I feel like someone that signs onto the internet for the first time and asks "where's the menu?".

I'd like to find a localbitcoins-like site, just without the built in wallet. Where I can post trade ads, with bank deposits for the method or something. I guess I can link my bitrated profile from my localbitcoins profile, but it would be nice to switch to using bitrated escrow. Or do I have the wrong idea about how this is supposed to be used?

I hate paypal, but I get why people use it. I was trying to use this service as an alternative when buying stuff off homelabsales, but ran into these issues:

1. This project feels dead, but the website still works and i couldn't really find an alternative other than openbazaar. Why?

2. why can only the buyer make the contract? it would make sense to have the seller make the contacts

3. why cannot buyer cancel contract after it is created, especially when nobody has signed on yet?

Here is a description of what happened recently: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=423843.msg4613678#msg4613678

shesek1 (bitrated dev comment): "Bitrated doesn't ever send emails, nor it has any numerical identifier for transaction IDs. Using Bitrated requires users to use the interface to generate a key pair, and they should only ever pay to the multisig address shown on the website after they created/joined a transaction and accepted the terms."

One example would be arbiters putting up a deposit they forfeit if they collaborate with one party in a fraudulent transaction or if they otherwise knowingly engage in gross misconduct. An inter-woven network of such deposits would not be impossible to break but it would require such a vast conspiracy as to be unfeasible, as long as it is large enough.

This is to expand on my previous post in the Bitcoin subreddit, before I learned of the existence of this subreddit.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1sw9rw/proposal_standard_terms_for_arbitration/

I am looking into the possibility of going over and adapting PECL for this purpose. I think it would be a good starting point as it is based on the legal systems of 22 European countries and the principles there should be free from any major regional idiosyncrasies or bias. The full text can be found here

If anyone would like to help, you can post here or drop me a PM.

It was great to see large companies like Overstock, Expedia and others to start accepting bitcoin. Now its time for the next step. Multi sig has been around for a while, and can be used with a 3rd party arbitrator. Traditionally credit cards will act as an arbitrator, think of credit cards as having 180 day escrow, the time limit for chargebacks.

most big companies use bitpay, and bitpay does some vetting to make sure the company provides good service. but bitpay still expects you to send direct.

while the companies are trust worthy, and will correct issues with product quality, they are getting people comfortable with sending direct, with no form of protection. new users who are just getting started have no awareness of the issue.

Many people like to support smaller businesses. and there are lots of great small businesses out there that will do everything they can to provide good products/services. But there are many fake small business scammers out there. Escrow can protect against this.

Sites big and small could get hacked, users could end up on the wrong site, and blindly send btc to the wrong address. an arbitrator might catch this.

arbitration is not perfect and can also have issues, or an arbitrator could be a scammer. Its important that arbitration be decentralized, not just one big company like bitpay, but lots of individuals.

When the consumer losses out due to scams the consumer is a direct victim. but it also hurts the crypto community, giving a bad image, and good businesses end up with a customer base that has less money to put towards the good businesses that deserve it.

There are a few ways to go about using escrow with multisig. The first is direct wallets, with manual setup. Electrum and Copay/bitpay wallets are wallets that support multisig. the most popular way would be a 2 of 3 wallet. where 2 signers out of 3 people are needed to finalize a transaction. if everything goes well the buyer and seller are involved. if there is an issue the arbitrator will review evidence, and side with one or the other. Manual also allows for upto 10 signers) The other ways are a more automated way of doing the same thing. Bitrated is one of them. the buyer will select someone they will be buying off, and an arbitrator. it also allows you to link social media, and has a rating system based on your social media following/reputation, and your trades on platform. The other popular place is OpenBazaar. In OpenBazaar2 anyone can be an arbitrator, there is also a verified moderator, that has been checked by the OpenBazaar team to be a good crypto community member. also altcoins can be used in OpenBazaar2. Bithalo is similar to openbazaar but with double escrow, this gives both buyer and seller more incentive to be serious and honest. I meant to play with it more, but i was inspired to start writing and get this out.

Bisq is an exchange, one of the only ones where you have the keys. currently the developer serves as the arbitrator, but hopefully in future releases it will be opened up to members of the community. Bisq is software that runs on mac/win/linux for exchanging fiat to/from btc or btc to/from altscoins. All other exchanges you don't have the keys, and should not be trusted as much as people do. Binance is looking to become more like bisq, but currently binance is centralized and has the key. as far as I know, no other exchange is working towards this for bitcoin. there are some other decentralized exchanges- forkdelta for eth tokens only. bitshares, and maybe a few others I haven't spent much time on, like nem, waves, neo, maybe eos- the smart contract coins.

Manual Multisig is good for private, and one time use, or long term agreements where the wallets can be left active. Bitrated is good for checking reputation, and setting one time offers. OpenBazaar is good for the seller to list items for sale. The seller will choose various acceptable arbitrators, and from that list the buyer can choose an arbitrator. Have a significant number of arbitrators to choose from (manual may be difficult to find).

An additional advantage to utilizing multisig for crypto enthusiasts is more people will be hodling potentially for a few hours, days or even weeks. This can drive the btc price up.

an additional issue, especially for projects that may take weeks or months is price volatility. you'll have to agree on if you are strictly priced in btc, or if you are using a fiat exchange rate at the start of the transaction, or at the end of the transaction. or you might give the option to be whatever is more advantagious to the business or customer.

This opens up some spaces for new companies to become arbitrators, and certain people may like a well established arbitrator, while others might like the small individual arbitrator. Anyone of the parties could even set themselves up to hedge the exchange rate to make more interesting offers.

I would hope that those who are true believers will start using escrow soon, and get people in the habit of transacting safely. Overstock seems to be a crypto ally so I hope to see them start sooner. Expedia seems like they just care about customer demand and the profit, so I don't expect as much from. There are many other examples, I just didn't want to spend the time to go through everything. There's lots of people already on bitrated, and openbazaar, that maybe need a little reminder, just how important their part is in escrow, and keeping the crypto community strong

https://www.bitrated.com/opticbit

OpenBazaar Verified Moderator ob2: QmcscQDiCuTSGxBeMD9qyXwRMcbLU5m9P1kupojYJdFdoh (Me)

I'm new at bitrated. Is there any recommendation concerning the acceptable base fees / dispute fees for arbitration?

Hi,

Is is possible to set up a bitrated trade with an open 3rd party?

So when a recipient is chosen in the future, the trust agent is needed to approve migration of funds - regulating the pre-agreed upon trade rules.

The aim is to put financial controls on a fund to protect it from fraudulent activities - including myself as the account creator