The logical followup question would be which problem is actually the most serious?
It's difficult to argue that low and predictable rates of USD inflation has had more of an adverse impact on holders of USD over the last few years than crypto fraud on holders of crypto.
Indeed, given that most cryptoassets have actually lost significant amounts of value against the USD since the end of 2017, it's difficult even to argue that the crypto world has adequately solved 2
Your wallet can be stolen and when using crypto so it doesn't solve 3 very well.
Credit card fraud is regulated such that the consumer is protected after a manageable amount of theft, $50 in the US last I looked. If you use a bank you receive some protections but at that point the implantation is abstracted and not that relevant.
If you use a smart contract wallet you can actually protect yourself from losing all your money even if someone gets your private key.
You can set a withdrawal limit of say, $50 and you can set a few recovery addresses (of friends, family or other personal wallets).
So if I have $10,000 in my ethereum wallet and I post my private key in every forum and every chatroom on the internet then the most I lose is $50. Before 24 hours pass I send my remaining $9,950 to a pre-defined recovery address which is excluded from the withdrawal limit.
Consumer protections are actually pretty good. The trouble is getting these tools in the hands of users.
The cost of doing that is making the wallet largely useless for purchasing anything over 50$. The independent ability to send all your money to a recovery address is a new security risk. Further, you need to notice the issue which means you could be our far more than 50$ unless you happen to be checking how much is in the wallet constantly.
So, this is strictly worse than using a credit card.
>The cost of doing that is making the wallet largely useless for purchasing anything over 50$.
I don't think I ever spend that much in a single day though. The limit will differ from person to person.
>The independent ability to send all your money to a recovery address is a new security risk.
It's not new and it's not a risk. You could always send all your money to another address. And the recovery addresses are meant to be trusted. I could send my money to a secondary wallet sitting in a safe or to a trusted family member. That isn't a risk.
>Further, you need to notice the issue which means you could be our far more than 50$ unless you happen to be checking how much is in the wallet constantly.
Your balance is printed in big letters whenever you open the wallet. It's hard to not notice really. There's also these things called automatic notifications, not difficult to set up.
>So, this is strictly worse than using a credit card.
But this is supposed to replace cash not credit cards. It is objectively better than cash in terms of consumer protections.
It’s the “independent ability” that’s new. Without that you just need to keep your key safe. With it your key could be safe and you still end up with a problem.
> objectively better than cash
Many people don’t use cash just credit cards. They might keep 50$ or less in their wallets, but that’s about it.
Further, Billions of people can hack my PC, only those I come into contact with can take my cash.
You still need the private key to make a transfer. This is for cases when you key is stolen.
>Many people don’t use cash just credit cards. They might keep 50$ or less in their wallets, but that’s about it.
Because they value convenience over privacy and freedom.
>Further, Billions of people can hack my PC, only those I come into contact with can take my cash.
Even if someone managed to gain access to your wallet they would still have to decrypt your private key. So, it isn't an issue if you use a strong password.
1. A scammer cheating someone out of their life savings through social engineering
2. A central bank "unjustly" inflating currency and giving the newly printed money to specific industry/people etc
3. A person paying for merchandise with a stolen credit card or refusing payment after services/good is delivered.
Fiat solves 1 and 3 (recovery) does not think 2 is a problem.
Crypto solves 2 and 3. People say it is meant for solving 1.