I don't have any good ideas. But I like trying to come up with ideas so I'll throw some out there.
#1 Fresh vegetables/fruits, meat & perishable food items are the most difficult things to directly buy with bitcoin. A service which filled that vacuum might be profitable.
#2 A kickstarter/gofundme/crowdsource website utilizing crypto might work.
#3 There aren't ways to earn interest on sums of crypto. If someone could come up with a reliable & legitimate way to give people 5% to 10% earnings interest per year on crypto holdings, the way IRA accounts do, that would be awesome.
#4 Crypto could benefit by having trustworthy escrow services to overcome confirmation waiting time.
#5 A bitcoin point of sale app to allow people to have yard sales or sell items for crypto at flea markets could be a good idea if there isn't already one out there.
What do you think of my solution? I developed a Ethereum Escrow Smart Contract/Dapp. Escrow transactions can now be confirmed once it's mined. Here's how it works.
How it worksThe buyer creates an escrow transaction, specifying the seller address, escrow address and amount of Ether. The smart contract locks the buyer's funds. When buyer receives the item, he can release the locked funds in the Dapp.
If a dispute happens, the escrow agent can step in to refund the buyer, or release funds to seller. At any point in time, the escrow agent
NEVER has access to the funds, which eliminates one big security risk of transferring the entire transaction amount to the escrow.
In exchange for his service, escrow agent can charge a percentage fee set in the Dapp.
It is live at:
http://escrowmyether.com/If you are looking to offer escrow services, have a look, it might be useful for you
Main Benefit1) It greatly reduces the Escrow agent's workload, because if the transaction proceeds smoothly, Buyer will release funds himself. There is no intervention required by the Escrow agent, saving a lot of time. Assuming 90% of transactions have no dispute, that's 90% of time saved.
2) Once the escrow transaction is mined, the Seller will see the incoming escrow transaction in his dashboard, and knows the Buyer has locked up his funds in the escrow transaction. There's no longer a need to wait for the Escrow agent's reply, making it convenient for Buyer & Seller.
3) Safe. Escrow agents can't steal the funds. The smart contract locks Buyer's funds and only releases it when Buyer confirms he received his product, Seller choose to refund the Buyer, or Escrow agent steps in to refund/release funds. Escrow agent never has access to the funds, and can never steal it.
To use this Dapp, connection to an Ethereum node is required. I suggest Metamask chrome extension (
https://metamask.io/) as it only takes 3 mins to setup. Parity will work as well.
Below are some screenshots of the Dapp.
Picture of buyer's dashboard. Click initialize new transaction to create new escrow tx.
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fuser-images.githubusercontent.com%2F24837709%2F31051334-4bd9f7b0-a698-11e7-92e6-5672bd478e2b.jpg&t=665&c=ZU1y7jr2ApLaOQ)
Enter seller address, escrow address and amount to send. If the address is entered correctly, the seller/escrow's name will appear.
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fuser-images.githubusercontent.com%2F24837709%2F31051404-cfbd440a-a699-11e7-9c97-0f9134f3cdaf.jpg&t=665&c=UVH8QeuzEhINTw)
If you own the address, you can update your profile info. It is stored on the blockchain.
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fuser-images.githubusercontent.com%2F24837709%2F31051638-b6bf8e12-a69f-11e7-8a01-85f2545460fa.jpg&t=665&c=A1G3ol-pF4YwUw)
Buyers, when you receive your product. Please head into the dashboard, click the transaction, and click "Release Funds"
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fuser-images.githubusercontent.com%2F24837709%2F31051557-b36c3988-a69d-11e7-861d-86321d14cf86.jpg&t=665&c=w7-PGqKX3fkGOg)
When a transaction is complete, Seller can withdraw his funds from the smart contract. Escrow agent can also withdraw his fees. If transaction is refunded, Buyer can withdraw the refund.
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fuser-images.githubusercontent.com%2F24837709%2F31051660-dcd812da-a6a0-11e7-90ac-59cfe0ab465d.jpg&t=665&c=5j3e86Qhjk-FhQ)
I made a video guide for escrow agents and buyers:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLN7fp80Uh8Iwy0tI2jTU0AFor a written guide using the Dapp, please read this thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2221107.0It's all open source. You can see the code if you're interested
Escrow smart contract:
https://etherscan.io/address/0x1c02ce498dc6d0d6ef05a253e021258b07eeba91#codeSmart contract for storing profile info:
https://etherscan.io/address/0xcf356ab67132c1359ebdd0ccc928fdb020eaa929#codeGithub:
https://github.com/KayinCheung/KayinCheung.github.ioIt has been reviewed by Reddit /r/EthDev community with a 1 ETH bug bounty:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ethdev/comments/6zwb1x/escrowmyether_1_eth_bug_bounty/Disclaimer: There is a 0.25% dev fee to support future development. If Escrow agent charge 1%, the total fees for Seller is 1.25%. It's free to use for Escrow agent and Buyers.
What do you guys think, is it an improved solution for escrow services? Will you consider using it? If not, why?