This is a fundamental flaw in the bitcoin banking system. The anarchists will claim 'BUT HAVING REAL NAMES AND REAL PEOPLE GOES AGAINST THE TRANSPARENCY OF CRYPTOS!' No. You can't have it both ways. Either you have accountability or you get taken to the cleaners. The 'blind trust' system never works on the internet. Never has. Never will.
It could be done, but it'd involve every bitcoiner start using PGP to build a collective web of trust. Now that'd be a nice thing to see, but it ain't gonna happen. It's too much hassle and complexity for the avg Joe, just like generating high-entropy private keys or signing offline transactions.
Bingo. Completely agree with this.
Jbreher: I agree with some of your points, though to me (may not be the same for all) it seems like you're trying to downplay the greater issue by staking blame of risk vs. reward at the end user when most have been essentially robbed blind without recourse. Or are we all to just 'expect the worst' in the crypto community when entrusting our bitcoins in transactions?
p2p? I've combed over that multiple times in other posts. It's no different. You're still putting your trust in another faceless entity over the internet with no verifiable name/address/location. Go through an escrow? Lol. What if the escrow packs of shop once they've hit personal economic hardship?
This is the biggest problem facing bitcoin, in my personal opinion. You keep saying I'm blaming the technology. No, I'm not. I'm blaming the people who are using it, because the motives thus far have been anything but charitable.
What good is fiat without banks? Or are we all to just hoard coins in our personal computers and let them collect dust while maintaining a 'wait and see/trust no one' approach? I'm sure that's the entire point of bitcoin, right? To just hoard and remain stagnant.