reverse transaction, one of the platforms we are using now offers this kind of feature but of course there's another charge for it, this kind of feature is quite risky to the people who are using their own wallets could be prone to scams. Its just a small portion of the percentage making wrong sending of addresses is human error, not on the system it is so they do not need to adjust to those possible mistakes.

[DubemIfedigbo001]

I think based on the carefulness in the transaction procedures, I learned from my thread in Technical Discussions board from @Apogio that there's a feature that allows you to uniquely identify a user on decentralized wallets and it is called Paynyms.
What it does is this: It derives and unique code from your wallet seed phases that is unique to you. If you wish to send to a reciever, you just need to input the person's ID and the wallet generates a different address that the receiver can spend from. its very easy and user friendly as you just need to follow the person and upon one confirmation, you can now send the person funds as many times as you want. This feature is present on Sparrow and samurai wallets and it mitigates mistakes on sending to the wrong address. The wallet creates a new address for the receiver spend from every time and your funds is sent securely and received by the intended user.

For more information please visit https://bitcoiner.guide/paynym/ and https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0047

[kryptqnick]

I consider myself an average person. I'm fairly careful and attentive, but not extra careful, and my understanding of financial operations is generally pretty basic. I've only had to reverse a transaction once on my life, and that was because of a bug when I was paying with card in a supermarket in a foreign country, when the first transaction seemingly didn't go through, and then I was charged the same amount of money twice. Such a bug would not have occurred with blockchain, so it's an exception.

In general, I don't think much of reversibility of financial transactions and don't need this feature. It's not easy to do anyway, as one needs to convince the bank that there was a mistake. As for crypto transactions, there are indeed some nice stories of mistakes getting resolved.
To me, BTC irreversibility is neutral: I don't benefit from it, but I'm okay with it.

[so98nn]

So why should the people who almost always send money praise Bitcoin's irreversibility if they personally don't directly benefit from it? Should they hope that merchants will lower the prices because they won't have to deal with chargebacks?

They praise irreversibility because is one of bitcoin's characteristic, if you're not ok with that it means that you are criticizing bitcoin and not everybody likes to do that. At the same time I don't see another choice, if we want bitcoin to be completely independent and decentralized no one should decide if and when reverse a transaction. Of course for the average person it could be a big problem and I know people who don't feel confortable with that and they prefer not to use bitcoin.

That makes one of us. Well if that becomes reversible then it loses its integrity. It means a block can be edited at any given time. It changes the way miners confirm the transactions that are included in the nodes. Basically, we are moving towards chaos if only a single change like "reversibility" was supposed to be added to the blockchain.

This leaves no difference between how a banking account operates and how a wallet would work. With the addition of such a feature we are also calling for hackers world wide to hack our wallets just like that. They will have loop holes, back doors to brute-force a transaction and do fake transactions. I think what we have is just better and original. Try changing anything in that and we can forget Bitcoin will exist anymore with proper sustainability.

[BitDane]

Bitcoin being irreversible is good for merchants.  Since buyer cannot scam the merchants through cash charge back method but if the merchant plan to scam the buyer, then there is no way the buyer can get his Bitcoin after he paid for the item.

This is the downside of non-reversible transaction. The setup is more on the advantage of a merchant and a disadvantage of the buyer if some there is an issue with the bought product.

[avikz]

So why should the people who almost always send money praise Bitcoin's irreversibility if they personally don't directly benefit from it? Should they hope that merchants will lower the prices because they won't have to deal with chargebacks?

I personally do not see irreversiblity as an issue in bitcoin ecosystem. Unless an ecosystem is centralised, this is always going to be the case. But it might be an issue for an average Joe who are new to this domain. Also it gives rise to the hackers as there's no way for the funds to get seized unless they are caught by the police or enforcement agencies.

Rather I see this as a feature that gives confidence especially to the merchants. There's no denying that it has downside as well but that's how the world is. Every system has a downside and a positive side. No system is fair.

[Mr.right85]

Those that send money generally want to have an option to reverse the transaction if there's a mistake or if they didn't receive what they wanted. Those that receive money want transactions be irreversible to not get scammed by chargebacks.

That’s why this isn’t fiat and even in a fiat operated banking system, you don’t just go about reversing money sent to an account without due processes of consultation of the recipient and possibly, having the recipient’s permission to proceed with the reversal.
Reversal systems are possible in a centralized system but, Bitcoin isn’t centralized is it. Surely it’s decentralized and with no one at the apex of these directives on the fate of transactions, it’s always going to be forward ever.

I see it to be a plausible system to the operation and as such, it calls for more carefulness in initiating a transaction on the part of the sender, knowing that, it ain’t reversible. It also gives recipient a sense of comfort that, you can’t have a deal retracted once concluded without consent.

[hatshepsut93]

I consider myself an average person. I'm fairly careful and attentive, but not extra careful, and my understanding of financial operations is generally pretty basic. I've only had to reverse a transaction once on my life, and that was because of a bug when I was paying with card in a supermarket in a foreign country, when the first transaction seemingly didn't go through, and then I was charged the same amount of money twice. Such a bug would not have occurred with blockchain, so it's an exception.

In general, I don't think much of reversibility of financial transactions and don't need this feature. It's not easy to do anyway, as one needs to convince the bank that there was a mistake. As for crypto transactions, there are indeed some nice stories of mistakes getting resolved.
To me, BTC irreversibility is neutral: I don't benefit from it, but I'm okay with it.

My experience is pretty similar, and I think most users of banks and payment apps never have to reverse a transaction in their life, but the feeling of safety that comes from knowing that it could theoretically be done could be important to some people, and in that light they could view Bitcoin more negatively if they know that their mistake is nearly impossible to fix.

[PepeLapiu]

Here is what you have to understand about money. Money is nothing more than a means of exchange.

You have a chicken, and I got a slab of bacon. I trade my bacon for your chicken. This is barter. The next step up is to use something we all agree has a value. Because if you are Jewish or Muslim, my bacon has no value to you. I can't buy your chicken with my bacon.

So money is the next step up. As long as everyone agrees it has a value, it can be used as a means of exchange. It can be money if we all agree it has a value.

Now, when I trade my bacon for your chicken, I can't turn around a week later and decide I want my bacon back. I can't reverse one side of the transaction just because I found out the chicken has stinky poop, or it might be sick, or something.

So if I trade my silver coins or my bitcoin for your chicken, why should I be able to reverse my side of the transaction a week later?

The only way a reversible payment makes sense is if you make a plea of stupidity. That you are so stupid with your money, that you need someone else to control your transactions and reverse them any time you get too stupid.

Until 40 years ago, almost everyone paid with cash, irreversible payment, since the dawn of times.

It's only in recent human history that this ridiculous notion of consumer protection emerged.

Consumer protection and reversible transactions are the arguments the banks make: trust us with your money. "We hold and control your money for you and we can reverse or block some transactions from ever occuring. And of course, we promise we will never abuse this power." Right?

When you buy a carpet for your house, the carpet store can't come in and take their carpet back a week later. So why should you be able to take your money back? Are you really that dumb, you can't be trusted to buy your own carpet like a grown up?

This idea of reversible payments stems from socialism. The idea that the merchant us evil and bent on robbing you of your money while you are just the innocent and pure consumer who needs to be protected against the evil merchant.

You need to consider that there is a HUGE cost and potential for abuse when we make it possible for you to buy my bacon and take your payment back a week later.