Syscoin vs Bitbay

[dzimbeck]

To elaborate on 10% deposits...

If you do let's say a basic sales contract, seller puts 10% to prevent extortion attack and the buyer advances the payment he would have made anyways thus it works identical to double deposit.

Example

Guitar 1btc
Seller advances .1 btc
Buyer advances 1(payment) and .1 btc

Thus when Guitar is sent buyer must unlock funds or pay 10% extra.

Why would buyer pay 10% more since he loses funds doing so (he pays 1.1 instead of 1) so he would only perform this attack out of spite.

When you combine with a reputation system as we have in Bitbay then those deposits make sense for seasoned buyers and sellers who are low risk of being self destructive


In the case of the seller he can extort easier here with more leverage at 10 to 1. But still, extortion may not pay. Communication can be limited(we have this as an option) and we don't allow partial payments out of escrow. So honestly not only would it again wreck reputation but probably not pay off.

Regardless, the fact that we don't want to give the seller or buyer leverage is why the recommended deposits are equal to the value.

And honestly, people usually have funds to cover their daily volume. And it's worth it of course because it eliminates the courts and eliminates theft from existence

we don't allow partial payments out of escrow.

I had an idea about this and don't think refunding is a bad thing, but the trick is adding risk to it.
The initial escrow should never be paid out partially but both parties could make a new transaction, again with an added risk/insurance deposit.

The only problem with 10% double deposit escrow is a vendor scam, where the seller does not send the goods and risks 10%.
You can play the chicken game, if there is an issue both parties can agree to up the stakes to 100% instead of 10%.

I agree entirely. Also I should mention. In some of my templates I will allow partial payment out. For example employment contracts have a daily weekly or monthly invoice.

And the buy/sell anything template I wanted to have three shipping options. If you choose to send shipping not included in price as an invoice in escrow that is also allowed. Since some packages will be calculated after the fact.

So it depends on the option chosen also kewde I have the option to prevent chat in escrow where chat is allowed by mutual consent.

When chat is allowed, you have cryptographic proof of threats. It's extremely unprofitable.

But 10% might be profitable to vendors. But even there, they need to first ask for more than 10%... Let's say they ask 20%. They then must succeed on extorting that 1/3 the time to break even. Which is not easy.

Regardless we have recommended deposits automatically set unless users request otherwise.

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[sidhujag]

I'm not at all surprised at the trolling behavior of sdc members here it's come to be expected... if you didn't enter the thread by name calling and belittling people without fully understanding what your talking about maybe you would get honest answers just scroll up a bit and you will see.

You can add me to Skype and we can talk technicals away from the little trolls that make it hard to communicate effectively.. I'm sure we can then get on the same page. Just send me a pm.. David and I always on there anyways.

If anyone wasn't fully understanding anything it was sebastien1234.

I also never entered the thread with "name calling and belittling", I wrote a technical post giving critique on one of the members of your team and the system itself, with a humorous undertone to make it more of a light read.

I'll spare you the effort and sum them up again.
"sebastien1234 I hope you are either drunk or high on meth when you typed that"
"bullshit"
"stick to PR"

If you can't handle a silly joke and some serious critique towards incompetence, then that's your problem but don't put the blame on me for your own personal issues.

Before and after the post I've expressed my respect towards your dedication and efforts, yet somehow all of you seem to stick to your game plan to act like I came in like a wrecking ball screaming and fudding.

I'm not defending what any other members have done or said here, but you can't just project those feelings of hatred towards a whole project when in fact it was a single individual.
By definition that is discrimination, and it is as bad as being a racist.

You are right, you did not start the abrasive comments, Kewde however, did. This was exactly what Sidhujag was referring to, if representatives of your community cannot converse in a civilized manner then I'm afraid your cause is lost. As much as some valid questions he may have had, he completely closed the door to conversation by being insulting:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1456464.msg14860563#msg14860563

Then as sidhujag mentioned, you highjack the thread by replying to each other and posting the entire ann thread of SDC (which is now removed).

My comments were civilized by the standards of Bitcointalk, you were just wrong on so many points that you had nothing to come back with.
If you categorize my "funny" comments as insulting than so be it, but I'd rather believe the above^.

It still ponders me how you could make such a mischievous statements. My first reaction was that you knew what you were saying was wrong (because it obviously was for anyone with a bit of a technical background), but you don't mind lying to get an advantage by using fallacies. The thread starter explicitly mentioned that he was a newbie, thus I was a bit fueled by rage.

I don't know game theory. Can you please elaborate on that? Why would 10% deposits be enough?

Everyone (but mostly companies) have a cash flow, which is the amount of money coming in versus the amount going out.
You want to have a positive CF, more flowing in than out.

So when you put 10% of money "locked" down that means you can't use it for other purposes like paying bills or buying new stock.
Locking 10% makes you lose x% of possible profit. Basically they you have a leverage: for every 10USD you have you can turn it into 11USD in for example a week.
Well if you try to scam someone and they lock the funds for anything longer than 10 weeks you are now losing possible profit.
You've scammed yourself

Obviously this only works if the other party is adamant enought to not release the funds to safe his own cash flow.
It all depends on who has the highest leverage (biggest profit margin) which is obviously the seller.

Because thats a great way to enter a thread that's not even about your "coin" and have a flood of other trolls come in at the same time... obviously coordinated. This is why I don't take you are your community serious. You might know what you are doing technically but you have no clue how to deal with other people. Like I said it makes sense, you have the extra time to force hijacking a thread just because you feel like you don't get enough attention. Keep that source close to you, might just leak out.. wouldn't want that its too valuable haha!

If you don't want to discuss find with me got code to write.

[dadon]

I'm not at all surprised at the trolling behavior of sdc members here it's come to be expected... if you didn't enter the thread by name calling and belittling people without fully understanding what your talking about maybe you would get honest answers just scroll up a bit and you will see.

You can add me to Skype and we can talk technicals away from the little trolls that make it hard to communicate effectively.. I'm sure we can then get on the same page. Just send me a pm.. David and I always on there anyways.

If anyone wasn't fully understanding anything it was sebastien1234.

I also never entered the thread with "name calling and belittling", I wrote a technical post giving critique on one of the members of your team and the system itself, with a humorous undertone to make it more of a light read.

I'll spare you the effort and sum them up again.
"sebastien1234 I hope you are either drunk or high on meth when you typed that"
"bullshit"
"stick to PR"

If you can't handle a silly joke and some serious critique towards incompetence, then that's your problem but don't put the blame on me for your own personal issues.

Before and after the post I've expressed my respect towards your dedication and efforts, yet somehow all of you seem to stick to your game plan to act like I came in like a wrecking ball screaming and fudding.

I'm not defending what any other members have done or said here, but you can't just project those feelings of hatred towards a whole project when in fact it was a single individual.
By definition that is discrimination, and it is as bad as being a racist.

You are right, you did not start the abrasive comments, Kewde however, did. This was exactly what Sidhujag was referring to, if representatives of your community cannot converse in a civilized manner then I'm afraid your cause is lost. As much as some valid questions he may have had, he completely closed the door to conversation by being insulting:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1456464.msg14860563#msg14860563

Then as sidhujag mentioned, you highjack the thread by replying to each other and posting the entire ann thread of SDC (which is now removed).

My comments were civilized by the standards of Bitcointalk, you were just wrong on so many points that you had nothing to come back with.
If you categorize my "funny" comments as insulting than so be it, but I'd rather believe the above^.

It still ponders me how you could make such a mischievous statements. My first reaction was that you knew what you were saying was wrong (because it obviously was for anyone with a bit of a technical background), but you don't mind lying to get an advantage by using fallacies. The thread starter explicitly mentioned that he was a newbie, thus I was a bit fueled by rage.

I don't know game theory. Can you please elaborate on that? Why would 10% deposits be enough?

Everyone (but mostly companies) have a cash flow, which is the amount of money coming in versus the amount going out.
You want to have a positive CF, more flowing in than out.

So when you put 10% of money "locked" down that means you can't use it for other purposes like paying bills or buying new stock.
Locking 10% makes you lose x% of possible profit. Basically they you have a leverage: for every 10USD you have you can turn it into 11USD in for example a week.
Well if you try to scam someone and they lock the funds for anything longer than 10 weeks you are now losing possible profit.
You've scammed yourself

Obviously this only works if the other party is adamant enought to not release the funds to safe his own cash flow.
It all depends on who has the highest leverage (biggest profit margin) which is obviously the seller.

Because thats a great way to enter a thread that's not even about your "coin" and have a flood of other trolls come in at the same time... obviously coordinated. This is why I don't take you are your community serious. You might know what you are doing technically but you have no clue how to deal with other people. Like I said it makes sense, you have the extra time to force hijacking a thread just because you feel like you don't get enough attention. Keep that source close to you, might just leak out.. wouldn't want that its too valuable haha!

If you don't want to discuss find with me got code to write.

now who is interrupting? their is a discussion happening now, you want to contribute to it or silently observe like i am ? or do you just want to start more trouble?

[sidhujag]

To elaborate on 10% deposits...

If you do let's say a basic sales contract, seller puts 10% to prevent extortion attack and the buyer advances the payment he would have made anyways thus it works identical to double deposit.

Example

Guitar 1btc
Seller advances .1 btc
Buyer advances 1(payment) and .1 btc

Thus when Guitar is sent buyer must unlock funds or pay 10% extra.

Why would buyer pay 10% more since he loses funds doing so (he pays 1.1 instead of 1) so he would only perform this attack out of spite.

When you combine with a reputation system as we have in Bitbay then those deposits make sense for seasoned buyers and sellers who are low risk of being self destructive


In the case of the seller he can extort easier here with more leverage at 10 to 1. But still, extortion may not pay. Communication can be limited(we have this as an option) and we don't allow partial payments out of escrow. So honestly not only would it again wreck reputation but probably not pay off.

Regardless, the fact that we don't want to give the seller or buyer leverage is why the recommended deposits are equal to the value.

And honestly, people usually have funds to cover their daily volume. And it's worth it of course because it eliminates the courts and eliminates theft from existence

we don't allow partial payments out of escrow.

I had an idea about this and don't think refunding is a bad thing, but the trick is adding risk to it.
The initial escrow should never be paid out partially but both parties could make a new transaction, again with an added risk/insurance deposit.

The only problem with 10% double deposit escrow is a vendor scam, where the seller does not send the goods and risks 10%.
You can play the chicken game, if there is an issue both parties can agree to up the stakes to 100% instead of 10%.

I agree entirely. Also I should mention. In some of my templates I will allow partial payment out. For example employment contracts have a daily weekly or monthly invoice.

And the buy/sell anything template I wanted to have three shipping options. If you choose to send shipping not included in price as an invoice in escrow that is also allowed. Since some packages will be calculated after the fact.

So it depends on the option chosen also kewde I have the option to prevent chat in escrow where chat is allowed by mutual consent.

When chat is allowed, you have cryptographic proof of threats. It's extremely unprofitable.

But 10% might be profitable to vendors. But even there, they need to first ask for more than 10%... Let's say they ask 20%. They then must succeed on extorting that 1/3 the time to break even. Which is not easy.

Regardless we have recommended deposits automatically set unless users request otherwise.

Yea im mulling over having the option of having DDE aswell as arbiters and letting the market decide which is best... I can see that its a better process but I'm not sure how many mechants would like putting up deposits.. although giving the option doesn't hurt.

[Munti]

Yea im mulling over having the option of having DDE aswell as arbiters and letting the market decide which is best... I can see that its a better process but I'm not sure how many mechants would like putting up deposits.. although giving the option doesn't hurt.

That makes sense to me. For most cases I believe DDE is superior, but there are obvious situations where arbiters are needed. Buying a house, to use an extreme example. There is no way I would be able to put up the money for DDE when buying something that expensive.

[erok]

Yea im mulling over having the option of having DDE aswell as arbiters and letting the market decide which is best... I can see that its a better process but I'm not sure how many mechants would like putting up deposits.. although giving the option doesn't hurt.

That makes sense to me. For most cases I believe DDE is superior, but there are obvious situations where arbiters are needed. Buying a house, to use an extreme example. There is no way I would be able to put up the money for DDE when buying something that expensive.

In extreme examples like that I would think you would need a licensed professional to assist in the escrow, not just a random escrow junkie. Or trust in a trustless non-centralized system which I think is the ideal way. This is where both parties having 100% of the transaction's worth to lose comes into play as being the superior way imo. 10% doesn't cut it in any scenario imo. Nor do real exploitable persons handling arbitration or escrow like sys has.

[danosphere]

Yea im mulling over having the option of having DDE aswell as arbiters and letting the market decide which is best... I can see that its a better process but I'm not sure how many mechants would like putting up deposits.. although giving the option doesn't hurt.

That makes sense to me. For most cases I believe DDE is superior, but there are obvious situations where arbiters are needed. Buying a house, to use an extreme example. There is no way I would be able to put up the money for DDE when buying something that expensive.

In extreme examples like that I would think you would need a licensed professional to assist in the escrow, not just a random escrow junkie. Or trust in a trustless non-centralized system which I think is the ideal way. This is where both parties having 100% of the transaction's worth to lose comes into play as being the superior way imo. 10% doesn't cut it in any scenario imo. Nor do real exploitable persons handling arbitration or escrow like sys has.

I think arbitrated escrow is the best of both worlds as there isn't excessive risk for either party yet it ensures that the process is executed as-agreed by both buyer and seller. There is a reason many/most centralized markets today (from dark to eBay) have human intermediaries to deal with disputes.

There aren't going to be many merchants larger than small-p2p scale who will want to deal with DDE. Merchants would rather trust a single human knowing that they will rarely if ever be used (when shipping goes wrong or someone is trying to rip them off through escrow). In AE the arbiter used is someone mutually trusted between buyer and seller, not sure why they would mutually trust someone easily exploitable but that's certainly not a fault of the system.

Where the arbitration mechanism in AE is rarely used, in DDE its involved in every sale. Large merchants aren't going to want to adapt to having to deal w the side effects of the DDE payment flow (merchant funds being locked while items are in transit, issues when buyers don't release funds if DDE doesn't have a time limit) as a tradeoff for the benefits a decentralized marketplace brings.

I like the discussion happening here its an interesting topic to actually discuss in depth IMO. I certainly think that having DDE in addition to arbitrated escrow doesn't hurt at all, gives the market the ability to choose too.  I also agree that certain larger transaction lend themselves to one method over another. The problem with thinking that DDE is good for small txs and AE is good for larger txs is a bit a matter of perception as one user's large may be another user's small or medium but to me that's another argument for providing both options.

[sidhujag]

Yea im mulling over having the option of having DDE aswell as arbiters and letting the market decide which is best... I can see that its a better process but I'm not sure how many mechants would like putting up deposits.. although giving the option doesn't hurt.

That makes sense to me. For most cases I believe DDE is superior, but there are obvious situations where arbiters are needed. Buying a house, to use an extreme example. There is no way I would be able to put up the money for DDE when buying something that expensive.

In extreme examples like that I would think you would need a licensed professional to assist in the escrow, not just a random escrow junkie. Or trust in a trustless non-centralized system which I think is the ideal way. This is where both parties having 100% of the transaction's worth to lose comes into play as being the superior way imo. 10% doesn't cut it in any scenario imo. Nor do real exploitable persons handling arbitration or escrow like sys has.

I think arbitrated escrow is the best of both worlds as there isn't excessive risk for either party yet it ensures that the process is executed as-agreed by both buyer and seller. There is a reason many/most centralized markets today (from dark to eBay) have human intermediaries to deal with disputes.

Also there aren't going to be many merchants larger than small-p2p scale who will want to deal with DDE. Merchants would rather trust a single human knowing that they will rarely if ever be used (when shipping goes wrong or someone is trying to rip them off through escrow) rather than having to deal w DDE and the side effects of that payment flow (merchant funds being locked while items are in transit, issues when buyers don't release funds if DDE doesn't have a time limit). The arbiter being used is always mutually trusted between buyer and seller.

I like the discussion happening here its an interesting topic to actually discuss in depth IMO. I certainly think that having DDE in addition to arbitrated escrow doesn't hurt at all, gives the market the ability to choose too.  I also agree that certain larger transaction lend themselves to one method over another. The problem with thinking that DDE is good for small txs and AE is good for larger txs is a bit a matter of perception as one user's large may be another user's small or medium but to me that's another argument for providing both options.

Yea that was kind of what Vitalik's arguments were with using arbiter's instead of DDE, but for smaller merchants it makes sense to use DDE, thinking like ebay type sellers under $1k. I also think a "something-at-stake" is good enough to incentivesize both parties to act faithfully in DDE... so a 10% deposit requirement set by the merchant in the offer may be enough... but should be flexible and not always be 100%.. all in all they may compliment each other and one is not better than the other in all cases.

[Munti]

I think arbitrated escrow is the best of both worlds as there isn't excessive risk for either party yet it ensures that the process is executed as-agreed by both buyer and seller. There is a reason many/most centralized markets today (from dark to eBay) have human intermediaries to deal with disputes.

There aren't going to be many merchants larger than small-p2p scale who will want to deal with DDE. Merchants would rather trust a single human knowing that they will rarely if ever be used (when shipping goes wrong or someone is trying to rip them off through escrow). In AE the arbiter used is someone mutually trusted between buyer and seller, not sure why they would mutually trust someone easily exploitable but that's certainly not a fault of the system.

Where the arbitration mechanism in AE is rarely used, in DDE its involved in every sale. Large merchants aren't going to want to adapt to having to deal w the side effects of the DDE payment flow (merchant funds being locked while items are in transit, issues when buyers don't release funds if DDE doesn't have a time limit) as a tradeoff for the benefits a decentralized marketplace brings.

I like the discussion happening here its an interesting topic to actually discuss in depth IMO. I certainly think that having DDE in addition to arbitrated escrow doesn't hurt at all, gives the market the ability to choose too.  I also agree that certain larger transaction lend themselves to one method over another. The problem with thinking that DDE is good for small txs and AE is good for larger txs is a bit a matter of perception as one user's large may be another user's small or medium but to me that's another argument for providing both options.

Yes, there is a reason that many/most markets today have human intermediaries to deal with disputes. And the reason is DDE has not been available before now 

As I said, I believe there are scenarios where arbiters are the best or even only solution. But if you use them, you should think it through a little more imo.
It's obvious that arbiters are a risk. Collusion is a very easy thing to pull of. I can have one username for my arbiter account, and one for my seller account. Then I sell something but never send the item. And as arbiter I rule in favor of myself.
There is no way to completely remove the risk, but you can minimize it by only allowing arbiters who's identity is confirmed. I believe you have to do that anyway, because I for one would never use an anonymous arbiter. Now if the arbiter is known, then he can be sued. And if he can be sued, he will be sued, because there is no way for him to know the truth in the deals he is arbiting. So his fee has to cover potential legal liabilities in addition to his profit. I sincerely doubt a 0.5% fee will be enough to cover that. All this points in the direction of professional arbiters with insurance for liability costs. And fees have to be high enough to make it attractive to be arbiter or you will not be able to scale because of lack of arbiters. You also need fees to cover the work sys has to do to confirm the identity of arbiters.
So in short, going the arbiter route means you have to rely on pro arbiters and accept the work and higher fees that go along with it. And of course those arbiters are also a centralizing element.

Using DDE as the main option would reduce the negs described above. It will also make your investors very happy if the market is popular because it will have an tremendous effect on demand for your coin. Just think this through:
When you post something for sale with DDE you deposit at the time of posting. So how long is the average time before someone buys your item? 5 days? 10 days? Your deposit it locked while you wait for your buyer, so an average of 10 days before someone buys would mean that a daily turnover of $1000 on the market would on average lock up $10k. Then there is the Shipping. Average of 2 days for domestic and 10 days for international? Lets say we have 50/50 domestic/international giving an average of 6 days. Thats another $6k lockup for seller + $6k lockup for buyer. So we are now at an average demand for $22k with an average daily turnover of $1k. Then add a little for delays etc. and you should get approx. $25k
For BitBay with its current marketcap of around $500k that means a $20k daily turnover on our market would require every Bay that's in existence for the deposit alone, and then you need the Bay for payment in addition to that. Obviously price of Bay would have to go up a lot to cover the demand.
$20k daily turnover is of course tremendous given where we are today, but it's only a fraction of the daily turnover at Ebay.

The above happy investor scenario offers it's own challenges of course. An ordinary consumer with a few items on the market should not have a big problem with 100% deposit. But a power seller like we know them from ebay with 3000 items can't do 100% deposit. That's why I find Kewde's game theory interesting. And I believe it should be applied in pooled deposits. So a big seller with good rep would only deposit say 5% or maybe less for each item. But if a deal goes south 100% of the deals value goes over board.

[sidhujag]

I think arbitrated escrow is the best of both worlds as there isn't excessive risk for either party yet it ensures that the process is executed as-agreed by both buyer and seller. There is a reason many/most centralized markets today (from dark to eBay) have human intermediaries to deal with disputes.

There aren't going to be many merchants larger than small-p2p scale who will want to deal with DDE. Merchants would rather trust a single human knowing that they will rarely if ever be used (when shipping goes wrong or someone is trying to rip them off through escrow). In AE the arbiter used is someone mutually trusted between buyer and seller, not sure why they would mutually trust someone easily exploitable but that's certainly not a fault of the system.

Where the arbitration mechanism in AE is rarely used, in DDE its involved in every sale. Large merchants aren't going to want to adapt to having to deal w the side effects of the DDE payment flow (merchant funds being locked while items are in transit, issues when buyers don't release funds if DDE doesn't have a time limit) as a tradeoff for the benefits a decentralized marketplace brings.

I like the discussion happening here its an interesting topic to actually discuss in depth IMO. I certainly think that having DDE in addition to arbitrated escrow doesn't hurt at all, gives the market the ability to choose too.  I also agree that certain larger transaction lend themselves to one method over another. The problem with thinking that DDE is good for small txs and AE is good for larger txs is a bit a matter of perception as one user's large may be another user's small or medium but to me that's another argument for providing both options.

Yes, there is a reason that many/most markets today have human intermediaries to deal with disputes. And the reason is DDE has not been available before now  

As I said, I believe there are scenarios where arbiters are the best or even only solution. But if you use them, you should think it through a little more imo.
It's obvious that arbiters are a risk. Collusion is a very easy thing to pull of. I can have one username for my arbiter account, and one for my seller account. Then I sell something but never send the item. And as arbiter I rule in favor of myself.
There is no way to completely remove the risk, but you can minimize it by only allowing arbiters who's identity is confirmed. I believe you have to do that anyway, because I for one would never use an anonymous arbiter. Now if the arbiter is known, then he can be sued. And if he can be sued, he will be sued, because there is no way for him to know the truth in the deals he is arbiting. So his fee has to cover potential legal liabilities in addition to his profit. I sincerely doubt a 0.5% fee will be enough to cover that. All this points in the direction of professional arbiters with insurance for liability costs. And fees have to be high enough to make it attractive to be arbiter or you will not be able to scale because of lack of arbiters. You also need fees to cover the work sys has to do to confirm the identity of arbiters.
So in short, going the arbiter route means you have to rely on pro arbiters and accept the work and higher fees that go along with it. And of course those arbiters are also a centralizing element.

Using DDE as the main option would reduce the negs described above. It will also make your investors very happy if the market is popular because it will have an tremendous effect on demand for your coin. Just think this through:
When you post something for sale with DDE you deposit at the time of posting. So how long is the average time before someone buys your item? 5 days? 10 days? Your deposit it locked while you wait for your buyer, so an average of 10 days before someone buys would mean that a daily turnover of $1000 on the market would on average lock up $10k. Then there is the Shipping. Average of 2 days for domestic and 10 days for international? Lets say we have 50/50 domestic/international giving an average of 6 days. Thats another $6k lockup for seller + $6k lockup for buyer. So we are now at an average demand for $22k with an average daily turnover of $1k. Then add a little for delays etc. and you should get approx. $25k
For BitBay with its current marketcap of around $500k that means a $20k daily turnover on our market would require every Bay that's in existence for the deposit alone, and then you need the Bay for payment in addition to that. Obviously price of Bay would have to go up a lot to cover the demand.
$20k daily turnover is of course tremendous given where we are today, but it's only a fraction of the daily turnover at Ebay.

The above happy investor scenario offers it's own challenges of course. An ordinary consumer with a few items on the market should not have a big problem with 100% deposit. But a power seller like we know them from ebay with 3000 items can't do 100% deposit. That's why I find Kewde's game theory interesting. And I believe it should be applied in pooled deposits. So a big seller with good rep would only deposit say 5% or maybe less for each item. But if a deal goes south 100% of the deals value goes over board.

That would never happen as buyer chooses the arbiter. If seller does not agree because arbiter is unknown or not enough rep, he simply refunds or doesnt send item. Your assumptions based on that misinformation are thus incorrect. Buyer collusion is the only risk, and seller has the option before he sends item. It's kind of like what David was saying that a bad merchant who lets DDE timebomb 5x to cover his costs on a 20% requirement for deposit is unlikely to happen. The seller not knowing or trusting an arbiter that happens to be the buyer is pretty low especially as arbiters develop reputation. The arbiters with reputation CAN collude but as soon as they do it once their arbiter reputation goes down the drain. For high value items you would choose to do business with an arbiter that you are sure isn't the buyer or you know personally or something like that.

[Munti]

I think arbitrated escrow is the best of both worlds as there isn't excessive risk for either party yet it ensures that the process is executed as-agreed by both buyer and seller. There is a reason many/most centralized markets today (from dark to eBay) have human intermediaries to deal with disputes.

There aren't going to be many merchants larger than small-p2p scale who will want to deal with DDE. Merchants would rather trust a single human knowing that they will rarely if ever be used (when shipping goes wrong or someone is trying to rip them off through escrow). In AE the arbiter used is someone mutually trusted between buyer and seller, not sure why they would mutually trust someone easily exploitable but that's certainly not a fault of the system.

Where the arbitration mechanism in AE is rarely used, in DDE its involved in every sale. Large merchants aren't going to want to adapt to having to deal w the side effects of the DDE payment flow (merchant funds being locked while items are in transit, issues when buyers don't release funds if DDE doesn't have a time limit) as a tradeoff for the benefits a decentralized marketplace brings.

I like the discussion happening here its an interesting topic to actually discuss in depth IMO. I certainly think that having DDE in addition to arbitrated escrow doesn't hurt at all, gives the market the ability to choose too.  I also agree that certain larger transaction lend themselves to one method over another. The problem with thinking that DDE is good for small txs and AE is good for larger txs is a bit a matter of perception as one user's large may be another user's small or medium but to me that's another argument for providing both options.

Yes, there is a reason that many/most markets today have human intermediaries to deal with disputes. And the reason is DDE has not been available before now  

As I said, I believe there are scenarios where arbiters are the best or even only solution. But if you use them, you should think it through a little more imo.
It's obvious that arbiters are a risk. Collusion is a very easy thing to pull of. I can have one username for my arbiter account, and one for my seller account. Then I sell something but never send the item. And as arbiter I rule in favor of myself.
There is no way to completely remove the risk, but you can minimize it by only allowing arbiters who's identity is confirmed. I believe you have to do that anyway, because I for one would never use an anonymous arbiter. Now if the arbiter is known, then he can be sued. And if he can be sued, he will be sued, because there is no way for him to know the truth in the deals he is arbiting. So his fee has to cover potential legal liabilities in addition to his profit. I sincerely doubt a 0.5% fee will be enough to cover that. All this points in the direction of professional arbiters with insurance for liability costs. And fees have to be high enough to make it attractive to be arbiter or you will not be able to scale because of lack of arbiters. You also need fees to cover the work sys has to do to confirm the identity of arbiters.
So in short, going the arbiter route means you have to rely on pro arbiters and accept the work and higher fees that go along with it. And of course those arbiters are also a centralizing element.

Using DDE as the main option would reduce the negs described above. It will also make your investors very happy if the market is popular because it will have an tremendous effect on demand for your coin. Just think this through:
When you post something for sale with DDE you deposit at the time of posting. So how long is the average time before someone buys your item? 5 days? 10 days? Your deposit it locked while you wait for your buyer, so an average of 10 days before someone buys would mean that a daily turnover of $1000 on the market would on average lock up $10k. Then there is the Shipping. Average of 2 days for domestic and 10 days for international? Lets say we have 50/50 domestic/international giving an average of 6 days. Thats another $6k lockup for seller + $6k lockup for buyer. So we are now at an average demand for $22k with an average daily turnover of $1k. Then add a little for delays etc. and you should get approx. $25k
For BitBay with its current marketcap of around $500k that means a $20k daily turnover on our market would require every Bay that's in existence for the deposit alone, and then you need the Bay for payment in addition to that. Obviously price of Bay would have to go up a lot to cover the demand.
$20k daily turnover is of course tremendous given where we are today, but it's only a fraction of the daily turnover at Ebay.

The above happy investor scenario offers it's own challenges of course. An ordinary consumer with a few items on the market should not have a big problem with 100% deposit. But a power seller like we know them from ebay with 3000 items can't do 100% deposit. That's why I find Kewde's game theory interesting. And I believe it should be applied in pooled deposits. So a big seller with good rep would only deposit say 5% or maybe less for each item. But if a deal goes south 100% of the deals value goes over board.

That would never happen as buyer chooses the arbiter. If seller does not agree because arbiter is unknown or not enough rep, he simply refunds or doesnt send item. Your assumptions based on that misinformation are thus incorrect. Buyer collusion is the only risk, and seller has the option before he sends item. It's kind of like what David was saying that a bad merchant who lets DDE timebomb 5x to cover his costs on a 20% requirement for deposit is unlikely to happen. The seller not knowing or trusting an arbiter that happens to be the buyer is pretty low especially as arbiters develop reputation. The arbiters with reputation CAN collude but as soon as they do it once their arbiter reputation goes down the drain. For high value items you would choose to do business with an arbiter that you are sure isn't the buyer or you know personally or something like that.

I have been using ebay for 15 years, but I cant think of anyone I would use as an arbiter there. How am I supposed to find an arbiter I know I can trust? Ask a friend to register as arbiter? There we are on collusion risk again. Arbiter rep is no insurance against collusion. Of course arbiters will be involved in deals that go wrong now and then. So what's to stop them from colluding now and then to make some easy money?

Edit: Buyer can profit from collusion as well. Order an expensive item, claim you didn't receive anything at all or claim seller sent a stone instead, then get your money back

[dzimbeck]

I don't know anyone who hasn't been screwed on EBay. My friend got scammed selling laptops for me. And I knew a person very well who was a pro criminal... Not a close friend, now deceased but an someone I knew and this person showed me their eBay which got flagged for at least 10 grand. Their paypal also flaggged. For most likely empty boxes etc. This person was the one who told me about empty box scam.

Plus, you are assuming that a trusted arbiter won't enter into lots of deals at once before stealing. The theft can be humongous. Example, trusted arbiter builds reputation and goes in as buyer choosing himself in 100 deals. Before stealing one they enter into multiple deals.

Thus he takes potentially 20-100 bitcoins for FREE.

And what about high ticket items?? I disagree so profoundly with this contrived idea that escrow makes more sense with more money on the line!! The reverse is true. If sys has a seller for 1000 btc a scammer would be absolutely delighted to gobble that up instantly in a scam.

And escrow scams in real estate happen in tunes of BILLIONS. I remember very well when the HUD got ripped off and when real estate melt down happened. I have a real estate license and remember all of the escrows that disappeared with millions and saw zero jail time.

And DDE does work in many high value transactions because deposits don't need to be 100% AND you can microtrade. You can't microtrade a house but in some cases you can microtrade equity. Or of course barter.A 20K deposit should be enough for a 100K House. Sign away title, they have to release funds or lose an extra 20k. A simple deed can be recorded, no escrow, no agents and massive savings!

Plus houses can be notarized on the blockchain which in that case it does work extremely well. Once courts legally accept blockchain for record of title. Also for houses you can still do it full DDE. For example if I bought a house for 50k and I've got 200k I would not mind putting 50k deposit to avoid escrow fees, deceptions and all shenanigans. It saves me thousands and gives me peace of mind.


And everyone here knows this is true when I say courts and judges are almost always wrong and forced to guess.

Escrow has never worked in society. It's societies problem.

A comment above I read says in crypto people use escrow successfuly on dark markets. Oh my god that is so untrue it's staggering. Like a hundred times over not true. The darknet is swamped with Bitcoin scams. It's almost a joke. Such a joke that it's easier to just send btc direct with faith that you hopefully won't get scammed.

Dont you know your history??

Silk Road 300 million stolen at least!
Sheep Marketplace 100 million.

And I won't even mention exchange hacks

So much for arbiters!!

Guess how much has been stolen in Halo or Bitbay?
ZERO

So that's Bitcoins history. About 50% of all Bitcoins are owned by theives. Arbitration is insane in anonymous markets. And personally most hackers love doing fake profiles, social engineering. So they would have no problem making 20 fake arbiter profiles with stolen IDs and whatever else needed to confirm identity. Plus they got paid to arbitrate so it's a win win!!



But people keep forgetting an arbitor does not know who is telling the truth!!!

You cannot stop sellers from sending empty boxes or buyers from returning empty boxes or sellers lying about receiving empty boxes.

If someone kills you there are only two people that know this. The victim and assailant! Nobody else knows, can know or could ever guess.

When you add the anomynoty layer, this threat is heavily exaggerated.

And if you are using arbiters and you are forcing arbiters to reveal their identity then why not use eBay??

How can you possibly convince a consumer to use the markets that force put transparency of arbiters. So it's not anonymous anymore meaning it's definitely not a darknet market meaning it is limited to eBay style sales. So... Yeah use eBay then. Instead of volatile crypto cash.

In the case of Bitbay DDE and really all smart contracts and deposit models that it enables are a virtue, a selling point. An advantage.

Sorry if my convictions come off so strong but I will fight this till the cows come home. I feel like it's just slaves defending their cages(no offense but cognitive dissonance is a thing). And so many people fight DDE almost irrationally. Saying things like "but society has always used those really friendly middlemen who take our money and keep it safe for us. The cage is painted gold and has glitter on it. We like the cage because it's all we know and most of all we fear change." And that cage is made of judges, courts, escrows, middle men and senselss legal obfuscation.

[dzimbeck]

Also Bitbay with its frozen asset class might have more potential for real estate deals since frozen coins could be possibly used as a discount loan or collateral.

This is assuming a user doesn't have the cash to buy a 50k home but does have lots of frozen coins to give at a discount.

Also a long time ago usury was considered  a SIN. Because to charge interest on money that is lent, is evil because not only is it literally taking advantage if the poor but it artificially raises prices. Like in the case of real estate appraisal that bloats up prices of homes into the millions so consumers never even own their home and are debt slaves to banks.

End that system. Just stop it. Stop it by only buying homes you can afford. That's why I've taken this philosophy so seriously that I live in a trailer bought with cash until I can afford a home in cash. In other words... Live by that philosophy, not only preach it.

No loans no greedy bankers to extort from us perpetually.

If people used DDE for real estate purchase then home prices would have to drop to meet actual values instead of puffed up greedy banker value.

[whale_shark]

Since Sys is already fully functioning, we have honestly stopped comparing ourselves to roadmap projects and instead are concentrating on the only "competition" out there: OpenBazaar

Is that so? Or is it that you don't like what a comparison between BitBay and sys looks like?

This is a powerful marketing tool

[danosphere]

Since Sys is already fully functioning, we have honestly stopped comparing ourselves to roadmap projects and instead are concentrating on the only "competition" out there: OpenBazaar

Is that so? Or is it that you don't like what a comparison between BitBay and sys looks like?

http://s20.postimg.org/r9t8x5qfx/Bay_sys2.png

This is a powerful marketing tool

It would be if it were at all accurate but unfortunately its not. Will reply to thoughts on AE v DDE soon a I have a chance to properly read and type up a reply

[Kewde]

It would be if it were at all accurate but unfortunately its not. Will reply to thoughts on AE v DDE soon a I have a chance to properly read and type up a reply

I think SYS could also be a bit more accurate on their definition of a DECENTRALIZED marketplace..
As of now, it's filled with centralized features:
- centralized hosting of images
- centralized bitcoin TX verification
- anything else you want to add to the list?

You claim that you support Tor for the connections, but if you're using centralized images you are vulnerable to IP snatching.


^Won't show anything because of bitcointalk image proxy

Are those requests routed through the Tor network too?
I could basically harvest the IP addresses of everyone that uses the marketplace..

I highly advice you to put disclaimers of the potential vulnerabilities such as IP leakage in your main thread, you owe it to the users of your platform.

--

On a different note, how does BitBay handle its images?
What are the centralized components of BitBay?

[danosphere]

I think SYS could also be a bit more accurate on their definition of a DECENTRALIZED marketplace..
As of now, it's filled with centralized features:
- centralized hosting of images
- centralized bitcoin TX verification
- anything else you want to add to the list?

...

I could basically harvest the IP addresses of everyone that uses the marketplace..

I highly advice you to put disclaimers of the potential vulnerabilities such as IP leakage in your main thread, you owe it to the users of your platform.

Can't speak to BitBay stuff but none of these are mandatory components of the SYS marketplace and are all optional. Additionally image hosting isn't centralized, its technically scattered across whatever various servers users decide to hose their images on, SYS just has a link to this.

Not sure I follow you're "I could basically harvest the IP addresses of everyone that uses the marketplace." i think you're referring to if you stand up an offer, w/image and then monitor requests on the server side? First off you'd only get information on people viewing THAT item. Secondly viewing items isn't illegal, and you'd have no way of correlating an IP with a purchase. Additionally if the user is using TOR you'd have a worthless IP and in the end be no closer to unmasking a user than where you started.

---

I don't know anyone who hasn't been screwed on EBay. My friend got scammed selling laptops for me. And I knew a person very well who was a pro criminal... Not a close friend, now deceased but an someone I knew and this person showed me their eBay which got flagged for at least 10 grand. Their paypal also flaggged. For most likely empty boxes etc. This person was the one who told me about empty box scam.

...

Dont you know your history??

Silk Road 300 million stolen at least!
Sheep Marketplace 100 million.

And I won't even mention exchange hacks

So much for arbiters!!

Guess how much has been stolen in Halo or Bitbay?
ZERO

The amounts your identifying here are NOT all from arbitration funds as you make it seem. The amounts stolen are a combination of funds that may have been in arbitrated escrow, buyer funds, and seller funds because the platform as a whole is centralized. Using this as some argument against AE is weak imo. DDE wouldn't have done anything to help these situations because the CENTRALIZED nature of the platforms- the funds would have still been made off with.

Additionally building rep and then buying a bunch and acting as arbiter just to steal the funds (exit scam...) wouldn't get very far and again, isn't at all a fault of the system. Yes, humans can be dirtbags but that doesn't mean the answer is charging everyone double (or 10%+ or whatever) and then it somehow solves everything. You're kinda throwing the baby out with the bathwater just because of a few bad actors. And yes eBay/Paypal is horrid and that's why we build things like decentralized offerings to replace them entirely

Halo had DDE before BitBay if my history is correct- i haven't seem any huge transformational change brought about by its introduction nor have I seen merchants clamoring for it because they are so tired of AE and bad actors screwing the over. Bad actors seem to be the exception not the rule in most networks but you seem to view them as the rule, thus AE as a whole must go.

Not sure I understand your point about transparent arbiters... there is no requirement for transparency in terms of identity disclosure as you're suggesting only that the arbiter is mutually trusted between buyer and seller.

If you've worked with real word merchants you'd hear the same issues I've raised here in terms of DDE and the payment flow being something that a majority of large scale merchants just aren't going to deal with. Having funds locked up will not only be a problem for them but I can also see it causing market volatility if large portions of the supply are "locked" at any one time which seems inevitable at scale? I do think there is value in making DDE more flexible both in terms of timeout and in terms of deposit % amount, not sure exactly how BitBay implements these facets of the design but the more flexibility the better.

Sorry if my convictions come off so strong but I will fight this till the cows come home. I feel like it's just slaves defending their cages(no offense but cognitive dissonance is a thing). And so many people fight DDE almost irrationally. Saying things like "but society has always used those really friendly middlemen who take our money and keep it safe for us. The cage is painted gold and has glitter on it. We like the cage because it's all we know and most of all we fear change." And that cage is made of judges, courts, escrows, middle men and senselss legal obfuscation.

I'm just trying to have a meaningful discussion which is rare on BCT in my experience I never said that DDE was a lost cause or worthless I merely said that there are benefits to both and there is value in providing both options to users so as to give them choices. From a development perspective neither DDE or AE is difficult to implement, forgoing one for the other purely as a matter of principle is shortchanging users imo. In Syscoin yeah we started with AE because that's what the market knows and uses and it works despite some pitfalls (bad actors), adding a DDE option is highly likely. Sounds like BitBay isn't very open to providing users this type of option.

[sidhujag]

I don't know anyone who hasn't been screwed on EBay. My friend got scammed selling laptops for me. And I knew a person very well who was a pro criminal... Not a close friend, now deceased but an someone I knew and this person showed me their eBay which got flagged for at least 10 grand. Their paypal also flaggged. For most likely empty boxes etc. This person was the one who told me about empty box scam.

Plus, you are assuming that a trusted arbiter won't enter into lots of deals at once before stealing. The theft can be humongous. Example, trusted arbiter builds reputation and goes in as buyer choosing himself in 100 deals. Before stealing one they enter into multiple deals.

Thus he takes potentially 20-100 bitcoins for FREE.

And what about high ticket items?? I disagree so profoundly with this contrived idea that escrow makes more sense with more money on the line!! The reverse is true. If sys has a seller for 1000 btc a scammer would be absolutely delighted to gobble that up instantly in a scam.

And escrow scams in real estate happen in tunes of BILLIONS. I remember very well when the HUD got ripped off and when real estate melt down happened. I have a real estate license and remember all of the escrows that disappeared with millions and saw zero jail time.

And DDE does work in many high value transactions because deposits don't need to be 100% AND you can microtrade. You can't microtrade a house but in some cases you can microtrade equity. Or of course barter.A 20K deposit should be enough for a 100K House. Sign away title, they have to release funds or lose an extra 20k. A simple deed can be recorded, no escrow, no agents and massive savings!

Plus houses can be notarized on the blockchain which in that case it does work extremely well. Once courts legally accept blockchain for record of title. Also for houses you can still do it full DDE. For example if I bought a house for 50k and I've got 200k I would not mind putting 50k deposit to avoid escrow fees, deceptions and all shenanigans. It saves me thousands and gives me peace of mind.


And everyone here knows this is true when I say courts and judges are almost always wrong and forced to guess.

Escrow has never worked in society. It's societies problem.

A comment above I read says in crypto people use escrow successfuly on dark markets. Oh my god that is so untrue it's staggering. Like a hundred times over not true. The darknet is swamped with Bitcoin scams. It's almost a joke. Such a joke that it's easier to just send btc direct with faith that you hopefully won't get scammed.

Dont you know your history??

Silk Road 300 million stolen at least!
Sheep Marketplace 100 million.

And I won't even mention exchange hacks

So much for arbiters!!

Guess how much has been stolen in Halo or Bitbay?
ZERO

So that's Bitcoins history. About 50% of all Bitcoins are owned by theives. Arbitration is insane in anonymous markets. And personally most hackers love doing fake profiles, social engineering. So they would have no problem making 20 fake arbiter profiles with stolen IDs and whatever else needed to confirm identity. Plus they got paid to arbitrate so it's a win win!!



But people keep forgetting an arbitor does not know who is telling the truth!!!

You cannot stop sellers from sending empty boxes or buyers from returning empty boxes or sellers lying about receiving empty boxes.

If someone kills you there are only two people that know this. The victim and assailant! Nobody else knows, can know or could ever guess.

When you add the anomynoty layer, this threat is heavily exaggerated.

And if you are using arbiters and you are forcing arbiters to reveal their identity then why not use eBay??

How can you possibly convince a consumer to use the markets that force put transparency of arbiters. So it's not anonymous anymore meaning it's definitely not a darknet market meaning it is limited to eBay style sales. So... Yeah use eBay then. Instead of volatile crypto cash.

In the case of Bitbay DDE and really all smart contracts and deposit models that it enables are a virtue, a selling point. An advantage.

Sorry if my convictions come off so strong but I will fight this till the cows come home. I feel like it's just slaves defending their cages(no offense but cognitive dissonance is a thing). And so many people fight DDE almost irrationally. Saying things like "but society has always used those really friendly middlemen who take our money and keep it safe for us. The cage is painted gold and has glitter on it. We like the cage because it's all we know and most of all we fear change." And that cage is made of judges, courts, escrows, middle men and senselss legal obfuscation.

Seller doesn't have to send item to buyer if he's an arbiter.. thus he needs to have a reputation as a buyer only.. chances are once he's discovered for being bad he will be flagged and he won't get 100 items for free. The seller would check before he ships. There needs to be technology that can track and determine shipment of a parcel based on a txid.. once that happens with someone like ups etc then the problem of knowing what was shipped also gets fixed

[sidhujag]

It would be if it were at all accurate but unfortunately its not. Will reply to thoughts on AE v DDE soon a I have a chance to properly read and type up a reply

I think SYS could also be a bit more accurate on their definition of a DECENTRALIZED marketplace..
As of now, it's filled with centralized features:
- centralized hosting of images
- centralized bitcoin TX verification
- anything else you want to add to the list?

You claim that you support Tor for the connections, but if you're using centralized images you are vulnerable to IP snatching.


^Won't show anything because of bitcointalk image proxy

Are those requests routed through the Tor network too?
I could basically harvest the IP addresses of everyone that uses the marketplace..

I highly advice you to put disclaimers of the potential vulnerabilities such as IP leakage in your main thread, you owe it to the users of your platform.

--

On a different note, how does BitBay handle its images?
What are the centralized components of BitBay?

Syscoin is still trustless the gui is trustful for convenience sake simply letting users check that the btc txid exists and pays right. You still need to have your btc wallet.. it certainly doesn't depend on it in consensus.. now that would be trustful.

Also you don't have to host your own images.. I think you need to try out the client first before making such weak assumptions. There is no "IP snatching" unless you host your own images and are selling illegal stuff which would be stupid

[danosphere]

There needs to be technology that can track and determine shipment of a parcel based on a txid.. once that happens with someone like ups etc then the problem of knowing what was shipped also gets fixed

There's still be the possibility of someone shipping empty boxed and such to try to scam people but again this falls into the bad actor /exception category. Dzimbeck is describing an exit scam scenario where an arbiter who has built up trust over time buys + arbitrates a number of sales concurrently, and makes off with the funds, which would destroy their reputation. This (exit scam) can be avoided by trusting the right people as arbiters. Since there aren't arbiters at all in DDE there isn't really a comparable DDE scenario to exit scam.


If we play out the empty box scam in DDE I believe the funds are burned because buyer would never release? Merchant says i shipped the item, buyer says no you shipped an empty box, and there really is no further for resolution is that accurate? If the merchant actually shipped the item and the buyer is lying my understanding is that they'd need to work it out between themselves before the expiry time or all of their funds related to the transaction are lost. And the threat of this is supposed to motivate both parties to stay honest. If the amount is inconsequential to the buyer though the merchant is out their deposit + the item (assuming they shipped the real thing).

in AE empty box scam goes up to arbiter for deciding who is lying. Far from infallible, but the mutual trust from both buyer and seller in the arbiter means they're consenting to accept whatever the arbiter's decision may be based on information provided to them.