[BETA] Dark Exchange: a 100% decentralized p2p exchange

[morpheus]

...
EDIT: Maybe post this in project development as well?

I've started a topic in development to discuss technical issues with the exchange: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=27055.0

[morpheus]

At this moment, you should see 11 total peers. The number of identities may vary since you both have to be online at the same time to exchange identities.

Every time you restart Dark Exchange it will try to download any new peers (Though it is naive, and likely won't find them all every time). Unfortunately, I2P is pretty slow and it can take a few hours to find a peer and start downloading updates. So, if you want to find as many peers as possible, leave Dark Exchange running for an extended period of time.

I'm going to look for ways to speed this process up.

[morpheus]

My identity on Dark Exchange is Morpheus. If you don't have it listed in your identity tab you won't be able to find my offers.

I created a bunch of Dwolla to Bitcoin and Bitcoin to Dwolla offers. If you can't find them with a search, let me know. It takes about 10 minutes for the search to completely finish and there is no feedback that the search is in progress, so please be patient.

[wegotpickles]

Some feature ideas once everything is nice and stable:

User profiles for each identity. Just a text field users can fill with information like the Bitcoin address, Dwolla ID, mailing address, etc. if they so choose.

PGP integration for the messaging features (are messages public?)

web-of-trust style user rankings, but that's already been requested.

Minimize to systray + systray notifications for new messages, accepted trades, etc.

Some kind of remote API (i was thinking about android apps, but i2p's memory requirements are to great, so a front end is all that seems doable)

[morpheus]

I'm using issues on github to track both bugs and feature requests. I have issues for most of your suggestions, and I'll some more for the ones I don't have. You can also comment on the issues directly.

User profiles for each identity. Just a text field users can fill with information like the Bitcoin address, Dwolla ID, mailing address, etc. if they so choose.

I think the user profiles for identities would be a good idea. For bitcoin address and etc, I have the following issues created:

https://github.com/macourtney/Dark-Exchange/issues/23
https://github.com/macourtney/Dark-Exchange/issues/24

I also have an issue for viewing an identity: https://github.com/macourtney/Dark-Exchange/issues/11

This could be expanded to add a profile.

PGP integration for the messaging features (are messages public?)

First, messages (which can only be sent on trades right now) are not public and are automatically signed (though the signature is stripped off when saved). Actually, all data sent between Dark Exchange nodes are both encrypted and signed.

I don't want to integrate PGP if I can avoid it since that would add yet another program for people to install when installing Dark Exchange. On top of that, encryption and signatures are already supported in Dark Exchange. We just need to figure out all the ways we want to use them.

Do you think sending messages directly from identity to identity should be supported? If so, how do we get around the email issue of unsolicited messages? Make people friend each other first?

web-of-trust style user rankings, but that's already been requested.

Tracking issue: https://github.com/macourtney/Dark-Exchange/issues/22

Minimize to systray + systray notifications for new messages, accepted trades, etc.

Good idea. I just added a new issue for it: https://github.com/macourtney/Dark-Exchange/issues/25

Some kind of remote API (i was thinking about android apps, but i2p's memory requirements are to great, so a front end is all that seems doable)

I'm worried about this since it could open people up to hacking. However, I created an issue for it: https://github.com/macourtney/Dark-Exchange/issues/26

[wegotpickles]

Do you think sending messages directly from identity to identity should be supported? If so, how do we get around the email issue of unsolicited messages? Make people friend each other first?

I think that would be good. Maybe use the eventual trust score system to determine if a message can be sent, like if they have <=0 trust they cannot send messages to people who haven't added them to their friends list (excluding trade messages of course). and include a "flag as spam" button on messages that would decrease the senders trust score. Although that might be abused, for example, have a conversation with someone then go though and flag every message they sent. Maybe limit the spam flag to one flag per sender per recipient per arbitrarily amount of time? Seems over complicated for the time being...yeah...Friends list is good, and an ignore list as well.

[Ryland R. Taylor-Almanza]

wegotpickles and I have almost completed the first dark exchange trade!

[myrkul]

wegotpickles and I have almost completed the first dark exchange trade!

The irony inherent in this statement is not lost on me.

[wegotpickles]

First trade complete without a hitch!

The irony inherent in this statement is not lost on me.

I'm missing it. Whats ironic?

[myrkul]

First trade complete without a hitch!

The irony inherent in this statement is not lost on me.

I'm missing it. Whats ironic?

Announcing and identifying a trade on a dark exchange.

[wegotpickles]

Announcing and identifying a trade on a dark exchange.

Ah! Sorry, I'm a little slow.

[morpheus]

wegotpickles and I have almost completed the first dark exchange trade!

That's awesome! I hope it was a good experience.

Is there any reason the exchange is not complete yet? Was there any problems?

[wegotpickles]

Is there any reason the exchange is not complete yet? Was there any problems?

I had the message window freeze up after hitting send once or twice, no errors or anything. I just waited a minute or so and restarted the client and the message had been sent so I don't think it could cause major problems with trades. It might just have been me though, so I'd call it complete.

[morpheus]

I had the message window freeze up after hitting send once or twice, no errors or anything. I just waited a minute or so and restarted the client and the message had been sent so I don't think it could cause major problems with trades. It might just have been me though, so I'd call it complete.

It's nothing. I wasn't very careful when writing some of the event code, and the event thread is blocked after most of the button presses. It's easy to fix, but it does look like Dark Exchange is locked up. All you have to do is wait a few more seconds (possibly minutes) and it should work itself out.

I added an issue for it.

[morpheus]

I've uploaded Beta 3 with more aggressive attempts to download all other destinations in the network. My testing suggests everyone should quickly get all of the destinations in the system.

You can download Beta 3 from: https://github.com/macourtney/Dark-Exchange/downloads

[Herodes]

quick question:

Would it be possible to create a market like mtGox, only with a distributed model? I guess we would have to have Agents for fiat money transfer and withdrawals then.

Any idea of how that would be solved?

I guess it's at the moment like this:


Bob wants to buy 100 BTC at 15.0 from Alice. Alice accepts. Bob transfers 100x15USD to Alice and Alice transfers the bitcoins to Bob. How to trust other users? Should there be some kind of escrow, and would we not need a centralized point for escrow? What prevents Alice from never sending the bitcoins to Bob?

Nice initiative though. Thumbs up!

[morpheus]

Bob wants to buy 100 BTC at 15.0 from Alice. Alice accepts. Bob transfers 100x15USD to Alice and Alice transfers the bitcoins to Bob.

Yes, this is exactly how Dark Exchange works right now.

How to trust other users? Should there be some kind of escrow, and would we not need a centralized point for escrow? What prevents Alice from never sending the bitcoins to Bob?

Currently, there is no escrow service or anything really to prevent Alice from never sending bitcoins to Bob. However, when Alice and Bob created their accounts, a public/private key pair was created. When interacting, Alice and Bob can see each other's public key (it's actually shown in several places in Dark Exchange so you can recognize a user). Since all messages between nodes are signed (except certain messages which cannot be signed since they are sent before you have the public keys), Alice and Bob know they are talking to each other and only to each other.

If Alice wants to sell more bitcoin to Bob in the future, she will have to send the bitcoin. Also, it's possible for Bob to warn people not to buy from Alice if she doesn't uphold her end of the deal. There is no way of doing this in Dark Exchange for now, so Bob would have to use this board. However, we are planning on implementing a trust scoring system which would make it easy for Bob to let others know how much he trusts Alice and vice versa.

Would it be possible to create a market like mtGox, only with a distributed model? I guess we would have to have Agents for fiat money transfer and withdrawals then.

I don't think this is possible without creating an authority, or several authorities which centralizes the distributed exchange. It would become more of a federated exchange than a distributed one.

If there is enough demand, it may be a good idea to implement in the future. However, I always want to give people the option to use Dark Exchange in a pure decentralized manner.

[Herodes]

I like the Dark Exchange idea. I will have a closer look at it. Thanks for the answers.

[jago25_98]

I forgot to run i2p before Dark Exchange the first time I ran it.

It appeared to work find though, creating a username etc. But then I noticed no peers. There should be something to monitor network activity so we know what's going on.

Would also be nice to make more than one search at the same time... or search for multiple offers because I haven't been able to find any yet.

[ovidiusoft]

I forgot to run i2p before Dark Exchange the first time I ran it.

Ha, now that you mention it, I did exactly the same Now it works, but I can't find anything... I created a offer and searched for it, but it won't find it.

Suggestion: OP, can you add a "in person transfer in <region>" option for trading?