Pages:
Author

Topic: [ANN] METAmarket - Trustless Federated Marketplaces (Read 3092 times)

hero member
Activity: 633
Merit: 768
BTC⇆⚡⇄BTC
This is a good project. Congratulations for the good work!

I'm following it!
newbie
Activity: 21
Merit: 0
For anyone still following this project:
PyQt GUI development for buyer client (known as METAbuyer-Qt) is nearing completion!!!
Screenshots:
http://metamarket.trade/img/montage_scaled.png
legendary
Activity: 1512
Merit: 1000
The Dude Of DopeCoin
ALPHA RELEASE NOW AVAILABLE ON GITHUB!!!
https://github.com/metamarcdw/metamarket/releases

RECENTLY FEATURED ON POPULAR TECHNOLOGY PODCAST "Sovryn Tech"!!!
https://soundcloud.com/sovryntech/svtep0135
(at about 1:24:00)


So DOPE!  Grin

edit: I sent you a message on reddit Smiley
newbie
Activity: 21
Merit: 0
ALPHA RELEASE NOW AVAILABLE ON GITHUB!!!
https://github.com/metamarcdw/metamarket/releases

RECENTLY FEATURED ON POPULAR TECHNOLOGY PODCAST "Sovryn Tech"!!!
https://soundcloud.com/sovryntech/svtep0135
(at about 1:24:00)
newbie
Activity: 21
Merit: 0
Scammers don't care about reputation, they use/buy new accounts all the time.
I don't think your market will work well in that section.

In order to transfer your METAmarket identity to another party, you must give them the Bitcoin private key associated with your ID.
Obviously in this scenario the seller of an ID may retain a copy of this private key and use it to steal any funds spent to it without the ID buyer's knowledge. IDs are deterministically based on a set of Bitcoin and Bitmessage keys.

Therefore the transfer or sale of METAmarket IDs is not likely to happen at all.
newbie
Activity: 21
Merit: 0
multisig does nothing to protect either party, if one party is dishonest.
All it does is just burn coins in case of disagreement.
The problem is, the coins are lost and one party has been f*cked by the other.

Actually in the case of METAmarket, no funds are ever lost in the case of a dispute.
Here's a quote from "THE FUTURE OF BITCOIN ESCROW" by Jeremy Spilman, that you may find relevant:

Quote
Alice only broadcasts the transaction which releases her coins into the escrow after she gets back the signed, post-dated refund transaction(s) from Bob. In other words, Bitcoin lets Bob commit to the fail-safe before Alice commits her coins to escrow, which is frankly pretty awesome.
Of course, the problem with Bob providing Alice a fail-safe is that now Bob might be worried about Alice simply waiting him out. But the fail-safe can be as ‘strong’ or ‘weak’ as the two parties want to make it, so it’s likely they can agree on something. For example, 25% refund back to Alice after 6 months, or 50/50 split after 2 years, anything is possible.

This information is presented in the preamble to the METAmarket whitepaper.
Please take the time to read the whitepaper before making assumptions.
legendary
Activity: 3038
Merit: 1032
RIP Mommy
Make it 2 of 2 multisig so the scamming seller/scamming buyer have mutual assured destruction.

METAmarket does in fact use 2of2 multisig escrow.
Please take the time to read the whitepaper before asking questions.
Thanks!

multisig does nothing to protect either party, if one party is dishonest.
All it does is just burn coins in case of disagreement.
The problem is, the coins are lost and one party has been f*cked by the other.

Here's a related story:
On Bitmit (site operator acted as escrow, not multisig), a seller shipped a buyer an empty flat rate box. Bitmit was sent what Bitmit requested for proof of scam (unboxing, showing the seller's shipping label, undisturbed packaging tape) - then denied that unboxing was what they said would be sufficient proof. Weeks if not months passed, Bitmit held the escrow all the while. Eventually the scammer seller released the escrow back to the buyer. Soon after, Bitmit shut down.

Ultimately the scammer wants BTC out of the deal, either BTC back that they don't deserve because they got the item as advertised, or BTC for sending nothing or an item not as advertised. An expert in game theory can probably explain this better, but my hypothesis is that the scammer will surrender the BTC in a 2of2 standoff if they have nothing to gain by not surrendering. Acting out of spite, would not fit in game theory due to rarity.
full member
Activity: 154
Merit: 100
Bitcoin Samurai
Your whitepaper does not describe how a "nominal" registration fee (easily afforded by scammers) completely eliminates the possibility of Sybil attacks, aka "the absence of reliable reputation information". Are moderators going to make the fee so high and the requirements so stringent that they can afford to fly out and personally run live fingerprints, DNA, retinal scan? And having to trust moderators to kill Sybils is only "trustless" if it means "trust less than 100% but more than 0%".

You can never 'completely eliminate the possibility' of a Sybil attack on any reputation system .
The whole idea of MAD is that -both- parties have something to lose by being a dishonest trader.
In your scenario, the scamming buyer loses out on some kind of security deposit put in escrow before the trade.
The whole point of the security deposit is to incentivize honest behavior.

This goal is achieved in a different way with METAmarket.

Rather than scammers being incentivized by security deposits,
they're incentivized by the potential to lose their registration fee,
and whatever time/effort/BTC has been burned building their current identity's reputation.

Here's a quote from Jeremy Spilman (also quoted in the white paper):
Quote
The first option is to lock up some of Bob’s coins along with Alice’s. That way, Bob can’t simply troll Alice into losing money without losing some of his own. Technically, what we need to do is collect properly sized inputs (account balances) from both Alice and Bob, and then collect all the coins together into a single multisig output.
...
The second option is to setup an automatic release from the escrow where coins are either sent back to Alice, or split some way between Alice and Bob, at some predefined points in the future.

Scammers don't care about reputation, they use/buy new accounts all the time.
I don't think your market will work well in that section.

Have a look in these forums and you will see that some Sr. and Hero members are nhot really who they were when they created the account.
It is sold accounts that were bought by others for one of two reasons: Signature campaigns, or to scam others.
full member
Activity: 154
Merit: 100
Bitcoin Samurai
Make it 2 of 2 multisig so the scamming seller/scamming buyer have mutual assured destruction.

METAmarket does in fact use 2of2 multisig escrow.
Please take the time to read the whitepaper before asking questions.
Thanks!

multisig does nothing to protect either party, if one party is dishonest.
All it does is just burn coins in case of disagreement.
The problem is, the coins are lost and one party has been f*cked by the other.
newbie
Activity: 21
Merit: 0
Looks interesting, browsing through the whitepaper as we speak Smiley

Many thanks for your interest. Do you have any feedback to add?
newbie
Activity: 21
Merit: 0
Your whitepaper does not describe how a "nominal" registration fee (easily afforded by scammers) completely eliminates the possibility of Sybil attacks, aka "the absence of reliable reputation information". Are moderators going to make the fee so high and the requirements so stringent that they can afford to fly out and personally run live fingerprints, DNA, retinal scan? And having to trust moderators to kill Sybils is only "trustless" if it means "trust less than 100% but more than 0%".

You can never 'completely eliminate the possibility' of a Sybil attack on any reputation system .
The whole idea of MAD is that -both- parties have something to lose by being a dishonest trader.
In your scenario, the scamming buyer loses out on some kind of security deposit put in escrow before the trade.
The whole point of the security deposit is to incentivize honest behavior.

This goal is achieved in a different way with METAmarket.

Rather than scammers being incentivized by security deposits,
they're incentivized by the potential to lose their registration fee,
and whatever time/effort/BTC has been burned building their current identity's reputation.

Here's a quote from Jeremy Spilman (also quoted in the white paper):
Quote
The first option is to lock up some of Bob’s coins along with Alice’s. That way, Bob can’t simply troll Alice into losing money without losing some of his own. Technically, what we need to do is collect properly sized inputs (account balances) from both Alice and Bob, and then collect all the coins together into a single multisig output.
...
The second option is to setup an automatic release from the escrow where coins are either sent back to Alice, or split some way between Alice and Bob, at some predefined points in the future.
legendary
Activity: 3038
Merit: 1032
RIP Mommy
Your whitepaper does not describe how a "nominal" registration fee (easily afforded by scammers) completely eliminates the possibility of Sybil attacks, aka "the absence of reliable reputation information". Are moderators going to make the fee so high and the requirements so stringent that they can afford to fly out and personally run live fingerprints, DNA, retinal scan? And having to trust moderators to kill Sybils is only "trustless" if it means "trust less than 100% but more than 0%".

Or are moderators going to be guarantors for scammers and keep a ledger of who burned how much BTC (which might not even be sufficient to cover all scams), so the scammed sellers can be paid back in part or full, by the moderators in the end?
newbie
Activity: 21
Merit: 0
METAmarket does in fact use 2of2 multisig escrow.
Please take the time to read the whitepaper before asking questions.
Thanks!

This "refund transaction" you described nullifies the mutual assured destruction I described. Thanks.

"Mutually assured destruction" is only useful or desirable in the absence of reliable reputation information.
This is not how METAmarket is intended to operate.
If you get around to reading the whitepaper, I always appreciate feedback.
legendary
Activity: 3038
Merit: 1032
RIP Mommy
Make it 2 of 2 multisig so the scamming seller/scamming buyer have mutual assured destruction.

METAmarket does in fact use 2of2 multisig escrow.
Please take the time to read the whitepaper before asking questions.
Thanks!

This "refund transaction" you described nullifies the mutual assured destruction I described. Thanks.
newbie
Activity: 21
Merit: 0
Thanks for the reply.

Why wouldn't the scamming buyer just abandon their bad reputation identity/account and create a new identity/account with an unblemished reputation?  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Problems like this are simple to solve.  Long computational or network time to create new accounts is one solution.  Proof of tour across currently online users.  Lower reputation if new account is from an address/network that's previously registered users.  Freenet's WoT has an interesting feature where existing users generate CAPTCHA challenges for new users.  It can easily be made non-trivial to create a significant number of bad accounts.

Excellent point cheako, this problem isn't terribly difficult to solve.
In METAmarket, every time you want to register your identity with a marketplace,
you MUST pay a nominal registration fee (in BTC) directly to the Moderator.
This policy not only attaches  monetary cost to mounting a Sybil attack,
but also provides a revenue stream to incentivize the running of the marketplaces themselves.
newbie
Activity: 21
Merit: 0
Sounds promising ... suggest you also consider PageSigner (tlsnotary) integration https://tlsnotary.org/

Thanks for your feedback!
Could you explain what advantage could be gained by integrating with TLSNotary?

Decentralised on-line marketplace for bitcoin <-> currency trading.

You can theoretically already use METAmarket to trade anything for bitcoin, including other currencies!
Be it MoneyGram, bank wires, cash in the mail, or even PayPal!
The real innovation that makes this possible is the decentralized two-party multisig escrow, enabled by the federated reputation model.
newbie
Activity: 21
Merit: 0
Make it 2 of 2 multisig so the scamming seller/scamming buyer have mutual assured destruction.

METAmarket does in fact use 2of2 multisig escrow.
Please take the time to read the whitepaper before asking questions.
Thanks!
member
Activity: 84
Merit: 10
Thanks for the reply.

Why wouldn't the scamming buyer just abandon their bad reputation identity/account and create a new identity/account with an unblemished reputation?  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Problems like this are simple to solve.  Long computational or network time to create new accounts is one solution.  Proof of tour across currently online users.  Lower reputation if new account is from an address/network that's previously registered users.  Freenet's WoT has an interesting feature where existing users generate CAPTCHA challenges for new users.  It can easily be made non-trivial to create a significant number of bad accounts.
legendary
Activity: 3920
Merit: 2349
Eadem mutata resurgo
Sounds promising ... suggest you also consider PageSigner (tlsnotary) integration https://tlsnotary.org/

Thanks for your feedback!
Could you explain what advantage could be gained by integrating with TLSNotary?

Decentralised on-line marketplace for bitcoin <-> currency trading.
legendary
Activity: 3038
Merit: 1032
RIP Mommy
Make it 2 of 2 multisig so the scamming seller/scamming buyer have mutual assured destruction.
Pages:
Jump to: