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Hello all, working on a P2P Bitcoin Exchange that will allow traders to trade between themselves as privately as they want to. If you have a little time to spare, I have 3 questions to ask you.
From the start of the project, I've been constantly asking traders I know their opinion about different features implemented on the platform. Asking new people really helped guide the overall functionality, so as development keep progressing and as we go through different features, I'd like to ask members on this forum for their opinion. The focus right now is on Cash in Person trades so I'd appreciate for you to answer the following questions.
Questions
1. How do you decide if a cash trader is trustworthy ?
2. For you, what is the most secure way to do a cash in person trade ?
3. How do you currently find cash traders to trade with ? If you use a platform, write which one and one thing you would like to be done differently on this platform?
If you can answer these 3 questions with a reply on this post, that's already great and I am thankful for your time.
For the ones that want to learn a little more about the project and what we plan on doing with cash trades, feel free to read on.
The Use of Cash Trades
In my opinion, Bitcoin is meant to be decentralized and give the right to the individual user to control his finances and spend it how he wishes. As most of us are aware, this right is being threatened by many entities and its usually at the crucial point where fiat is being converted to Bitcoin or vice versa. Since these entities such as centralized exchanges, banks, custodian wallets and governments try to control the conversion by blocking certain BTC deposits or freezing bank accounts, we find it absolutely necessary to offer all possible means of exchange for bitcoin buyers and sellers. Now, there are many payment methods available to trade Bitcoin and we plan on offering them but cash is a great one to start with for 2 reasons. The first reason, a cash trade is pretty much an absolute trade similar to bitcoin in the sense that once you exchange hard cash for BTC, the other trader cannot reverse the transaction like he can for all online fiat trades. The second reason is that cash traders are currently too dispersed among different platforms which we think is because platform have been neglecting cash trades since they don't make any commission out of cash trades. We think that if people were offered an easy way to trade for cash, they would do it. As a new platform, this is an opportunity for us to solve a problem and at the same time grow our reputation. How will we do this? In the next section we discuss how we plan on offering the cash trade option.
Disclaimer : After reading the paragraph above, it seems like the perfect way to trade but, of course, it needs to be noted that there are risks involved with trading cash in person. The main point is that at least you are in control of the risk and not some other entity deciding the faith of your money.
How Cash Trades will Work on our Platform
Bitcoin to Cash trades are pretty straightforward, as long as the cash is real and the bitcoin is confirmed, the trade is set in stone. The main issue is finding honest traders and, as a regular cash trader, I know this struggle too well. Before, things were not as complicated as they are now. Some of you cash traders will remember how it used to be to trade for cash in person on LocalBitcoins before they removed the option (and sold their soul :O). You just looked up a city, opened an trade with someone that had a decent profile, exchanged a phone number and from there it went smooth 99% of the time. You usually added that person to your contacts and now you had a trustworthy cash trader who you could contact when you wanted to sell/buy again. Things have changed, but with a few modifications, we think we can bring back that effortless trading experience. To do this we don't need to reinvent the wheel, traders still need to be able to create offers, search offers, check other traders' profile, open a trade and discuss the meeting or take the conversation outside the platform. We don't want to provide escrow since we cannot verify the payment. Plain and simple, the goal of our platform will therefore be to act as a contact list of traders to chose from without holding any of the user's information. We think that with a feedback system and some time, the good traders will rise to the top of the list and it will be once again easy for people to buy or sell BTC with cash in person anywhere in the world.
How a typical trade will look like :
Let's say Trader A wants to Buy Bitcoin for Cash in Los Angeles
1. Search for offers in Los Angeles
2. When he finds an offer he likes, he opens a trade for the amount he wants to buy
3. Both traders have now access to the trade and can now discuss whatever they want using the chat system or share a Signal number, Wickr, Telegram...
At this point, the traders are responsible for the trade and have to do their due diligence and arrange their own meeting preferences.
4. After the trade is done, they can both mark the trade as complete and offer feedback to the other person. And that is it.
Current Main Features for Cash Trades:
- Simple interface to search through offers
- Chat System
- No KYC
- Feedback System
Ideas we are discussing about implementing:
- Pay to post an offer
- Option to lock rate on platform (sometimes cash traders don't agree on what price point to use so if everyone uses our platform's rate, it might improve their in person trading process.)
- Auto chat delete after X amount of time
- Optional PGP encryption when chatting
Current Concerns we haven't fixed fully:
- Fake feedback
That's it for now. If you have any opinions about the cash side or even the project itself, you can do so by replying to this post or if you want, you can message me privately to discuss more.
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