bithra.com | Free and provably fair escrow - page 3.

RHavar

legendary

Activity: 2557

Merit: 1886

Quote from: Dogedigital on May 02, 2016, 03:48:23 PM

Very nice site. I'm impressed.

What happens in the case of disputes?

Thanks! The two parties need to work it out. It's the moral equivalent of 2-of-2 multisig, but designed to be easier to use (no public key sharing, both people don't need to sign the transaction). If you need arbitration or something more advanced, it's not really the service.

There was a good discussion of it in bustabit, but basically the summary is that it removes the upside in scamming -- but doesn't prevent people scamming.

RHavar

legendary

Activity: 2557

Merit: 1886

Quote from: DarkStar_ on May 02, 2016, 03:53:17 PM

That is only one part of it though, and probably one of the smaller parts. The main reason he should be trusted is because he owns bustabit, and previously owned moneypot. Moneypot had lots of bitcoin invested in the bankroll, and I don't believe a single satoshi was stolen since after the sale, people could access and withdraw their funds at mp.bustabit.com. Bustabit has also had a lot of bitcoin wagered, and large winners are paid out very quickly, with some huge 10+ bitcoin withdraws. There wouldn't be much of a point for Ryan to create a site, just to scam people since if he did, his site (which probably makes him nice profit) would get a lot smaller volume, and there would be less profit.

Yeah, I think at a single point of time I had held >1000 BTC of other peoples money that I could've stolen if dishonest, and in total processed a little over 16k BTC of peoples withdraws. It doesn't really prove I will always act ethically, but bithra.com is just supposed to be a light weight alternative to "Send me the money first", not the be all and end all. I specifically avoided any advanced features and usage just to make it simple.

The use case I'm trying to replace is: "Hey, I'm new and selling X. Please send me the money first, I promise I won't scam you. I don't have time to use a human escrow". It's not trying to replace trustless on-chain schemes, and things that offer better guarantees.

RHavar

legendary

Activity: 2557

Merit: 1886

Quote from: Johny Depp on May 02, 2016, 03:45:28 PM

Quote

PROVABLY FAIR: We provide non-repudiable proofs for all our escrow services, and is operated by Ryan Havar (owner of bustabit), on bitcointalk's default trust list, and handled millions of dollars of bitcoins.

^^What is this? So, you are basically asking for a favor for being on default trust level 2! Where is the provable fairness in it?

Actually it offers a little more guarantee than what is typically called "provably fair". Because in addition to proving to yourself it's fair (like gambling) it allows you to prove to others to prove you were cheated (non-repudiation).

The provably fairness is explained in the FAQ, but here's a practical example:

Code:

{
  "address": "1MGeKWdiUiKPBt3NUR7NsmNDsZT5LgycrW",
  "message": "The address 12SbYg7CZL9pxkvJqmmFriJXBYXhTiXPep was generated on 2016-05-01T23:12:56.110Z by bithra.com, and holds funds in escrow for 1FDUdzgVhUbSpkbCKST11XoeQ3K5zxac8a and will be released with signed instructions from 14iik8PjwVKGhHPvTD3eJUCdpyR7dfjW2Y in the next year",
  "signature": "IBGDmeCNLxx6KBCBjJJkvvWpQwKFAsZd3PKHmkzzPI8gL+6AgOqOxScU/uHKrJoksQ4S5FRcI2iQ9qqHGdGpLPk="
}

You need to verify three things:
* The address is indeed the one we use to sign guarantees
* The signature is valid ( I like this tool:
https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC?verifysignedmessage=1 )
* The details are correct

Now you can save that guarantee, and if we don't act according to it -- you can call us out on scamming!

DarkStar_

legendary

Activity: 2772

Merit: 3282

Quote from: Johny Depp on May 02, 2016, 03:45:28 PM

Quote

PROVABLY FAIR: We provide non-repudiable proofs for all our escrow services, and is operated by Ryan Havar (owner of bustabit), on bitcointalk's default trust list, and handled millions of dollars of bitcoins.

^^What is this? So, you are basically asking for a favor for being on default trust level 2! Where is the provable fairness in it?

That is only one part of it though, and probably one of the smaller parts. The main reason he should be trusted is because he owns bustabit, and previously owned moneypot. Moneypot had lots of bitcoin invested in the bankroll, and I don't believe a single satoshi was stolen since after the sale, people could access and withdraw their funds at mp.bustabit.com. Bustabit has also had a lot of bitcoin wagered, and large winners are paid out very quickly, with some huge 10+ bitcoin withdraws. There wouldn't be much of a point for Ryan to create a site, just to scam people since if he did, his site (which probably makes him nice profit) would get a lot smaller volume, and there would be less profit.

Dogedigital

legendary

Activity: 1330

Merit: 1000

Very nice site. I'm impressed.

What happens in the case of disputes?

Johny Depp

full member

Activity: 211

Merit: 125

busting the bastards

Quote

PROVABLY FAIR: We provide non-repudiable proofs for all our escrow services, and is operated by Ryan Havar (owner of bustabit), on bitcointalk's default trust list, and handled millions of dollars of bitcoins.

^^What is this? So, you are basically asking for a favor for being on default trust level 2! Where is the provable fairness in it?

zenitzz

hero member

Activity: 560

Merit: 500

sorry i dont understand with provably fair, it means every transaction would be transparent? and whether this escrow service would be free for forever Cheesy

RHavar

legendary

Activity: 2557

Merit: 1886

Quote from: prtty2gal2 on May 02, 2016, 04:29:32 AM

So with this site, you can basically become an escrow service provider yourself easily, right? (Correct me if I'm wrong)
This is absolutely amazing. I might use this sometime soon.
Note: There's no reason to not trust the site because the owner of bithra is the owner of bustabit too.

Yeah, I act as escrow for all transactions on the site (just don't provide arbitration services). The moral equivalent of using 2-of-2 multisig, just with a nicer UX but worse guarantees. But yeah, there's definitely a lot less counter-party risk in using bithra than trusting some random stranger when trading

prtty2gal2

hero member

Activity: 1092

Merit: 523

So with this site, you can basically become an escrow service provider yourself easily, right? (Correct me if I'm wrong)
This is absolutely amazing. I might use this sometime soon.
Note: There's no reason to not trust the site because the owner of bithra is the owner of bustabit too.

RHavar

legendary

Activity: 2557

Merit: 1886

I'd like to announce bithra.com a completely free, automated and provably fair bitcoin escrow.

It's something I've wanted to build for a while, with the goal of making escrow so easy, quick (and free) that there's no reason to not use it. Part of making it user-friendly, means I had to forgo some of the more fancy cryptography like M-of-N which would require users to work with public keys -- but I have managed to make it provably fair.

It also comes with an API if that's your thing. Give it a try, I think you'll like it =)

https://www.bithra.com/

Topic: bithra.com | Free and provably fair escrow - page 3. (Read 3149 times)