Bitcoin Forum

With the recent financial losses suffered by some at the hands of exchanges like Bitomat.pl now is a good time to revisit the importance of decentralizing exchanges. I'm posting some random thoughts and suggestions below and I invite anyone to add their suggestions to this thread as well.

The way I see it, here are a few ideas:

1. Develop your local network of trusted trading partners.
2. Introduce friends to bitcoin by sending them to sites like http://www.BitcoinTraining.com (I put together this site to make it easier for me to use personally - anyone else is free to use it and offer improvements)
3. As you introduce those who are already in your trusted network a "ready exchange" will develop - giving you local liquidity for going in to - and out of - bitcoin
4. If you have a business, advertise your willingness to accept bitcoin. Offer local exchanges.
5. Create a local bitcoin "MeetUp" group [http://www.meetup.com (http://www.meetup.com)] or join an existing one - make friends, exchange contact info, and begin providing liquidity to each other. Meet for coffee, shoot the bull, and make exchanges.
6. Take advantage of sites like http://www.BTCNearMe.com, http://www.TradeBitcoins.com, and http://www.BitcoinLocator.com to meet other bitcoin users in your area.
7. Create a local YahooGroup or email list to stay in touch and broadcast your desire to buy or sell bitcoin

By developing these trusted, local networks you reduce your dependence on the major exchanges and you avoid the hassles and risk of leaving money on an exchange.

Any other ideas?

Edits made.

Use a real decentralized exchange:

https://github.com/macourtney/Dark-Exchange

:)

Of course, it still needs work. However, it is a start, and AFAIK, the only attempt at such an exchange so far.

With completely open code and control over your own money, this kind of decentralized exchange should avoid causing any major damage to the bitcoin economy. Unlike certain other exchanges.

For the non-techie, can you give us an idea how this would work?

EDIT: I'm reading the User's Guide here: https://github.com/macourtney/Dark-Exchange/wiki/Users-guide

i Like the idea of starting up a site that helps bitcoiners get in touch, provides tools to get shops involved and joins the bitcoin community together to create real buying power.

I like the idea so much im starting a site to do it...its kind of like meetup but specifically for bitcoiners and it will have some tools to help spread bitcoin aceptance.

here is my rough draft:
1.Meetups - gather bitcoin users by geographical locations.
2.We want to target as many businesses as possible, especially food and other essential type shops.
3.We want to contact businesses and present the idea
4.We need a measurement for the sale (how many bitcoiners and proportionally how much buying power/area) - the meetups will discuss and choose targets, the site will cater for this so its all open.  Create possibly a light crm where members can post progress, contacts etc
5.Directory where clients and shops meet.....and a status for each shop...'accepting', 'thinking'','needs more prompting'
6.Shop setup section and sales-training material for meetup groups and the hardware/software they need to implement.

Im an australian in romania so I have access to the big brains and things are cheap to get started here.
Unfortunately im spending all my money on mining rigs so its going to take a bit longer than right now. 

The site will be located at bitgroups.org I have the staff to contact shops and push it, Im employing a coder soon but im not sure when.

If anyone has some good coding skills or has a code library that we can tailor to make a meetup type clone with any of the features listed above let me know.....Let get in touch my google plus account is https://plus.google.com/100003850557805960555/posts

Short answer:

1. Download and install Dark Exchange and its dependencies: https://github.com/macourtney/Dark-Exchange/wiki/Getting-started

2. Start Dark Exchange.

3. Create a new user.

4. Log in as the new user.

5. Post offers, search for offers, see what other users are offering, make trades, etc...

It works sort of like bitcoin-otc, but over a decentralized network. All of your offers are posted on your local computer, and searchable by everyone else on the network. When you want to trade, Dark Exchange will walk you through the process.

How do users deal with the trust issue? Reputations, etc.?

Currently it is not handled. However, there is an issue open to deal with it: https://github.com/macourtney/Dark-Exchange/issues/22