[Cryptography] Robust Linked Timestamps without Proof of Work.

[Ron Garret]

On Aug 21, 2016, at 10:48 AM, John Levine <johnl at iecc.com> wrote:

>> Bitcoin chooses to make that trade-off, giving its users the option of an
>> irreversible payment system. This is a good thing, because for some use-cases
>> the downsides of reversible payments are worse than the benefits (for many
>> merchants a significant amount of fraud happens due to reversibility).
> 
> Indeed, although it you want to make irreversible payments now, you
> can do that with envelopes full of cash.  Hardly anyone does, at least
> for legal purchases, which suggests to me that there isn't much of a
> market for irreversibility.

At least with cash you can be sure who you are giving the money to.  Bitcoin is more like leaving cash in a locker in a bus terminal and hoping you put it in the right locker.

rg