What is CoinGuard:In a nutshell CoinGuard provides an automated bitcoin escrow service that allows two people to transact with each other while protecting both parties involved from scams.
How do you intend on doing that?Ok let's walk through the hypothetical example with Bob and Alice:
Alice wants to buy a new phone from Bob using nothing but bitcoin, but obviously as she's never done business with Bob before she hesitates to send Bob coins without some sort of protection in place in case things don't go as planned.
What's it like to create a new escrow?Alice heads to Coinguard.org to start an escrow transaction; she enters her email address and the email address of Bob to begin the escrow.
The two escrow keys and a new bitcoin address are created for the buyer and seller. Both Alice and Bob are notified by email that an escrow has been initiated and Alice is prompted to send her coins to the corresponding escrow address.
How does Bob know when his funds are there?Once the payment has 6 confirmations, Bob receives an email notifying him that the coins can now be redeemed. Now Bob is protected by the fact that as long as he upholds his end of the transaction the funds will be delivered to him.
Alice has somewhat more confidence in the fact that if Bob is indeed a scammer then the coins are retrievable back to her.
How does Bob retrieve his coins?Upon successfully sending the new phone to Alice and providing a package tracking #, Alice can send her escrow key to Bob to unlock the escrowed funds.
Bob provides his escrow key, Alice's escrow key, and the address where he wants the funds paid out to.
How are disputes handled?In the unfortunate event of a dispute, all evidence will need to be submitted on both parties’ sides to prove their case items such as a package tracking #, receipt of acceptance, or other circumstantial evidence can be provided. All matters will be examined and CoinGuard will make the best decision based on the items provided to strengthen either party’s case. In the future we will be looking at building a global dispute agent network based around ratings and community feedback when mediating escrow transactions.
How much is the escrow fee?The escrow fee is only 1% per escrow and is deducted from the bitcoin address in the redemption phase. Both the buyer and seller will need to work out who is responsible for the escrow fee.
How did you come up with this?Well we had been looking at a number of services that offered escrow. Casascius offers an escrow utility based on his escrow draft scheme but it still needs a trusted human third party to create the transaction and hold the keys to the wallet. Bitescrow.org is the web version of this implementation, but like the original tool still needs a trusted human third party to generate and create the transaction, and can be hard to use for many people who aren't steeped in bitcoin on an everyday basis. We took the concept even further by removing the need of a human third party to create the transaction for you and be available online when the purchase is successful to complete the escrow proceedings.
How can I trust you?This is a valid concern, and one we would have as well of a new service. It’s a very natural human response that really only comes along with having the infrastructure’s best interest at heart and gaining the trust of the community. It won’t happen overnight and that we know and all we can say is you have to start somewhere.
We’d love if you gave us a spin and getting any suggestions and feedback to make the service better.
https://coinguard.org
