The missives are written regularly. They are written when it is appropriate to communicate the recent developments. There have been 22 missives written in 7 months. That seems fairly regular to me. Please forgive those who love alliteration.
I am not a pigeon, I love pudding.
1 stone, 2 pigeons: Monero Mystery Missives jk |
|
|
|
Nice way to handle it  |
|
|
|
...  It is way more than this. The big issue here is fungibility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungibility If I for example use cash to pay a tax to the state, I do not need to concern my with the issue that someone ten transactions back used the same coins or even same bills for some illegal activity. With XBT this can be an issue otherwise know as taint. With XMR it is like coin, perfectly fungible, even better than bills with serial numbers. Bitcoin, for all the places you shop. Monero, for all the places you don't. And... Monero, because you shouldn't need to explain where your money has been, where it is at, or where it will be. Not quite so concise, yes? |
|
|
|
Isn't' it better to have the flexibility to opt out? Couldn't tell if you were citing this as a pro or a con. I still think it's important to have other strong coins such as Monero in the marketplace but more fore the reason of having alternatives if bitcoin ever becomes too unattainable. If they both have the same features and you can buy stuff with it then who cares if the feature you use was the result of a fork or add-on or whatever.
Monero already has this, and has had it from the genesis block. You can opt-out globally (for a particular address) by publishing your view key, as we have done with the Monero donation address on the OP. We will also add the functionality to reveal the one-time key on a per-transaction basis in future. Well in that case it's just a matter of doing what Bitcoin has done in order for Monero to gain value. Monero needs to be accepted as a payment method by more merchants just like Overstock, Newegg, TigerDirect, etc etc etc. Bitcoin, for all the places you shop. Monero, for all the places you don't. |
|
|
|
The only problem that I see is that now you've shifted trust to the market instead of the seller and given the market more incentive to steal funds. If you've worked-out a way to make this aspect trustless, you'd have a great solution.
This. What about buyer escrows a added percentage and covers the market fluctuation up to a certain point, say 15% and when goods are received cost is calculated then and escrow is divied up accordingly.  Would mitigate risk on both sides, so seems like a fair alternative without making the system overly complex. Would suck for everyone when the market crashes a lot in a short period of time, but that might be the near-term risk for ease-of-use and privacy. |
|
|
|
I got into a discussion on reddit about bitcoin being fungible. I said bitcoins could be blacklisted, hence bitcoins are not fungible and also mentioned unlinkability and untraceability of ring-signatures for true fungibility.
Some say 1 BTC is always 1 BTC for the bitcoin network, only people/organisations can refuse certain bitcoins like some merchants can refuse large fiat notes ... so bitcoins are fungible to them.
Others say nobody should be allowed to blacklist/whitelist bitcoins or bitcoin would break. To me this is proof bitcoin isn't fungible.
I was not able to convince them about the non-fungibility of bitcoin. Maybe our perception is wrong and we don't need unlinkability and untraceability for true fungibility ?
r/bitcoin (for the most part) has their head in the sand about Bitcoin's anonymity. Most think either mixers are working, sidechains will be implemented and fix the matter, or that darkwallet is going to work. I believe the only real threat to Bitcoin is an anonymous coin and the best anonymous coin is where you're at--enjoy it. There's no reason to preach on there--stick to facts and let reasonable people come to their own conclusions. Donated another 50 to free bazaar--what are we at? |
|
|
|
"Relatively, is there a disadvantage compared to trusting the market instead of the seller?"
Yes, the market has more money involved and therefore more incentive to steal. Also, it paints a bigger target for hackers. And finally, a seller only rips off those buying from them at the time of the theft, whereas a market rips off everyone who has money in the market at the time of the theft.
The market has more money to steal but it takes much longer to build a reputation and gain volume whereas fraudulent sellers can start up new accounts and get them ready for more frequent (although smaller) scams. Most markets never become popular. The darknet is usually dominated by 2 or 3 of them. So there's a significant opportunity cost to giving up a #1 through #3 ranking. You can earn 100k+ bitcoins running a market honestly, as we can see from Ulbricht's personal stash. re: a bigger target for hackers. Yes, it is. But if the market keeps the majority of funds in cold storage, and only keeps enough in a hot wallet keep up with withdrawals, then the hacker's take is limited. I think we always must return to the fact that the market is not interested in perfect security. Participants could have near-perfect security with multi-sig, but participants would rather be scammed every so often than have constant inconvenience and volatility. Maybe Option 3 is 7-7 and still wouldn't be as popular as Option 2 (10-5), but I think it's still worth thinking about. I think any option is worth discussing. Hashing out what are the risks versus the rewards is part of any healthy vetting process. |
|
|
|
tracking
For escrow release? Or for government agencies? Something else? |
|
|
|
|
"Relatively, is there a disadvantage compared to trusting the market instead of the seller?"
Yes, the market has more money involved and therefore more incentive to steal. Also, it paints a bigger target for hackers. And finally, a seller only rips off those buying from them at the time of the theft, whereas a market rips off everyone who has money in the market at the time of the theft.
|
|
|
|
To be fair, ideas are one of the most pimped things ever. |
|
|
|
|
The only problem that I see is that now you've shifted trust to the market instead of the seller and given the market more incentive to steal funds. If you've worked-out a way to make this aspect trustless, you'd have a great solution.
|
|
|
|
it seems escrow/multisig is a good tool to bootstrap seller's reputation but is not really necessary afterwards when the seller is well established.
this is an interesting point of view - it would mean that openbazaar can use such seller bootstrapping with multisig/escrow using any crypto and than let buyers use monero simply out of convenience.
Exactly. If you look at Evolution's escrow system, the seller chooses what option to use: fe or escrow. The buyer is faced with a very simple choice: if the fe is only offered, does the seller's reputation warrant the risk I'm taking of not getting my items (this has a lot to do with price and that you can still give a bad review and hurt the seller's reputation). If the seller has a good reputation and offers escrow, it's a no brainer. Someone might want to go onto Evolution and see how they do it; it's functioning and people like using it. In simple terms it works like this: A new seller with a low reputation needs to do one of two things to compete with established sellers: 1. Lower the price so much that buyers will take a risk by using fe. 2. Take escrow and give the buyer extra security until a good reputation can be established. FE is king. Just a simple measure of outcomes. Here are the two options: 1) Three-party multi-sig escrow where the escrow is kept in a free-floating cryptocurrency (e.g. BTC/XMR). This is totally secure for the buyer, but the merchant takes a huge volatility risk. It's currently unpopular with bitcoin and will likely never become popular. 2) Centralized escrow + (FE). This is totally unsecure for the buyer, as he loses control of his coins immediately, but it is totally secure for the seller. The seller offers a competitive discount to entice buyers, which the buyer likes. Buyers can minimize their risk by choosing a seller with an established, honest reputation. However, this does not prevent scams because a seller with a established reputation is sometimes just building trust so that he can steal an even bigger sum of money in the end. This is currently the most popular style on darknet markets with bitcoin. To try to quantify it: Option 1. Seller Satisfaction: 2, Buyer Satisfaction: 10 Option 2: Seller Satisfaction: 10 , Buyer Satisfaction: 5 Option 1 just absolutely sucks for sellers, so they won't do it unless they are doing it temporarily to build a reputation. Buyers are forced to take Option 2 or refuse to participate. Seller offers a nice discount to entice them. Buyers aren't happy but they can live with it. I'm just about finished writing a very long post about a third option that I believe is superior to Option 2, which I'll post in the main alt section shortly. I knew you were pimping something. Can you post a link here when it's done? |
|
|
|
it seems escrow/multisig is a good tool to bootstrap seller's reputation but is not really necessary afterwards when the seller is well established.
this is an interesting point of view - it would mean that openbazaar can use such seller bootstrapping with multisig/escrow using any crypto and than let buyers use monero simply out of convenience.
Exactly. If you look at Evolution's escrow system, the seller chooses what option to use: fe or escrow. The buyer is faced with a very simple choice: if the fe is only offered, does the seller's reputation warrant the risk I'm taking of not getting my items (this has a lot to do with price and that you can still give a bad review and hurt the seller's reputation). If the seller has a good reputation and offers escrow, it's a no brainer. Someone might want to go onto Evolution and see how they do it; it's functioning and people like using it. In simple terms it works like this: A new seller with a low reputation needs to do one of two things to compete with established sellers: 1. Lower the price so much that buyers will take a risk by using fe. 2. Take escrow and give the buyer extra security until a good reputation can be established. |
|
|
|
OB has got about 260 open bugs actually, some of them I will have to fix to get monero parts working. but I also suppose, the most complicated part will be developing of well-operating monero escrow without multisig. 260 open bugs, some of which he'd have to fix before modifying it to work without multisig and modifying it to work with XMR. Doesn't seem realistic for that to be done in a month, and even if it were, the result would still be buggy. I hate to be a wet blanket, but let's maybe think about this. Would a buggy Freebazaar with no multi-sig really get much use even as a marketing tool? Would it really be superior to an onion site or IRC channel with a reputation system and escrow agents? We'd end up throwing more money at re-modifying it to use multi-sig once XMR finally gets working multisig. If core XMR devs hold Atrides as a software engineer in high esteem, then that's enough for me. But there's always an opportunity cost. He could be paid to work on something else. Note: I am not withdrawing my pledge. I move with the consensus. I would suggest working on the integration and leaving the bugs to the initial devs and if those need to be addressed for proper integration then that bug could be addressed. I see no reason for this project to fix bugs that may be handled differently from the initial fork which would deviate the project farther from the initial fork which would make maintenance a magnitude in order tougher to maintain. this of course is just an opinion and can be ingnored. I'm thinking it could be better to just wait for XMR to get multi-sig first. By then, he'd be modifying a much less buggy OB. In the meantime, resources might be better spent making it super-easy for XMR to be accepted by existing major marketplaces, such as poker websites as David Latapie suggested earlier today. I don't think we have a tutorial for services willing to add Monero, like a casino (such as DirectBet) or an exchange (such as Poloniex). Could someone start one? If Poloniex and Bter and Hitbtc can figure out how to detect XMR deposits and send XMR, then the groundwork has basically been done. There are a bunch of marketplaces that would be accepting XMR right now, such as Cryptsy, that aren't accepting XMR simply because it's not super-easy for them to figure it out. It could be far more powerful to see XMR accepted on a major poker website rather than to see it integrated into a buggy, non-multisig OpenBazaar fork.Think about it. Atrides has offered to do this, so he probably believes that he can do it or would at least like the challenge of trying--a decentralized market seems like a sooner or later project--so why not let him have at it and let someone who wants to handle integration with gambling sites, handle integration with gambling sites? I'm just amazed (and thankful) someone is willing to tackle the market problem so early. |
|
|
|
|
Monero*--a decentralized anonymous currency.
Freebazaar*--a decentralized market for Monero that IS NOT part of the official GUI.
*The devs are not responsible for the use of this technology for good or evil--especially since one man's evil is another man's good and vice versa depending on where, when and how you live.
|
|
|
|
This is precisely why Monero exists, to be actual virtual cash.
What you just suggested, however, is that Monero is nothing close to virtual cash. You're effectively saying it only behaves like cash if I use it within the legal boundaries of whatever corrupt jurisdiction I happen to be transacting in. If governments wanted to shut down Monero tomorrow they could by computational attacks or by intimidation. Monero has bigger reasons for existing than to simply help you buy things online that are illegal.
Actual cash behaves like cash regardless of how I use it. Going to re-watch The Dallas Buyer's Club and Schindler's List and hope the anonymous movement of this asset isn't dependent on laws that can be inhumane by accident or intent. |
|
|
|
Or...people like to sell things without getting caught by the middleman or the police. That may turn out be true, but also relatively unimportant. Early on you could say the web was the perfect way to distribute porn without being censored by Blockbuster or Walmart, and you would have been correct, but at the same time completely missed the mark. You need an early on to get to the later. Sure, and porn was indeed an early adopter of the web, including many important scaling technologies that made later uses possible. I'm just saying that the ultimate impact turned out to be much more than porn. Agreed. My point is that sex is a prime driver of man as is addiction and power and these things will feed an anonymous exchange much faster than any later applications that are driven by much more complex or humanistic ideals. I still remember the day music beat out porn on search engines--it took many years. No one can predict how xmr or btc driven networks will look in the future, but I'll bet that the one that lets people indulge their appetites anonymously will be more successful than the one that doesn't. Just my opinion devoid of any moral stance. |
|
|
|
Or...people like to sell things without getting caught by the middleman or the police. That may turn out be true, but also relatively unimportant. Early on you could say the web was the perfect way to distribute porn without being censored by Blockbuster or Walmart, and you would have been correct, but at the same time completely missed the mark. You need an early on to get to the later. |
|
|
|
Auction sites and retail markets before and since ebay and amazon failed in large numbers. Whether any given foray into this domain is a massive success is hard to say. (Truly massive success is unlikely for an unbiased sample instance from any large space, surely.) What seems easy to say is that some forays will be massive successes, and may in fact reorganize society around them, in the most extreme feasible cases, much as the Internet is doing.
Disintermediation efficiency is a compelling case for crypto. Ebay, amazon are themselves exemplars of the roaring success which is achievable by means of providing disintermediation efficiencies, but they merely reduced the friction of commerce by an order of magnitude or so. Fully decentral markets using crypto have the ability to reduce it by two more orders of magnitude. 99% of 4% adds as much value as 90% of 40%, so I think the case that they will be equally as disruptive as those examplars is a pretty good one. I am sure they are overhyped in some existing context, but in the larger social context I would say they are massively underhyped relative to their potential -- i.e. excessively discounted.
Further efficiencies beyond that are much less likely to be disruptive, as the remaining free energy in the system is much less than the gains produced by the prior generations, so the decentral markets in crypto numeraire are a likely end-game in the race to zero.
Or...people like to sell things without getting caught by the middleman or the police. |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
