Quote from: ShowOffoN on September 10, 2018, 08:34:50 AM

Reports have it that bank frauds still continue to happen despite of strict security measures being taken by the banks. Just between January to July 2018, just timeshare fraud alone had 1.155 reported cases. It's when youre told you can go on a free holiday or get rich by joining an exclusive holiday club or timeshare programme, but youre eventually forced to pay for it through small print in the contact. That is not to mention other types of fraud like identity theft etc.

This gets me thinking, is it safer to just have bitcoins, or cryptocurrencies for that matter since it's not regulated by banks? What do you think?

Well, i think the example you give isn't a really good one... Human stupidity is human stupidity wether you're using the traditional banking system or bitcoin.
If you're stupid enough to sign a legally binding timeshare contract, it doesn't matter if you have all your funds in a traditional FIAT bank account or HODL'ing BTC, you'll still be forced to pay up each and every month.

That being said: bitcoin is decentral, there is no central authority, and it's based upon time-tested cryptographic techniques. This means that, if you hold a traditional bank account, a judge can just sign a piece of paper with which the timeshare company can go to your bank and force them to wire your money to their account. In a BTC world, no piece of paper could ever take your BTC behind your back, you'd always have to make a transaction yourself OR you'd have to fork over your private key/seed phrase/HW wallet pin code. That being said: a judge will always have ways to force you to pay your debts... I'd rather pay a timeshare company their dues instead of going to prison.

The big difference lays in de decentralised part: if you use traditional banks, your account details are just a row in a centralised relational database managed by the banking industry. If they get a piece of paper signed by a judge, they can just edit, update or delete your record in their database (with our without your knowledge/aproval).

In the bitcoin world, nobody but you can spend your unspent outputs (unless they have your private keys).