I did some research into Bitcoins a year or two ago, to the point of installing the software on a spare computer and trying some transactions on the test Bitcoin exchange (a block chain that's just for practice). A few key points stood out to me.
1. If you don't use an exchange, or something equivalent, to store your Bitcoins, they are stored on your computer. If your hard drive fails and you don't have a backup, your Bitcoins are gone, as surely as if the cash in your wallet got burned up in a fire.
2. If you do use an exchange, several exchanges have been hacked, and "depositors" lost their bitcoins.
3. Some of the lesser-known cryptocurrencies had fundamental design flaws, or mistakes by the people running the system, which caused people who held those currencies to lose currency.
4. Cryptocurrencies are subject to wild changes in value.
5. It can take hours for the trust to build that the transaction is valid, as the various nodes around the world build consensus that the transaction is correct.
So if I were going to accept payment in cryptocurrency, I would set the price a few minutes before the transaction, and I would convert the payment to dollars ASAP.
A nice thing about Bitcoin is there's no such thing as a chargeback, once the transaction is done, it can't be reversed. A bad thing about Bitcoin is there's no such thing as a chargeback.... |
