Maybe something can be learned from
http://www.playerauctions.com?
They are mostly known for allowing people to buy money in online games, but they also opened a bitcoin exchange. Bitcoins are able to be bought with a credit card, and Playerauctions guarantee the payment of sellers.
Trading video game items and currency is about as nonreversible as bitcoins are, and those markets seem to be doing fine.
This is exactly what i was wondering. Why people are so scared about reversing transactions when credit cards are used around the globe and no one is going to bankrupt because of that. Why only bitcoin sales would have to suffer?
It has more to do with the attractiveness as a target. Sure I can use my credit card to buy WoW gold. But WoW gold is only exchangable in game for in game items. Therefore only WoW players are interested in WoW gold. Thus less hackers and card scammers are attracted to it.
On the other hand, bitcoins are directly redeemable for cash in the real world. Thus if you sell bitcoins via a reversable mechanism such as a credit card, you are selling cash the same as if you were selling Casino chips in Vegas. This is why credit card processors want you to declare it as a cash advance transaction and charge you the much higher associated processing rates.
The reason for this is, it's not generally your users who will reverse the transaction on you. It's folks who stole the card and are using it get cash advances from you.
+1 to this.