Yay! Responding to page 3 now! (You guys are frigging killing me...!)
Wow, that's an obtusely complicated way to duplicate part of the functionality of the program described in the OP.
You didn't even attempt to tackle the Fiat problem? Why would you go through all that work??!?
I think BMOT just provided all the things we need
BMOT's got promise but it does not solve the fiat problem either.
It would be fiat-backed contracts and actual BTC. I guess the contracts are still IOUs or sorts, but I doubt we'll be able to plug anything like this into a bank, since they would get shut down instantly for violating KYC/AML
We've got to try bro. It's the whole ballgame.
Both my client idea and BMOT would make great P2P exchanges as is if you don't want to deal with fiat here... But the goal has to be to replace MtGox and the other CPOFs... You can't do that trading cryptocurrencies for cryptocurrencies.
Is there an alt-coin that has a constant value instead of a fixed supply function (like bitcoin)?
For example, the supply of the coin adjusts such that N alt-coins always equals M US dollars?
No, nor could there ever be.
Basic economics, something I understand is not taught in schools anywhere on this planet anymore, shows you why it takes evil men with guns pointed at you to fix a price.
An IOU, however, can be cryptographically signed. I'd still rather not deal in IOUs but crypto-IOUs could serve the purpose you are looking for here.
Black market techniques can help in this situation.
The trade has to be instantaneous, face to face meet ups are essential.
If you're willing to take the effort to meet face to face, why not just use a Lamassu ATM or even Localbitcoins?
you create a p2p bank. tricky shit for sure. millions of them. How do you do this?
The BTC atms, a similar concept but digital, the legal route is to create a banking entity like a credit union but make it p2p many small entities linked by miners who take care of the transactions, the banking software is distributed opensource to everyone so anyone can become a bank.
The person acting as bank is also the miner who takes care of the matchups between transactions. they get paid in BTC fees for keeping the flow of money going.
I did in fact consider this, and was even thinking about making such a business publically traded over at BTCT.CO, for added security. However, what can this system offer over a simple "IOU" business? (Which isn't nearly as illegal and would have the same bottlenecks into our client software.)
WE must give up the idea of a exchange by market liquidity and buy and sell rates... we must base it on fact hard cold science.
Please refrain from doing LSD before posting in my thread. It takes my mind away from what's important reading this kind of nonsense!
The human race has a average IQ that is FAR far far far lower than you'd ever believe if I told you. 99/100ths of them DO NOT know how to value their existing money NOW. They must have guns pointed at them TELLING them what it's worth, and sometimes even that doesn't work!
Asking them to learn some math and economics before learning to value a cryptocurrency is so far beyond laughable it's just painful. Sadly, if you want bitcoin to be traded by more than just us nerds, then you've got to make a product that these morons can at least interact with, if not semi-understand.
Yes, bankers are the problem, and that is exactly why this specific implementation of a P2P exchange won't work. You will never get banks to interact with a piece of decentralized software. The wires to make the transfer simply aren't there.
Do you have some banking knowledge that you'd like to share with us? I'm all ears.
I have only speculated that existing value-transfer services like SWIFT, SEPA, and ACH could move value into our software if we find a way to receive it. I admit fully that I don't understand how they work otherwise.
Any hard info you have on how those move Value would be greatly useful.
Having said that, we're still not dead in the water if we can't use those at all. The apparent fallback plan of the moment is a cryptographically-signed IOU issuing business that sells us fiat, and is perhaps publically traded on btct.co. Other fallback plans exist too but aren't as good IMHO.
The
BitMessage + Open Transactions (BMOT) idea that FellowTraveler recently posted is the best solution so far....How to get fiat into this system? You give fiat to a trusted OT server who issues contracts backed by this fiat (or YOU are the trusted server, in which case you issue the fiat contracts yourself) and then you trade the fiat contracts for cryptocurrency contracts and settle with your trading partner on your own time. This is, at least, how I understand the system to work.
I hold no ill-will to the BMOT plan, but I don't see this Fiat solution as being adequate for real-time trading.
The "trusted OT server issueing contracts" does sound a lot like the cryptographically-signed IOU mentioned above. -
Meanwhile, being your own trusted server would seem to mean a free license to counterfeit fiat like crazy! -I don't see how that could work either.
I think what's really needed for fiat --> BTC --> fiat transfers is a network of in-person exchangers such as that proposed by Josh Rossi in
Project Buttonwood.
Lamassu ATMs are going to deliver that promise in full soon enough... But it's still not going to enable real-time trading.
That plus agent networks that connect to regulated exchanges (like what
Coinflash is trying to do) could do a lot to increase liquidity.
As I understand it, Coinflash simply verifies that localbitcoins-type sellers are legit... There is no service there to make them completely liquid. Am I missing something?