If there is one thing I’m good at, it is my love for wild imaginations. Anyways, my thoughts are always justified and usually stems from some of my negative experiences. One of such was the very first time that I was scammed of my hard-earned cryptocurrency. If you are a regular Telegram user, you would agree with me that the headquarters of the ‘World Rippers Association’ is domiciled in that app. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t know this at that time as I blindly struck a deal thinking I was on the right track.
I had just joined this Telegram group, and the admin made me believe that there were cryptocurrency investors in the group who could exchange cryptocurrency for fiat money. I had about 20$ worth of Bitcoins, and as a noob, I was super excited and itching to quickly swap it for fiat money. The only website option available and convenient for me then was Luno, but I quickly dismissed the idea because I concluded that they were going to delay the transaction. And besides, banks in my location can spell doom when you least expect. How could I have been so stupid not to remember that the Telegram users I was going to transact with were not magicians, and if they were going to pay me in fiat money, then the transaction was going to obviously pass through a bank.
So after reading some of the testimonies in the chat, I was convinced that they were legit. Afterward, I announced that I wanted to swap my Bitcoins for fiat money. An acclaimed buyer in the group indicated his interest to buy my coins and the admin verified him as one of his trusted buyers. I proceeded to chat him up and the deal was struck. He pasted his wallet address and I transferred about 20$ worth of Bitcoins to his wallet. I screenshot the transaction and forwarded the proof of payment to him.
He asked to give him a couple of minutes to check his wallet balance. After some time, he came online and said he didn’t receive any coins. My blood went cold, but I was calm, and I asked him to check again. He came online 20 minutes later and insisted that I might have sent the payment to the wrong address.
“That can’t be!”I exclaimed. I quickly crosschecked the wallet address he pasted with the one that I sent the coins to, and I realized that both addresses were different. I was confused for a moment until my eagle eye caught something in the chat where the wallet address was pasted. I noticed that he had edited that chat, pasted a new address, and made me believe that I sent the coins to the wrong address. I quickly confronted him and before I could say “Jack Robinson”, he had deleted the chat. I tried accessing the group chat, and I realized that I had just been kicked out.
“Is this a dream?" I muttered to myself. “How can people be this mean?" For the next couple of minutes, I kept staring at my phone. Even though 20$ may seem insignificant to many, at that particular time, it was a big deal to me because it was all I had, and I was really looking forward to grabbing that fiat money.
I didn’t know what to do, so out of desperation, I went back to access the transaction. I clicked on status, and I realized it was still pending after two confirmations. I felt a ray of hope and immediately, I started clicking on the pending transaction with the intention of canceling it.
“Hey noob, crypto transactions are irreversible.” That was my nosy mind trying to remind me about what I already knew but refused to accept. I continued to click on the transaction, then after some minutes, I refreshed my browser and I saw ‘completed’. To say that I was disappointed was an understatement. I felt dazed and defeated, and I decided to retire early to bed. Throughout that night, so many thoughts ran through my mind, and I kept thinking:
“What if there was a way to reverse crypto transactions?"
I continued thinking about this and when I heard about bitcoin Cash afterward, and how it was birthed, I heaved a sigh of relief. This is because, after I read about the great ‘Bitcoin Fork’ and the emergence of Bitcoin Cash, my confidence in crypto grew, and I became optimistic that there is still a whole lot that crypto can offer us. Imagine if Bitcoin Cash hard forked again (of course without splitting into two different coins), and one of the possibilities that emerge is the ability to reverse transactions. Wouldn’t that be great? Did I hear someone say: “That’s not possible”!
And why not? Okay, let us look at it this way: Bitcoin Cash increases the size of blocks allowing more transactions to be processed. This change in block size was the major reason for the Bitcoin fork and the proponents of Bitcoin Cash are of the view that this change was necessary; if Bitcoin was to be used as a medium for daily transactions. They argued that this could help it compete with multinational credit card processing organizations such as Visa, Mastercard, and others.
So, competing with credit card processing organizations means that there are 3 vital things to expect from Bitcoin Cash transactions in order for it to go head to head with credit card transactions. These are:
1. Faster transactions
2. Lower transaction fees
3. Reversible transactions
Considering how Bitcoin Cash has fared so far, it has been able to achieve both numbers '1' and '2', and I am looking forward to the day that number 3 will become a reality. This may sound like a mirage since it is a well-established fact that the Bitcoin Cash network was designed to be irreversible.
Of course, I know that. And I also know that if Bitcoin Cash developers could alter a change in Bitcoin’s block size by increasing it(for faster transactions), then it is possible that someday, they are capable of altering the Bitcoin Cash network so as to make Bitcoin Cash transactions reversible. And when that day comes, I would send a message to the ‘Telegram Ripper’, and the message would read: “ Hey, Bitcoin Cash transactions are reversible”.
Note: So I learned recently that even though confirmed crypto transactions are irreversible, it is possible to reverse unconfirmed transactions by sending the same amount with a higher fee so the new transaction gets confirmed faster. I guess I'll have to try this someday to see how it plays out.
Here's the problem. In order to make any crypto transactions reversible that means that somebody has to decided to reverse. Who decides? The previous owner, like you? That would be the scammers paradise! You pay anyone and then reverse the transaction as soon as you get the goods. Some central authority? Well, that's the thing that we've tried to go away with development of cryptocurrencies.