For example, sometimes there are disputes between people making a transaction, and the bank has to get involved to help sort it out. This can be expensive and time-consuming.
Also, sometimes people commit fraud, and merchants have to be careful about who they do business with. All of this adds up to extra costs and uncertainties.
The paragraph proposes a new way of doing things using something called “cryptographic proof.” This means that instead of relying on a trusted third party like a bank, transactions would be verified using a secure computer system.
The proposed system would protect sellers from fraud, and buyers would be able to feel more secure knowing that their payments were safe.
The system uses something called a “peer-to-peer distributed timestamp server” to make sure transactions are recorded in the right order.
This system is secure as long as there are more honest people using it than there are attackers trying to cheat the system.