While true, it's irrelevant to the Bitcoin account holder. The risk of credit card fraud is spread across the global merchant pool, which comes in the form of a risk premium attached to their fees. This provides the "free insurance" for credit card holders that reverses fraudulent charges.
The cost of stolen Bitcoins, on the other hand, will be borne exclusively by the account holders. It's the equivalent of having one's checking account emptied to due a bank robbery or a bankruptcy. Ordinarily the FDIC insures account holders against this (in the USA), but there's no such protection for Bitcoin account holders.
Maybe for the consumer, but if someone walks into a store (or online for that matter) and buy with a stolen CC, the bank will issue a chargeback and the store have to hand over the money, regardless of getting the goods back or not. All shops operate with a fee to cover losses like this.
In short, the consumers pay in the end. So at best we have protections in place such that the consumers share the bill.
> Yes, but victims of CC fraud have numerous laws and protections on their side that make it much easier to recover from this incident.
Very true, and likewise, CC users (both buyers and sellers) have numerous laws and protections that can make transactions annoying, difficult, or even impossible, and Bitcoin fixes some of those problems. Obviously, you shouldn't use Bitcoin unless you feel that Bitcoin's attributes are favorable to credit cards' attributes.
Is it not the case that one can back up their BC wallet into a locally encrypted file, in the event that their online wallet is compromised? I'm a user of coinbase, and have a local backup. I was advised to do just this: take a backup of my wallet, just in case something bad happened to the server. That way, I have legal recourse if push comes to shove.
If your online wallet is compromised and the coins are transferred to new keys, ten backups of the keys that USED to own those coins will be insufficient.
True but credit cards are inherently vulnerable as you just need their number, whereas your bitcoin wallet is completely safe until you give it to someone else.
Well you know if my CC number gets stolen, generally the worst thing that happens is my bank calls and says 'hey we're sending you a new card, sorry for the inconvenience' which ok is a real pain if you're traveling internationally or something, but but if something happens to your bitcoins, you're never getting those back.
The point is they don't get compromised in the first place because you don't just trust people with your bitcoin wallet like you have to with a credit card.
A system that is almost impossible (if used properly) to compromise still can be compromised. Meanwhile, ability to easily recover from such events reduces their significance and might be more valuable for some users.
The point is it's possible to be completely secure with bitcoins while credit cards are inherently vulnerable. And we are comparing apples and oranges. Bitcoin is a currency, credit cards are a service. You could, in theory, build a credit card company that deals in bitcoins. But why would you do that? There would be no advantage over just trading with bitcoins, and with bitcoins there is no chance of your credit card number getting stolen.
Someone can steal your bitcoins in the same way they can steal your physical cash.
"There would be no advantage over just trading with bitcoins" for me the purchaser there very much is, because in case the person at the far end is a scammer I have, in theory, at least some recourse.
How do you propose paying someone without exposing your Bitcoin wallet to the possibility that it could be stolen? You basically have to load your wallet onto some computer, and if that computer is compromised, you lose all the money in your wallet.
Credit cards are a much better system because they are designed with the assumption that you will be compromised and the system is set up to minimize the damage of a compromise.
Perhaps like http://www.bitcointrezor.com/ - a keychain fob which lets you pay and recieve bitcoin safely, even on infected computers, as the private key never leaves the device.
Bitcoin's in its infancy so people currently using it are doing so 'on the metal', but the system is flexible and user friendly layers will be built with time.
Also, reversible payment networks can be built on top of a non-reversible-payment foundation, but not the other way around.
Your wallet being compromised isn't the equivalent of your credit card being compromised. You don't hand out your wallet to people and trust them with it, you can keep it safe and secure.
Credit cards aren't designed to be compromised, they've just accepted that they can't do anything about it and worked on controlling the damage.
