Topic: Decentralized exchange Bitsquare crowdfunding campain now live! (Read 4102 times)

Good luck you guys

Will definitely keep watching this project.

https://bitsquare.io/blog/crowdfunding-campaign-conclusion/

Last 3 hours (will close at midnight CET).
46% funded atm.

Bump. Last day to pledge!

New status 48 pledgers and 39% funded.

Keep it up!

Its a technical limitation of the transaction size, so max. 680 pledges are possible.

What is the point of the Minimum donation limit? I wanted to give you guys five bucks worth of Bitcoin, but the minimum donation level is around 38 bucks. Not exactly a low barrier of entry. I'm not interested in getting a wood wallet, but I am interested in getting my five bucks back if the campaign doesn't fund.

Just wondering why you chose to cut our smaller donations in the lighthouse campaign?

The decentralized arbitration system works in a way that everybody can become an arbitrator. To avoid collusion or misbehaviour the arbitrator need to pay in a high security deposit to a 4of6 multisig. Keyholders are surpreme court arbitrators. Surpreme court arbitrators are those with the highest reputation. Reputation is derived form higher security deposit, many solved cases and real life ID. Traders select a number of arbitrators which the are willing to accept. You can only trade with another who has at least 1 arbitrator in common. If there are more in common, selection is done in a unswayable way, to avoid additional to the protection from sec. deposit collusion risk.

More details can be found here:
https://bitsquare.io/bitsquare.pdf
https://bitsquare.io/arbitration_system.pdf
https://bitsquare.io/risk_analysis.pdf

https://bitsquare.io/blog/bitsquare-arbitration-system/
https://bitsquare.io/blog/bitsquare-protection-mechanisms/

Hope that helps.

I have read the whitepaper indeed and then only asking Qs. Moreover, this is not first time I'm asking Q regarding Bitsquare.io or OpenBazaar as both of them have the same escrow dependency. Every time people actually tend to skip these Qs and point at the whitepaper which really does not address this issue.

My point is simple: As long as you have escrow dependency, you are not decentralized and trustless like Bitcoin network. Both Bitsquare.io or OpenBazaar are trying to give people a flavor of decentralized and trustless network, though in reality they are relying on a faulty trust system like BitcoinTalk's DefaultTrust.

You should really read the white paper.  It addresses all of your worries and is a quick read. Regarding 1. and 2. the decentralized arbitration system steps into place. LBTC uses centralized escrow and holds funds.

You do the Fiat transfer directly to your trade peer via online banking or whatever method you choose. Similar like LocalBitcoin.
The Bitcoin is held in 2of3 MultiSig. Keyholders are both traders and an arbitrator.
The security deposit of the arbitrator is held in a 4of6 MS. Keyholders are the "supreme court" arbitrators which are the arbitrators with the highest reputation (not anonymous, higher security deposit, many cases solved successfully). If an arbitrator colludes or does not meet defined quality standards, he will lose all his security deposit, which is in any case much more what he can win when trying to cheat.

If you are interested in more details please read our whitepaper and the related papers about the arbitration system and risk analysis or check out the videos.

I have a Q regarding how bitsquare operates. I was checking the website & the whitepaper. The basic functionality is well explained in the following image...



But, it is an ideal situation. What happens when...

1. Without sending the FIAT, Alice claims that she has sent it ?

2. After receiving the FIAT, Bob claims he has not received it ?

If there is no manual intervention, then who will make these decisions ? There must be an escrow and by using that escrow, we are eventually back to that centralized structure. I think LocalBitcoins or similar escrow based exchanges will be far more trusted than a BitSquare.io escrow, because their business is trust and their identities are known, which is not the case for anonymous escrows of BitSquare.io .

I think I understand the basics, especially how there is an incentive for both buyers and sellers to NOT try and commit fraud or cheat (as it would only *cost* them money). But I'm trying to pinpoint how or where the trust factor comes into play.

If I want to buy bitcoins, I accept an order, and wire my USD or EUR, to whom or where do I wire it? Directly to the seller, or to an unknown intermediary? If at any point the arbitrator controls my wired funds and/or our security deposits, how can we (both me and the seller) be sure the arbitrator doesn't disappear with my fiat?

Ah, OK, I didn't notice that before, that's good. But who or what controls his security deposit, or where does an arbitrator send his security payment to?

Thanks again, trying to get BitSquare's security mechanism as clear as possible.

I think when you read the information published on our crowd funding page (https://bitsquare.io/crowdfunding/) it should be pretty clear. Use our official sources at primary information source.

The crowd funding works with Lighthouse and is an all-or-nothing model. 120 BTC is the goal and the campaign ends on 9th of february (midnight UTC 0).
The regular donation address on our webpage was always there and is independent from the crowd funding.

As people mentioned out in forums or reddit that the min. pledge of 0.175 BTC might be too hight for some people, they discussed some ideas with sub projects or using the regular donation address and sum that up to the campaign. I will see how it goes until the end of the campaign, and if it is the case that we miss the goal but would reach it with the donations at the regular donation address, I will move that money over to the campaign. But that is hypothetical and if you check the amount dontated at the regular donation address, it does not look like it has any substantial influence of the success of the campaign.

You guys really need to make this funding campaign much clearer. I love this project, it has such a lot of potential, but I can't donate knowing that:

• You've structured the funding rounds in a way that could make the decision to donate regrettable
• You have at least 2 funding streams, and no explanation of how these two are accounted for in respect of each other

This would matter less if you were not asking for so much money. Surely it's better to try to encourage as many bold donations as possible?

I'm not sure what happened there. Could you please open an issue at the Lighthouse github: https://github.com/vinumeris/lighthouse/issues

Alternatively, you could donate to the address on our 'contribute' page: https://bitsquare.io/contribute/ . We might use donations from there to fill-up Lighthouse donations:

33KyHsPZcCqNVNaqK3jbx9aeubGaXgLgzt

Anyway, thanks for considering a donation.

I'm not sure what you're trying to do here. This situation is very unlikely to happen. Bitsquare lowers the incentive for scammers as much as possible by a set of measures.

The arbitrator is a more or less randomly chosen person to solve cases where one trade participant is cheating. If you're not happy with the decision of the arbitrator (unlikely case of collusion between the arbitrator and the scammer) you can call another arbitrator. The case will be looked into and in case of collusion, arbitrator rights plus arbitrator security deposits (which is at least two times the trade volume) will be taken from the colluding arbitrator.

Again, all of this is very unlikely to happen because there are no real incentives for cheaters to do so.

But what would happen if I receive and hear nothing after I wired my $2500? Not from the seller, not from the arbitrator, nothing?

I couldn't get Lighthouse running on Windows. I installed it on Mac, downloaded the BitSquare project file, did a donation. It was there yesterday, but now I don't see it anymore..?

Thanks!

I'd say $2500 fits the "small transactions" label? Or at least it should, when we're discussing P2P Bitcoin trading.

I think he just explained it can't do that. It's for very small transactions. I'm not sure it's fair to call it an exchange but I do see an audience for it.

Just one thing that I don't fully understand yet, can you explain this:

Suppose I want to buy 10 BTC on BitSquare. I see an offer from someone selling 10 BTC for $2500 and I accept it. I transfer $2500 to some bank account, and 0.1 BTC security deposit to some multi-sig address.

Now, nothing happens. I wait, I get no acknowledgement, no 10 BTC, no nothing. What do I do now to get my $2500 and 0.1 BTC back?

It's just a hypothetical situation, but exactly what mechanism prevents the above scenario from happening?

If you are really interested how Bitsquare works please check out our official resources.
We have prepared all information from hi-level (videos, FAQ) to very detailed (whitepaper, related papers). If you have read that all and understood and there are still open questions please ping us on our mailinglist. You can find all resources easily on our webpage (https://bitsquare.io/).

You shouldn't make judgements without fully understanding the concept. That's just unfair.

Indeed, the whole project is quite complex and there's a lot to read. That is necessary to make it secure. The user experience will not reveal any of that. In fact, in a perfect trading situation, it's not more than a couple of clicks and at 1 point the wait for 1 blockchain confirmation.

Bitsquare will not allow very big transactions, there will be a hard limit. You can use your personal bank account or any other payment provider that offers a sufficiantly hard to reverse payment method. Nothing points at bitcoin if you don't put it in some message field.

Bitsquare does not handle fiat at all. Bitsquare is not even a company. Fiat is handled by the trading peers. A sends money to b, that is one of the most common things in the traditional banking system. In fact Bitsquare's no more than a self-sustaining p2p platform with a distributed dht offer-book and an arbitration system to handle disputes.

You won't have to trust a third party, that's the whole point of it: No single points of failure!

We have two full-time devs at the moment. That would change possibly if the funding is not successful. Remember the working alpha version is self-funded.

I'd like to donate, but every single time I run the lighthouse installer, I get this:



I'll try again in a few weeks, hopefully the people over at Lighthouse are still developing on their software.

It will be interesting to see if this ever happens. As it looks now, this has no chance of actually working while being decentralized.

I could see it working with a huge network of registered users bank accounts being drawn from all over the world for very small amounts per account. But if a large transaction hits a single U.S. account from several hundred accounts worldwide that would create questions and possibly an investigation. These controlled accounts would have to be from Bitcoin users, right? Are we all expected to link a personal bank account to use the service or are the accounts controlled by someone?

Thanks for the lengthy explanation. I'm cool with everything except step 4. I've had more than a couple of commercial bank accounts in my life. I've owned and sold a few businesses. Who's bank account does the $25k come from? How do you open, control and fund "random" bank accounts. The commercial banking industry is a little more restrictive than you might think. Funny thing is these silly banks require things like a business TIN, articles of association, organization, formation, business license, trade name certificate. If a company provides money services, including check cashing, issuing money orders, issuing store value cards, exchanging currency, or wiring funds in exchange for a fee, banks will not allow you to open an account online. You will need to go to the branch personally to open an account and provide mucho proofs of who and what you are. You're right though, you start moving large amounts of cash around multiple accounts and the NSA won't think about Bitcoin. They'll think your a drug dealer. 

Funding a decentralised virtual currency exchange on a decentralised funding platform... It really feels like the future is here

whoa there....

Looking at the funding page, TLS Notary doesn't even make it into the development schedule until another 8 rounds of funding/development. That's an essential part of Bitsquare IMO. What happens if the Bitsquare team decide to do something the community dislikes between now and then? All momentum could unravel very quickly. This sounds like it has just as much potential to be an expensive mistake as it has to realise the promises made. And 120 BTC per round, with 9 rounds, is pretty damn expensive (although arguably worthwhile in the event of total success)

I was under the impression that the nxt exchange was decentralized?

nxtblocks.info/

Well explained, thanks.

Note: That is a wall of text, but in fact the trade process runs extremely smooth and is just a couple of clicks. I really wish people would join our  testing sessions and try it out. We intend to faciliate all irreversible/sufficiently hard to reverse payment methods. One candidate is OKPay. Once you have fiat on OKPay for example, the whole transfer ca be done within a couple of minutes. (At one point you'll have to wait for 1 confirmation)

1. You publish an offer on the BitSquare P2P exchange to sell 100 BTC for, let's say, 25000 USD.
Note that "The BitSquare P2P exchange" can be either software that you download and install on your PC, or an app you run on your tabler or phone, or any of the many online bitsquare web portals that will become available.

2. Somebody accepts your offer. You get confirmation that the buying party has deposited their end of the deal (FYI, that is: they deposit 25000 USD + 1 BTC with the 1 BTC being their security deposit, but that doesn't really matter for you).

3. You deposit 101 BTC to a special address. That's 100 BTC to sell + 1 BTC security deposit, and the address you're sending to is a multi-sig address where the buyer's 1 BTC is being sent to as well.

4. You receive $25000 on your bank account, with some payment description that has nothing to do with "Bitcoin", so it won't trigger any security flags, and neither your bank nor the NSA won't even know you're trading bitcoins. The money comes from some random bank account within the USA (not neccesarily the buyer's).

5. You confirm that your received $25000.

6. You receive back your 1 BTC security deposit, minus 0.0001 BTC fee. The buyer receives your 100 BTC + their own 1 BTC security deposit minus 0.0001 BTC fee (the fees are for the particular arbitrator who happened to have effectuated the trade through the multi-sig deposit).

7. Everybody happy!


Notice that steps 1 and 2 can also be: you look around on the BitSquare P2P exchange, you see an existing proposal from someone who wants to buy 100 BTC for $25000, and you accept their offer.

Have you been successful in the meantime? Can I help?

Great initiative! I'll donate.

New status 31 pledges and 26% funded. Keep going people! 

who is Ripple owner? Who is Bitstamp's owner? Who is CoinBase's owner? Same guys

Haha... Darling of the banks....

Give me a break. Ripple is still centralized shit.

There is Ripple, it's been two years, and its working great. Oh no, wait, TradeFortress said it was a scam, and we are supposed to follow and herd around any troll who sounds like a Bitcoin fundamentalist. I forgot here is Bitcointalk, my apologies.

Current status: 29 pledgers and 22% funded.

Keep it up folks!

I want to exchange 100 btc for dollars in the USA right away. Can this exchange do that? How would it happen and what would I need to do? Are you licensed to do it? Explain it to me like I'm 5.

You do realize that if you have your money in bank, exchange or on paypal that you have an IOU for fiat.

The stable currencies on the bitshares block chain are not IOUs from a centralized entity, it is an IOU from the block chain that is backed by more the 2x its value in a liquid collateral and earns interest. If you understand how a bank works than you understand that you can automate the functionality of it on the block chain. That is you can create a collateralized debt instrument that is enforced by the block chain and is not subject to counterparty risk.

We don't want fiat, we just want the price stability of fiat and to not really on opaque financial intermediaries that can lose or seize our money.  

Thanks HostFat!

150,000 readers? They are only needed 567 donators (with minimum 0.175 BTC ) to fund the next version of Bitsquare! - P2P exchange
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2tlfi5/150000_readers_they_are_only_needed_567_donators

Just trying to give it even more voice

is it not Bitcoin about liberty, anonymity, freedom, no centralized authority? Gemini makes sense in what why? it will be a MSB exchanger....which will MUST require a lot of documents and they will report to IRS and  other tax authorities.

Why would someone still use Bitcoin when he/she has a huge market outside of Bitcoin where the forex/brokers are requesting the same documents.

Email is only important if you donate >= 1 BTC so we can contact you for shipping the reward (wood wallet). Otherwise enter anything there...

There is a user guide on the Lighthouse page if you have troubles: https://www.vinumeris.com/lighthouse/usage
If you can explain more in details or send a screenshot I might help more.

Its not Fiat. IOU are not Fiat.

Mr old man investor doesn't have the same need than honeybadger.

Too complicated, mr old man investor just wants to log in and spend some money in the broker like they do in forex, thats why the Gemini exchange makes sense, unless they fail at running it and it becomes another centralized fail.

and why the people are not using it and they do still prefer centralized shit exchangers?

bitshares is a decentralized exchange

http://bytemaster.bitshares.org/article/2015/01/05/The-Future-of-Crypto-Currency-Exchanges/

i installed it but why do i need to enter an emailaddress?

and even when i enter one, i cant sent the funds (cant "confirm")  

If you download the Lighthose app and import our project file you can view the current pledges. At the moment we have 13 pledges and 20.5 BTC.
A generous 10 BTC from Olivier Janssens as well as a donation from Mike Hearn.

The main concern I see with Coinffeine is that they use that micropayment on the Fiat side, that means you have a high number of small fiat payments between 2 accounts of the same payment processor.
That is a pattern which even the dumbest monitoring system will be able to track and so the payment processor or bank will know exactly that those 2 account holders are involved in a BTC exchange.
Who else make hundreds of 1 EUR payents in 1 minute?

So the Single point of failure test will fail as you are dependent on that payment processor/bank to support bitcoin and you lose your privacy.
Furthermore it is limited to OKPay so both traders need an account there. They plan to add more paymnet options/banks, but I cannot image that there will be a big variety (they need an open banking API which is normally not available beside a few modern payment processors). Also I think it will not be possible between different banks due the cost structure of the micropayments. Micropayments can be cheap inside one bank as its only an internal database entry change, but as soon you leave the bank you have higher costs and delays.

It is an exchange model built for banks to letting them take part in the bitcoin exchange business without getting involved directly with Bitcoin (see interview with CEO: https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/bitcoins-and-gravy-49-coinffeine-the-distributed-bitcoin-exchange).
Its an interesting business model for banks but has nothing to do with the idea of decentralisation.

It is good to have additional exchange models like Coinffeine but as I said it is not decentralized.
I see it similar to those attempts to include an exchange into the banking account like some banks have tried it (and got closed again after regulatory pressure). http://www.dagensia.eu is one example for such...

"Download both the Lighthouse application and the Bitsquare project file and import the project file into the Lighthouse application"

thats a big hurdle to raise funds  . maybe i dot that, but the 99 other people that go an that website.

Very interesting project, it will take a lot effort from devs and people around it to make it a success.

Once I have a bit more free time I will thoroughly review the whitepaper.

Is there some sort of a ticker somewhere to see how much there is collected?

Love that there are so many projects jumping on board with Lighthouse already.

I was worried this was just another money making scheme for Mike Hearn (sorry mike - the decentralized trustless world has turned me into a paranoid freak that doesn't trust anyone.  ironically.)

Are there any projects dedicated to bringing on more developers for Bitcoin protocol?

-B-

Prefer? Ther is no decentralized alternative yet out.

Hi, I'm Marc from Bitsquare.

Coinffeine is a company, a startup business model, which we're not. Bitsquare is a non-profit, supposed to be from the community for the community. We take decentralization seriously, our main focus is to avoid single points of failure.

Coinffeine are essentially paid by investors, like in their first funding round by the spanish bank bankinter: http://blog.coinffeine.com/2014/11/17/the-spanish-bank-bankinter-invests-in-coinffeine/
As you can see in their blog http://blog.coinffeine.com/ they are on the look for more vc capital in NYC. In fact Coinffeine considers banks as clients:
https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/bitcoins-and-gravy-49-coinffeine-the-distributed-bitcoin-exchange

That wouldn't be acceptable for Bitsquare.

Bitsquare will hopefully be paid for by the community that it's aimed at. We actually made a start by working and paying for v0.1, including fuctional public software.

Last time I checked, Coinffeine didn't do public testing. (they do closed testing, I'm not sure if that has changed yet)

Coinffeine uses micro-payment channels to mitigate risk of fraud, whereas our protection system is a combination of security deposits and a decentralized arbitration system: https://bitsquare.io/bitsquare.pdf

Coinffein will use OKPay as fiat payment processor. Bitsquare will support most if not all 'hard' payment methods https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Payment_methods


I made this post to answer your question, to show the differences there are even if they use the same terminology like we do. I, by no means, want to discredit Coinffeine.



Feel free to ask anything or get involved. We're in need of a strong community.

https://bitsquare.io/

Edit: Replaced arbitration paper with white paper, because the arbitration paper is a bit outdated

nice to see something like this using lighthouse, good luck and maybe ill jump in with a bit.

there is not any decentralized exchange yet

then why does the BTC community prefers centralized shit exchangers?

I wasn't aware of Coinffeine so I have no idea...

This is what we need, i want to see tons of working decentralized exchanges happening.
What is the difference if you compare this to Coinffeine??

Decentralized bitcoin exchange Bitsquare crowdfunding campain now is live on Lighthouse!

Let's make this happen  


https://bitsquare.io/crowdfunding/

More about Lighthouse:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y--lBpouUVs

Download Lighthouse here: https://www.vinumeris.com/lighthouse