Bitcoin Forum

What's the most contemporary way of conducing a person-to-person transaction in BTC and get protected?

I mean, when you buy from a company, it usually uses BitPay or a similar thing. What's the best way of protecting yourself when buying at, say, bitcointalk? Escrow, multisig transaction + arbitrator? Or is there some other, better way which I'm missing?

there is a reputation system
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=129.0

you could also check out https://localbitcoins.com/

nice advice, hah :)

Ah, I see. Thank you!

You are welcome!

A very important issue here. Most of humanity has been so conditioned to having a government or corporation "protect" them to the point of turning a blind eye even when they're being blatantly undermined, abused, and ripped off because they have never developed coping skills to protect themselves.

Bitcoin forces people off their knees and makes them have to take on the entire responsibility of security themselves, which is the correct way it should've always been handled...but for convenience, society began to hand it off to someone else on a trust.

Since Bitcoin requires as much trust and faith in others as what we mindlessly give to our banks, governments, escrow agents, and middle men of any nature, people shouldn't be so afraid to take on the job. The real difference is at the end of the day, 100% accountability of that responsibility lies with ourselves, and not the other guy we get to blame when SHTF.


This OP brought to mind the paradigm of people who suddenly realize they're on their own and how many people will be put off by the reality there is no central authority there to protect them, and conclude bitcoin is too risky, but the solution is the same. Accountability of Self is a scary thing for people brought up in servitude...

Removing central authorities and regulators and rule makers means we answer to ourselves and nobody else but we also give up the luxury of blaming someone else when our own carelessness or neglect makes us lose. That's the true test of maturity, responsibility, and adulthood.

Freedom is a dish best served with an intact spine :)

Escrow is the way to go. There is a list of escrow agents here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=108716.0

Of course you should do your own research into an agent and not rely solely on the list above.

Multi-sig is also an option but it's complicated and not everyone will understand how it works.

OTC trading is always tough. Why not find an exchange like ours, LakeBTC.com ?