[SOLD] 100 BTC for $1365 USD paid by bank wire to US account

[casascius]

Please note: this offer has been claimed and, as explained, is no longer valid.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

This offer is an experiment, just to see how the community will react to it.
Nevertheless, it is real.

December 11, 2012.

I, Mike Caldwell, hereby offer to buy 100 Bitcoins for $1365 US Dollars, paid by US bank wire to
a US bank account within 2 business days, to the first person who accepts it by sending me the Bitcoins
as described below.

The Bitcoin address for this transaction is: 1A9XvW47SbJQjdyyxNKwGZfUfeec34j5nM
See activity: http://blockchain.info/address/1A9XvW47SbJQjdyyxNKwGZfUfeec34j5nM
As long as there is no activity on this address that indicates someone else has accepted it,
and as long it has not expired as explained below, my offer is valid and unclaimed.

To accept this offer, send 100 bitcoins, but first:<!-- IT HAS BEEN CLAIMED - remove this part before verifying PGP-->

1. Please check the address to ensure that the offer has not already been claimed.
2. You must be able to prove you are the owner of the Bitcoin address(es) that sent the payment.
Either you need to be able to sign messages with it, or move an arbitrary number of coins sent to it
upon request.
3. You must be able to accept a US (domestic) wire to a US bank account.  I will cover my costs to
send the wire, you must cover any costs you incur in receiving it.
4. The first person who pays the above address (as determined by the BlockChain.info first-seen
timestamp) is the person whose Bitcoins I am buying.  If more than one person accepts the offer,
I reserve the right to choose to either give a refund or to perform the same transaction with the
additional parties.
5. This offer is for 100 bitcoins at a fixed price.  Any payment that is not 100 BTC in a single transaction
will not be deemed an acceptance of this offer.
6. This offer unconditionally expires at 18:00 UTC on December 13, 2012 if not accepted before then.
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=SYmV
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Please note: this offer has been claimed and, as explained, is no longer valid.

Safety first.  Always verify the PGP signature before accepting any offer that says "accept this by sending me bitcoins".

Anyway, what I hope to learn, and topics I'm interested in generating discussion about, by making an offer like this:

1. Will this offer get accepted before it expires, and if so, how long will it take?  (the offered price equals MtGox Last at the time of making the offer)
2. Is this really a viable way for me to exchange bitcoins?  (By all accounts, I'm a well-known and trusted member of the community)
3. Is this really a viable way for others to exchange bitcoins? (Including others who aren't well-known)
4. What do others see as the biggest risk to me and others by transacting in this way?
5. If this is a way that works for me but not others due to disparity in reputation, to what extent would it be different if an escrow function were involved?  (I am presently working on an escrow-related idea.  For the purposes of this topic, let's assume this means two parties to a transaction could nominate a third party and give him the ability to reliably control which of the two will get the bitcoins in the event of a dispute, leaving the bitcoins unspendable in the meantime.  This escrow would be done with crypto so the agent will never handle the bitcoins and can never touch or take the bitcoins.  Also the two parties can always release bitcoins to each other without any assistance from the escrow agent, so the escrow agent disappearing is not a problem, and the only bad thing the escrow agent could ever really do would be to release the funds the wrong way.)

[1714933664]

1714933664

[DannyHamilton]

5. If this is a way that works for me but not others due to disparity in reputation, to what extent would it be different if an escrow function were involved?  (I am presently working on an escrow-related idea.  For the purposes of this topic, let's assume this means two parties to a transaction could nominate a third party and give him the ability to reliably control which of the two will get the bitcoins in the event of a dispute, leaving the bitcoins unspendable in the meantime.  This escrow would be done with crypto so the agent will never handle the bitcoins and can never touch or take the bitcoins.  Also the two parties can always release bitcoins to each other without any assistance from the escrow agent, so the escrow agent disappearing is not a problem, and the only bad thing the escrow agent could ever really do would be to release the funds the wrong way.)

I think you know this already, but I'll point it out for anyone who hasn't thought it through...

If this transaction occurs as you've offered it, it will be because you have a significant reputation allowing others to send the bitcoin while maintaining a reasonable belief that they will receive the $1365 transfer.  Clearly, without such a reputation, there would be a significant reluctance to send bitcoin directly to the person making the offer.  Escrow would substantially reduce the reluctance, but only if both parties could agree on a trustworthy third party.  There is opportunity for collusion between one party of the transaction and the escrow facilitator.

If I had the 100 Bitcoins, I'd have taken you up on this offer already.  Unless the mtGox exchange rate increases significantly I suspect that someone will take up your offer before the deadline (especially if the mtGox rate decreases at all creating an arbitrage opportunity).

I assume that if someone skips rule 1, then you will still honor rule 4?

I assume that if someone ignores rule 5, that you will contact them to obtain a refund address and send back the coins received?

[casascius]

Yes I will refund anything I am not buying, other than dust spam.

[koin]

As long as there is no activity on this address that indicates someone else has accepted it,

should that read "that indicates nobody else has accepted it"?

[DannyHamilton]

As long as there is no activity on this address that indicates someone else has accepted it,

should that read "that indicates nobody else has accepted it"?

Interesting grammar question, but I think the intent is clear.  I'm not sure that a question about the choice of the word "somebody" versus the choice of the word "nobody" contributes much to the discussion about the experiment.

I'm not sure about the answer to the grammar question either.  If I was saying it, I'd probably say it the way Casascius did, but the usage that sounds correct to me could easily be wrong in this case.

[Trader Steve]

Dumb noob question: How do I verify your signature? I believe I need your Public Key, correct? Where may I find it?

[jonathan]

there you go Trader Steve:

http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewgpg.php?nick=casascius

... and in bash:
$ gpg --import /path/to/casascius/key
$ gpg --verify <hit 'enter' key>
<now paste in entire signed message content, and then hit 'enter' key again>
<ctrl + d>

the digital signature should be verified now.

[Trader Steve]

there you go Trader Steve:

http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewgpg.php?nick=casascius

... and in bash:
$ gpg --import /path/to/casascius/key
$ gpg --verify <hit 'enter' key>
<now paste in entire signed message content, and then hit 'enter' key again>
<ctrl + d>

the digital signature should be verified now.

Thanks!

[casascius]

As long as there is no activity on this address that indicates someone else has accepted it,

should that read "that indicates nobody else has accepted it"?

Just so there is no confusion about the meaning:  If there is no activity, then nobody has accepted it.  If there is a transaction for 100 BTC, then it has been accepted.  Thus far, nobody has accepted it (if USD/BTC drops, I bet that might change).

Also I am curious: If I were to change it such that my offer was good for any amount between 50 and 1000 BTC (same price per bitcoin), rather than just a fixed 100 BTC, would that make it more appealing?

[DannyHamilton]

As long as there is no activity on this address that indicates someone else has accepted it,

should that read "that indicates nobody else has accepted it"?

Just so there is no confusion about the meaning:  If there is no activity, then nobody has accepted it.  If there is a transaction for 100 BTC, then it has been accepted.  Thus far, nobody has accepted it (if USD/BTC drops, I bet that might change).

Also I am curious: If I were to change it such that my offer was good for any amount between 50 and 1000 BTC (same price per bitcoin), rather than just a fixed 100 BTC, would that make it more appealing?

Silly question.  Obviously it would become more appealing to those who are wanting to cash out more than 50 BTC and less than 100 BTC.  And if the mtGox exchange rate changes sufficiently, the arbitrage opportunity is ten times as large with a sale of 1000 BTC as it is with 100 BTC.

To be honest, I'm surprised that nobody has taken you up on the offer yet.  I assumed that there would be a few people who were looking to cash out 100BTC and would appreciate the opportunity to engage in a very fast and simple transaction with a very trusted individual.  I'm beginning to think that the only way anyone will take up the offer is if the current exchange rate provides a significant arbitrage opportunity.

[BCB]

Mike

I'd trade with you in a second and accept the bank wire.  I'm just out of stock right now.  If you don't get this filled let me know.  Hopefully I'll have more coin later this week.

Thx.

[Trader Steve]

there you go Trader Steve:

http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewgpg.php?nick=casascius

... and in bash:
$ gpg --import /path/to/casascius/key
$ gpg --verify <hit 'enter' key>
<now paste in entire signed message content, and then hit 'enter' key again>
<ctrl + d>

the digital signature should be verified now.

Can't figure out how to do this on a Mac using gpgtools...

[TangibleCryptography]

If the price falls to 13.51485 or lower we will fill it but I imagine someone will fill it first.

[Dalkore]

No incentive to part with 100 BTC at this point.   The slow process is getting back into BTC while not losing on the exchange rate.   You asking a lock-in at basically the high price. 

[casascius]

OK, it's been taken, and I have been contacted by someone who says they took it.  I will follow up with more information as deemed appropriate (depending on how much privacy the buyer wants).

[kgo]

there you go Trader Steve:

http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewgpg.php?nick=casascius

... and in bash:
$ gpg --import /path/to/casascius/key
$ gpg --verify <hit 'enter' key>
<now paste in entire signed message content, and then hit 'enter' key again>
<ctrl + d>

the digital signature should be verified now.

Missing one step.  Verify that this key belongs to the real casascius by looking at his ratings.  Someone could have (for example) created a user called casascuis and if you didn't catch the intentional typo you'd get a good signature, but from an impostor.

[Fjordbit]

Just as an additional thing to consider, I don't think I would have participated in this, because my feeling is the value will be much higher pretty soon (we'll hit $14 by next week). I would rather be buying bitcoin right now than selling.

[annette786]

Am I understanding correctly?

The blockchain enables empirically verified transactions.

Why do we need exchanges? All we really need to do is measure the historical community trust of individuals.  Isn't the bottleneck always trust from individuals on ebay, or even the exchanges themselves?

[Fjordbit]

Why do we need exchanges? All we really need to do is measure the historical community trust of individuals.  Isn't the bottleneck always trust from individuals on ebay, or even the exchanges themselves?

Exchanges are good for efficiently finding the market price as well as regularly moving a lot of coins into fiat. I feel that exchanges are pretty much necessary for a business to accept bitcoin right now. However, for individual transactions, I agree that exchanges are not necessary, or even preferential.

[casascius]

Why do we need exchanges? All we really need to do is measure the historical community trust of individuals.  Isn't the bottleneck always trust from individuals on ebay, or even the exchanges themselves?

Exchanges are good for efficiently finding the market price as well as regularly moving a lot of coins into fiat. I feel that exchanges are pretty much necessary for a business to accept bitcoin right now. However, for individual transactions, I agree that exchanges are not necessary, or even preferential.

I agree with annette to an extent: in place of "exchanges" I submit that it's the orderbook component that performs the critical function.  This could be decentralized.  The ideas circulating around the topic of Ripple might help fill that need.  The idea that an exchange needs to handle your money in the first place is what I'm effectively questioning.

One useful property of exchanges that doesn't exist on the OTC orderbook is that you can show up at an exchange with a wad of money and instantly satisfy a large range of bids and asks.  Using "I sent bitcoins" as a trigger for transactions brings much of that same ability to an OTC orderbook: someone can construct a big transaction to satisfy numerous offers and release it atomically.

I am in the process of building an escrow tool to help make that work.  In fact, I already have it functioning (the preliminary code is on github), now I just need to polish it so it doesn't have potholes... as well as properly document how it works in the Wiki.

[Trader Steve]

 The idea that an exchange needs to handle your money in the first place is what I'm effectively questioning.

+1  Yes, centralized exchanges are vulnerable to attack and anything that can be done to reduce this centralization would be great. Interested to see what you come up with.

[Fjordbit]

I've thought about possibilities in this arena as well. Essentially, having a website where you can put in bid and ask orders, and it will match you up when someone fills the order. Then the cash side will mail the money/bankwire/etc the money and the bitcoin side will sent the coins by escrow.

There are two things that an exchange facilitates here, though. The first is casual anonymity. Mt Gox may be able to identify you to the government because of their AML process, but this process requires the cash receiver to reveal some information about where they are. This is less than ideal.

The second is applying trust by proxy. In my system, you need to trust that the bitcoin seller honestly reports receiving the cash. Other mechanisms outside of cash by mail have the same AML issues as centralization. Even outside of that, you need to trust that the bid/ask wasn't just fishing, or applied on a lark, or that it won't be withheld when the price changes overnight. When you have an exchange you don't have to trust any of these things because the bitcoins are in the same place at the same time. I can see why you would want to incorporate Ripple because it also applies trust by proxy. Frankly I've never found the Ripple system to be that practical, but maybe I need to see it in action to get it.