Topic: Legal Ramifications of a Truly P2P Exchange (Opinions Wanted!) (Read 2391 times)

Let me rephrase that, this system is perfectly legal it just doesn't provide you receipts that are required to report losses.    You of course have every transaction you made on your computer and can prove you own the private keys so you have all of the documentation you need for any profit and loss.   You can always Self Report your income and forgo claiming losses.     Or you can calculate your net position and only report the gains.

Technically you have no 'profit or loss' until you convert back to fiat and any time you make a trade with someone for fiat you can get a receipt.

You give up easily.  Do you think it is not a solvable problem?
If it is only for black markets, it is begging to get attacked.

If you want to do things 'legally' then I suspect you can always go through a centralized exchange that will vouch for your ID.

Cash (bills) are serialized so even if it is in the dark and through a mule it is not as anonymous as a pure commodity currency (gold or silver).  They can be tracked at each interaction with a bank.

If my account takes a loss in a tax period, I may want to claim that loss against other gains.
I wonder if posting my name and address on a forum associated with a bitshare address would be sufficient proof of that ownership?
What stops others from posting similar information on another forum?  Or just copy and paste my information with changes to point it to them?
The goal is to support provable ownership by a unique identity so that it is not only usable by anonymous, yes? (That risks making it a criminal enterprise and invites opposition unnecessarily.)
Users may not take advantage of the identity feature, but it should be available to those that need it.

I appreciate your input and never intended my statements to be perceived as unappreciative or critical of your feedback.  This issue of 'claimed theft' is one that I am taking seriously.

So the question is does the 'Terms & Conditions' represent a contract or a waiver?   If it does represent a 'contract' sufficient to protect you from accusations of theft, does that contract entirely independent and separate from the asset you would be purchasing?  Are contracts of this nature regulated?

How would seizure by force work?   The only way to seize your BitAssets would be to seize your private keys or brain wallet.  

If a person does not want anonymity they could simply publish their full name and address along with their BitShare address on a forum somewhere.  

There are two aspects to BitShares:

1) The exchange and storage of BitAssets that have value tracking gold/silver/usd without counter party.  This is entirely decentralized, pseudo-anonymous, and secure.

2) The escrow service that allows you to exchange BitUSD for USD.   With this service you must reveal your bank account number for wire-transfer purposes.  In this case the exchange is not 'anonymous' between the two parties, but still private unless one party decided to publish the other parties bank account number.  

In-person for cash is the 'most anonymous' way to trade BitUSD for USD provided the person you are trading with doesn't take down your license plate, run your picture through a database, or ask for Photo ID.  

Thank you, this explanation helps my understanding.
To the extent that the legal relationship of liability on the other parties is not a contract, recognize that it may not be binding or enforceable.
Please understand, you asked for input to help make this useful.  My comments are offered in that spirit.  I am not attempting to suggest that it not be used and in-person transactions be used instead.  If you would prefer I make no further comment, I will stop now.  A claim of theft is in no way mitigated by in-person transactions, it is mitigated by clearly contracted Ts&Cs of exchange.


The problem of anonymity is partially resolved with this offering.  With an exchange, by being anonymous, you sacrifice any ability to make a claim if an authority seizes the exchange.  You will not be able to adequately prove that you are an innocent victim of the seizing authority and have no hope of reclaiming your lost assets (LR customer problem now).
Your proposal also mitigates the threat of seizure by law, but not by force. 

So, if a person does not want anonymity for whatever reason, will it support that?
Further, if you wish to only have counter-party trades with non-anonymous traders, will it support that?
These would be enhancements to existing exchanges which do not have such control.

Consider that some users may want to be provably honest, rather than just avoiding being provably dishonest.

Are you going to accuse someone of stealing your money when *you* initiate the wire transfer?   

There is a crypto-signed statement that states that the transfer was voluntary and non-refundable.  It also states that the sending of the funds does create a legal relationship or liability on the other parties (escrow agent, etc) to perform any action in exchange for receiving your funds.  This should be more than enough to establish the 'intent' of the wire-transfer.

If you are concerned about someone claiming theft then stick to in-person transactions in public places.   

Note:  the bid/ask exchange system does not suffer any of these problems.   You do not make a physical exchange (or wire transfer) for every exchange, but you keep your 'balance' with the exchange like you would with a bank account or Mt. Gox.   With this balance (BitDollars) you could buy / sell goods directly.

You could, yes.  And it happens on occasion.
http://pleasantville.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/don-juan-waiter-accused-of-stealing-180k-from-customers
http://ny.eater.com/archives/2011/05/olives_waiter_arrested_for_stealing_91000_in_tips.php
http://www.kptv.com/story/19990977/tualatin-waitress-accused-of-stealing-from-customers
etc...

But this is a bad analogy.
Presumably you will want the exchange to be useful for more than tipping?
Contracts are very useful things.  A way to support them is a feature not a bug.

The thing you overlooked is that I have created a crypto-subcurrency trading on the same blockchain that maintains purchasing power with an interest paying dollar bond.   Therefore, you can hold BitDollars without exchange rate risk nor fear of default because there is no 'issuer' and the value of the BitDollars is always backed by 1.5 to 2x their value in BitShares.  The interest rate is 'variable' and thus a BitDollar will fluctuate against actual dollars, but only within a narrow range similar to how the value of Mt.Gox USD fluctuates with supply and demand for USD deposits on the exchange.

The trades between BitDollars and BitShares or BitGold etc are atomic and occur in a deterministic manner in the blockchain.   The only way to 'undo a trade' is to generate a longer block chain and thus requires a 51% attack.  All trades are 'confirmed' within 6 blocks (or about 30 minutes).

   

What defense do you have when you hand someone a tip in a restaurant?  There is no contract or agreements, couldn't you accuse your waiter of theft?

You don't need a defense beyond the facts, the other party needs to prove that you committed fraud or theft.  As long as you do not misrepresent yourself or hack into their systems to get access to a hot wallet, you are safe.

If I hand a man $100 on the street, I cannot say he stole that money without committing perjury.  Any other conclusion would be absurd.

Spot on

Napster was not true p2p tech

I'm curious on the technical side of how you fill orders given it is P2P and decentralized, the orderbook is going to have its own "version" as people buy and sell at the exact same time, almost like you will have forks in the trading.

Essentially (from the 30 seconds I've thought about it) your orders that you executed could be UNDONE or set as standing orders if say the consensus of traders on the P2P exchange were to say that person B's trades were executed before yours.

This idea is an interesting one at that. But purely you would be limited to trading crypto coins with one another.

Anytime you introduce Fiat into the situation, a BANK (which has regulators) will be knocking on the door of the bank account owner (i.e. in most cases the exchange owner). Since there is no exchange owner the possibility of using FIAT in a purely P2P exchange is impossible.

Or did I overlook something?

With absence of contracting or agreements, what defense do i have from receiving payment from someone and thereafter being accused of theft?

The US Government is a CRIMINAL Enterprise. Whatever YOU DO, will be ruled ILLEGAL eventually.

You might as well curl up in a ball and waste away.

Or FIGHT and prepare to DIE!

What do you believe in?

There is no truly p2p exchange,only transmission.

Money is not truly P2P unless the world leaders agrees something like Euros (available for 18 countries).

Napster talked to a centralized server to get a list of files and locations. Now we have magnet links, hence why piratebay is still around

interesting.  I hope you are correct because it looks to me like there will not be many places to exchange btc soon.