Quote from: QuintLeo on August 06, 2015, 05:25:43 PM

Multiple errors.
You can't spend Bitcoin or Litecoin 'till the transaction(s) that gave them to you have been confirmed - normally MULTIPLE confirmations needed.

Complete and utter nonsense.

It's perfectly fine within the Bitcoin protocol to create, sign and broadcast a new transaction, using output from an earlier transaction that was just pushed before, and has not been confirmed yet.

Here's an example: first this transaction was done, and then before the first transaction was confirmed, this second transaction (which spends an output from the first) was sent as well. At the moment I'm writing this, neither is confirmed, and I expect them to be both confirmed in the same block (either the first next block from now, or later, doesn't matter).
*edit* → right after posting this, I noticed they were both confirmed in block 368710. You tell me how that's possible, if the 2nd transaction (which spends output from the 1st) would have required the 1st to be confirmed first.

It gets even more confusing when you say "normally multiple confirmations needed" - what do you mean "normally", as if some transactions require more confirmations than others before they can be spent, or what? It's nonsense. Any transaction's output can be spent immediately, with zero confirmations.

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10 mins ABSOLUTE MINIMUM for Bitcoin, 2.5 mins ABSOLUTE MINIMUM for Litecoin, commonly an hour or two for either and I've seen it take 6+ hours on either on rare occasions.

10 mins "absolute minimum" to wait for a confirmation? (which isn't even necessary to wait for in the first place, but for argument's sake)

Bollocks, sometimes it's 10 minutes, sometimes 3, sometimes 28, it's all probability. It's 10 minutes on average, but the "absolute minimum" waiting time for a confirmation is ZERO minutes.

And "commonly an hour or two" is even more bollocks. It's all statistics you know. The probability you have to wait an hour or more for a confirmation is 0.24% for Bitcoin, and 0.0000000037% for Litecoin. Likelyhood of having to wait for two hours is 0.00061% for Bitcoin, and infeasibly small for Litecoin. So, no, it's sure as hell not "commonly".

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More importantly, you don't even know *IF* the transaction is going to go through 'till at least the first confirmation. THAT is the big issue with trying to use any Cryptocoin in a retail store environment - customers do NOT want to wait around for MINUTES to see if they're going to be able to buy something, they often get irritated if it takes more than a few SECONDS on a credit card transaction.

This completely contradicts what you're writing below.
As soon as you see a transaction, and no funny business is going on (like an existing conflicting transaction in the memory pool, or tons of dust output with zero tx fee), then you're already very, very sure it will be confirmed. Maybe in the next block, maybe in 10 blocks from now, but it will be confirmed.

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MAJOR Error. Confirmation time is NOT chargeback limit time.
Cryptocoins do not HAVE a chargeback mechanism at all, which is one reason merchants LIKE cryptocoin payments - they know they HAVE the money once the transaction has been processed at all, it's just a matter of time because there is no way to reverse the transaction no matter what.

Exactly, so why the hell would any merchant ever make a customer await even a single confirmation. This is what I mean with "Bitcoin payments are instant": nobody will have to wait 10 minutes (or whatever the amount time it takes until the next confirmation). With Bitcoin, you send your payment, and you're done. In a second. Nobody waiting, nobody at risk.

And yes, obviously, there is no such thing as chargebacks with cryptocoins. I mean the concept of a transaction becoming irreversible, or permanent, or set in stone. With Bitcoin, theoretically, a transaction is not 'guaranteed' (although *extremely* unlikely to be nullified) until it's confirmed. With paypal or credit card it can be reversed (and happens quite often) until the chargeback/dispute period expires, and that's typically 3-6 months.