I'm posting on this forum as we're looking for private investors (or even anyone able to help and/or wanting to get involved) to take this to the next level and have a good marketing/legal base to make as much noise as possible.
Why do you need private investors for this project if you already have a big team of +23 people and a lot of universities involved?
I just read parts of the white paper, and i understand how the users build trust in the process, but i see a problem there, even if one user has the best trust in your system it doesn't mean he can't scam. It could be 1 big scam to walk away. Let's say he builds trust selling shoes, and once he gets impressive trust then he offers a Rolex, then he claims that he already sent the roles while the buyer gets a box with a rock.
2 weeks ago a friend bought a phone in MercadoLibre (it's like a mix of Amazon and FB Marketplace), he bought it from a really trusted user, and he got a popcorn bag. Since the seller has a high trust rank MercadoLibre thinks my friend was trying to scam him. So, it's a complex situation, but it proves the trusted users can scam too.
To avoid scammers and abusers you can't leave it to a decentralized platform, you need a centralized system to be able to negotiate between seller and buyer, there should be a man in the middle of the transaction. Other way people will fin the way to abuse the system.
The only solution for a true cero risk marketplace is to have a third party involved, the process would be something like this:
1.- Bob sells a guitar to Alice
2.- Alice pays to BigCompany the guitar
3.- Bob send the guitar to BigCompany
4.- BigCompany verify the guitar is the product on bob's description and works fine
5.- BigCompany sends the guitar to Alice, and the money to Bob