> In other words, the costs of making mistakes is internalized. I think externalities are a bad thing. "undo" is a pretty important, nearly mandatory feature f

> In other words, the costs of making mistakes is internalized. I think externalities are a bad thing. "undo" is a pretty important, nearly mandatory feature for a transfer mechanism. Especially if you're talking about large sums. And we've known how to do it at scale since the 70's. > Insurance and regulations (and by that, I assume you mean government regulations) are not the same thing. Both create transaction costs, and those costs become significant at scale. edit that's why I group them together. > How's that? Firm holding my BTC or handling my transaction makes a mistake, is hacked, etc. If my money is tied up in their system when this happens, too bad for me. > What do you mean by that? Only that escrow is not unique to bitcoin, and you can escrow other currencies (or anything). One of your grandparent comment's argument only makes sense if escrow is unique to bitcoin.