Bitcoin—and other virtual currencies such as Litecoin and Ripple—had entered mainstream conversations by July 2015. One issue that had received less attention was liability protection. Businesses and consumers using virtual currencies were still exposed to risks that conventional payment systems often addressed through dispute and chargeback procedures.
Bitcoin payments generally could not be reversed without the recipient’s cooperation. Consumers dealing with a suspicious merchant could therefore find themselves with limited recourse.
Would regulation hamper adoption?
Bitcoin was gaining momentum as both a technology and a movement. Startups and jobs associated with it were growing, more businesses were accepting it, and developers were actively extending the ecosystem.
Yet Bitcoin’s use as a form of money also raised questions about volatility and the allocation of risk. Those questions mattered especially when a transaction went wrong: without conventional liability protections, who was responsible for the loss?
At the time, Mobile Payments Today had published the infographic below, outlining Bitcoin’s mechanics, potential benefits and limitations. To keep the archive readable, the visual below is a clean local recreation based on the historical source rather than an external embed.
Bitcoin: The Future of Currency?
