re: why aren't escrow services in place as a fixture? It would be so simple to set up.Trust none. The only secure hand to hold your BTC is in your own hand.
BTC has got a big problem with custodial key masters.
You can't be the most liquid if you allow the main exchanges to keep $100s of Millions in blackboxes often looted by foxes.
The ALTs offer a possible solution ... called ... diversification / decentralization.
also see localbitcoins/bitsquare projects, then next in line are the DAO/DAC managed DEX platforms but they will only offer 'virtual' pegged tokens so sticky wickets likely to take 12-24 months to establish themselves
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re: there was a network on trading on-line here, but it seems like that 100-page topic is defunct now.No not defunct, just evolved into the UNO base pair market, so redundant it is to attempt OTC, however as solid trade pairs develop we likely can test out Community2Community managed OTC swap trading .. so back to the p2p spirit of OTC in the future. And the tech has already advanced to facilitate some thing EZ'r and with better fail safes, but the old OTC was a successful field test.
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re: late '14 the talk was about it pushing through 0.01 and hopefully to 0.012Well now you're getting into tales from the battle front
UNO is a very light product to pump. And we (the community) discovered that you could hold support levels and push them up the field with easy ... because most the other coins had heavy inflation that crushed any attempts to raise the price support levels.
And UNO is/was an open community, so while others charged 1-5 BTC to be a member of a 'secret' pump group. UNO pushed the price up very transparently.
UNO community was learning via trail by live fire, and we learned about the sharks and dumperinos. Build a wall and they will smash it! (lessons learned)
So the fix for that was having a reserve of BTC always on hand. LOL ... try managing that as a community ... and yet we kind of did ... but pegging the price of UNO to BTC is a hazard. Most relevant, to today, is the need to put community BTC on an exchage to defend the price ... just imagine what will happen to those top shelf coins doing 1000BTC on Polo if they get GoX'd!
How the heck will this crypto experiential strangelands trip turn out? Don't know just yet, but for me the UN is square one, and helps you see the bigger picture in higher definition.
We are turtles around here. There's no rush to the top. UNO community has been checking all the angles, twice, at at times thrice.
Best Advise.
Learn all about the crypto markets, trade with skepticism for anything that pops up to quickly, and keep storing your earned value in UNO.
ps ... if your are green and cutting your teeth ...
https://www.cryptopia.co.nz/Exchange ... for rapid grasp of whos who and what is what ;]