Interest in a P2P Exchange

[charleshoskinson]

Due to the recent events with both Dwolla and the $75 million lawsuit against Mtgox, it seems increasingly clear that a centralized exchange system is both a significant point of weakness and a heaven for manipulation. I'd curious if anyone in this community has invested a significant amount of time in attempting to develop a P2P exchange. Has anyone written a write paper? Did you come up with an idea but couldn't get funded?

I am considering funding some new ventures in the Bitcoin community after the Summer and if there is a working P2P exchange on the table, then it would be high on my list. Let's start a discussion.

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[joesmoe2012]

There's been quite a few posts about this. There's a few projects under way iirc.

Also ripple kind of accomplishes this (though I sure as hell can't figure out how to exchange btc <-> USD on it.

[justusranvier]

There's nothing that prevents everyone on this site from placing advertisements on localbitcoins.com.

It doesn't completely solve the problem, but it would help.

[joesmoe2012]

Yeah localbitcoins transactions can even been done fully online, including escrow. I've been using them for a while now feel free to check out my profile if anybody needs coins:

https://localbitcoins.com/accounts/profile/joesmoe/

[charleshoskinson]

I'm talking about a secure protocol that is P2P and totally decentralized. I understand Ripple accomplishes this but it is controlled by a single entity and regulatable

[joesmoe2012]

Unfortunately I don't understand how ripple accomplishes this, it requires a network of friends to develop a trust relationship, so for those who have never used it before and don't have friends that use it, its worthless?

Or am I just missing something.

[charleshoskinson]

I'm actually greatly confused myself, which is why I've been trying to get David to do a lecture on Ripple for my course.

[yrashk]

We at Bex.io are working on achieving a variation of this objective. Even though we are starting with individual exchanges running on our platform, we will be enabling cross-exchange order filling, effectively enabling a global liquidity pool. It is not strictly a P2P exchange, rather a backbone that allows trustworthy representation of non-digital assets.

It will be interesting to see future developments in the exchange space.

[cypherdoc]

Unfortunately I don't understand how ripple accomplishes this, it requires a network of friends to develop a trust relationship, so for those who have never used it before and don't have friends that use it, its worthless?

Or am I just missing something.

you're not the only one.

[charleshoskinson]

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=sv&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fnyheternasverige.se%2Fforsokte-ha-sex-med-getingbo-avled%2F

At least Ripple makes more sense than this

[justusranvier]

Order book functionality and front end websites are trivially implemented.

The problem is and always be: how do you handle the movement of non-bitcoin currencies?

That is not a problem that can be solved with software.

[charleshoskinson]

Order book functionality and front end websites are trivially implemented.

The problem is and always be: how do you handle the movement of non-bitcoin currencies?

That is not a problem that can be solved with software.

That's what I'm getting at. It seems to be the missing link in the entire puzzle

[joesmoe2012]

Order book functionality and front end websites are trivially implemented.

The problem is and always be: how do you handle the movement of non-bitcoin currencies?

That is not a problem that can be solved with software.

Agreed. I really like the localbitcoins approach to it, though it is centralized.

It does allow for a variety of different payment methods and even full anonymity.

I think another important aspect of localbitcoins.com is that you are able to make relationships with people who use bitcoins. That way even if the site ceased to exist any longer, I would still be getting e-mails for more coins. Once these small webs starts to weave themselves, sooner one won't have to ask too many friends before someone knows where to buy bitcoins from (even without a website).

Developing that web initially is what's crucial.

I don't see why we can't use something like retroshare to interact and make posts such as is done on localbitcoins (so that we wouldn't have the centralization of a website).


BTW retroshare is horrible at what it does, but I love the concept.

If you'd like to check retroshare out, shoot me a PM and i'll add ya, there's a bunch of BS bitcoin stuff going on on there right now, but nothing worthwhile.

[charleshoskinson]

Anyone interested on doing a lecture on P2P Exchanges?

[joesmoe2012]

Anyone interested on doing a lecture on P2P Exchanges?

I don't think I know enough about them or I would. That may be something better for a discussion with a few panelists or something.

[charleshoskinson]

I don't think I know enough about them or I would. That may be something better for a discussion with a few panelists or something.

Over the Summer, I'm going to be doing a huge amount of reading and coding for my course:

https://www.udemy.com/bitcoin-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-crypto/

I'm also going to be writing a proto-bitcoin for an upcoming course on how to develop an Alt coin. I'd love to include exchange tech in my course somewhere especially what's needed for a P2P exchange.

[justusranvier]

The only solution I can see is to have a large number of participants.

In a rational world, it would be easier and more efficient for one person to move $1 million in a single transaction than it would be for 1000 people to each move $1000 in separate P2P transactions, but we don't live in a rational and free world.

I think that Ripple can be used effectively as an accounting system that ties everything together, but the key is having lots of people willing to do the work of operating businesses.

[solex]

There's been quite a few posts about this. There's a few projects under way iirc.

Yes. Indeed.

charles, there are several threads on this idea. Which is a great idea!

How about the OPs of these threads crowd-source some plan/project/solution

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=172705.0

[charleshoskinson]

Yes. Indeed.

charles, there are several threads on this idea. Which is a great idea!

How about the OPs of these threads crowd-source some plan/project/solution

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=172705.0

Thank you for this

[toffoo]

There was this:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=27055.0

After thinking about this topic for some time, here's my 2 cents of free advice for anyone thinking of tackling this project:

Make a P2P Alt-coins exchange vs. Bitcoin, with no fiat currencies.

The trouble with getting a P2P exchange working well is handling the exchange of the fiat (and also all the regulation/fraud prevention that comes with it).

By simply trading crypto vs. crypto you avoid a lot of the headaches that have prevented a working P2P exchange from happening.

Get the software up and working good and then maybe sometime later someone comes up with a good escrowed or 3rd-party managed way to swap the fiats so you can expand into trading crypto vs. legacy currencies.