Bitmit - Bitcoin shopping mall - Bitcoin market place - Bitcoin auction house

[User705]

It's not FUD it's reality.  If bitcoin is money and it appears the various governments are leaning that way then the various things you do with it like escrow and online wallets are regulated activities and involve the same mountainous paperwork and barriers to entry just like traditional escrows and banks.

[Welsh]

Escrow should always be on a site like this. Although it should be registered. No point in cutting corners.

[User705]

Escrow should always be on a site like this. Although it should be registered. No point in cutting corners.

Registering an escrow is not that easy.  Not sure which country you are from but in most developed countries an escrow is a very regulated activity because they handle large amounts of money and titles to real estate.

[Welsh]

Escrow should always be on a site like this. Although it should be registered. No point in cutting corners.

Registering an escrow is not that easy.  Not sure which country you are from but in most developed countries an escrow is a very regulated activity because they handle large amounts of money and titles to real estate.

It may not be easy. But, a site which had a lot of traffic and a lot of people visiting it daily should be keeping up with all the requirements. We are assuming this could of caused the selling of the site. If so because of this reason many people have lost Bitcoin.

[bernard75]

Quiz: Which company involved with BTC and already located in Asia, would have the cash(hint: not for their customers) to buy Bitmit and would want to keep it top secret, because the reputation of that company would drive many people away?

[User705]

Quiz: Which company involved with BTC and already located in Asia, would have the cash(hint: not for their customers) to buy Bitmit and would want to keep it top secret, because the reputation of that company would drive many people away?

Do I get a prize if I guess right.  Could it be a company who had many failing auctions with a company who wanted way to much info just to buy a metal box.   

[giszmo]

Escrow is only an issue because the site would hold that money of many but with bitcoin that is not needed. With bitcoin the deal could be a 2/3 transaction with the seller defining an address under his control for each item. The buyer would broadcast an unsigned transaction that needs either the site's or his signature to complete and should contain an output for the site to pay for the escrow.

No need for these sites to hold any money apart from their fees and with such a system (which would probably need new client software to be developed) the need for more complicated registration should vanish as well.

[bernard75]

The text on the site has changed again:

We are planning to let another company take over Bitmit. Meanwhile we deactivated the site to let you withdraw your funds & complete your orders. The chances are good that Bitmit will be continued.
We are still taking serious offers!

I guess the offers until now were just not in the ballpark they expect.

[User705]

It's likely that the offers will get lower and lower now.

[giszmo]

The text on the site has changed again:

We are planning to let another company take over Bitmit. Meanwhile we deactivated the site to let you withdraw your funds & complete your orders. The chances are good that Bitmit will be continued.
We are still taking serious offers!

I guess the offers until now were just not in the ballpark they expect.

Bitmit is a hot iron I wouldn't touch without completely decoupling or rewriting all code that touches the coins. How can you know this anonymous vendor didn't leave a backdoor somewhere?
Sure, the brand and its user base is worth more than the numbers I read here, but one site going down is also a good point to see which other site will profit from it. It's one thing to change ownership while all is running smoothly (like they did before). It is a completely other thing and very stupid if you ask me, to totally disrupt the business, push the users to whatever calls itself competitor and only produce bad news for weeks of chaos. wtf? What a way to waste money?

[bernard75]

I absolutely agree with how this thing was handled.
And i would expect to receive the source code aswell when buying a company.
BTW: The 2/3 external Escrow is an excellent idea, but i guess they were making good money by holding the coins themselves.

[User705]

I absolutely agree with how this thing was handled.
And i would expect to receive the source code aswell when buying a company.
BTW: The 2/3 external Escrow is an excellent idea, but i guess they were making good money by holding the coins themselves.

You'd make the same amount.  You just carry less risk but not sure about coding it.  For a multi sig address do you need to know all the private keys or just public to combine them?

[HalfPriceDigital]

Why does escrow need to be built into the auction site itself is my question?  Why not just use an external escrow system like BTCrow.com if the transaction calls for escrow?  Then BTC users don't have to deal with all the shady BTC auction sites that won't reveal their identity to consumers. 

Besides, it's not like escrow can't be gamed.  The seller ships a box of full of nothing to the buyer and provides a tracking number.  Or the buyer claims that he/she received a box of nothing when they actually got the item.

[moderate]

Besides, it's not like escrow can't be gamed.  The seller ships a box of full of nothing to the buyer and provides a tracking number.  Or the buyer claims that he/she received a box of nothing when they actually got the item.

Doesn't the seller send the box to bitmit, which verifies the product and only then forwards to the buyer ? I understand paying a premium for that, not otherwise.

[HalfPriceDigital]

Besides, it's not like escrow can't be gamed.  The seller ships a box of full of nothing to the buyer and provides a tracking number.  Or the buyer claims that he/she received a box of nothing when they actually got the item.

Doesn't the seller send the box to bitmit, which verifies the product and only then forwards to the buyer ? I understand paying a premium for that, not otherwise.

No, with escrow the buyer sends the money to the escrow company.  The escrow company then tells the seller "okay, we got the money, send the item." Buyer receives the item and tells the escrow company "everything is good, send the money to the seller."  If the buyer doesn't receive the item, then the escrow service sends the money back to the buyer. 

But the system is easily gamed.  The seller can send an empty box, and provide a tracking number to the escrow company to "prove" that they sent the item and then it is the seller's word against the buyers word about what was in the box.

I think it is better to just build up a reputable auction site that doesn't get shut down every year for offering escrow without a license.  Have that site build up user reputations via an ebay like user rating/review system.  If users want to sell with escrow for an item, then they can use a 3rd party escrow site that is licensed to provide escrow services.

[moderate]

Besides, it's not like escrow can't be gamed.  The seller ships a box of full of nothing to the buyer and provides a tracking number.  Or the buyer claims that he/she received a box of nothing when they actually got the item.

Doesn't the seller send the box to bitmit, which verifies the product and only then forwards to the buyer ? I understand paying a premium for that, not otherwise.

No, with escrow the buyer sends the money to the escrow company.  The escrow company then tells the seller "okay, we got the money, send the item." Buyer receives the item and tells the escrow company "everything is good, send the money to the seller."  If the buyer doesn't receive the item, then the escrow service sends the money back to the buyer. 

But the system is easily gamed.  The seller can send an empty box, and provide a tracking number to the escrow company to "prove" that they sent the item and then it is the seller's word against the buyers word about what was in the box.

I don't understand why you are repeating that, will you paste that same text again after this reply too ? What you are mentioning is one escrow method, there are others like the one I mentioned. I won't bother repeating it, people can read the previous post.

[iCEBREAKER]

I hope some real professionals with deep pockets for developers, marketers, and lawyers step up to buy BitMit.

BitMit has the potential to be the next eBay, just as Bitcoin may replace Paypal.

Sure you could roll your own BitMit clone.  Many people are trying that approach.

But just as eBay's first mover advantage provided them with instant dotcom name recognition, BitMit's overwhelming early market presence makes their brand very valuable.

With some adult supervision, the room for growth is mind-boggling.

Maybe a Coinsortium of investors will purchase BitMit and take it public on Kate's new Ciphertrade exchange...   

[moderate]

I hope some real professionals with deep pockets for developers, marketers, and lawyers step up to buy BitMit.

BitMit has the potential to be the next eBay, just as Bitcoin may replace Paypal.

Sure you could roll your own BitMit clone.  Many people are trying that approach.

But just as eBay's first mover advantage provided them with instant dotcom name recognition, BitMit's overwhelming early market presence makes their brand very valuable.

With some adult supervision, the room for growth is mind-boggling.

Maybe a Coinsortium of investors will purchase BitMit and take it public on Kate's new Ciphertrade exchange...   

Some people don't realize there is no need to be the first in the market. Do you search with Yahoo or Google ? If none, you are likely searching with other option which is even newer than them.

[hendo420]

I hope some real professionals with deep pockets for developers, marketers, and lawyers step up to buy BitMit.

BitMit has the potential to be the next eBay, just as Bitcoin may replace Paypal.

Sure you could roll your own BitMit clone.  Many people are trying that approach.

But just as eBay's first mover advantage provided them with instant dotcom name recognition, BitMit's overwhelming early market presence makes their brand very valuable.

With some adult supervision, the room for growth is mind-boggling.

Maybe a Coinsortium of investors will purchase BitMit and take it public on Kate's new Ciphertrade exchange...   

Some people don't realize there is no need to be the first in the market. Do you search with Yahoo or Google ? If none, you are likely searching with other option which is even newer than them.

I was making 1-2 sales per day using bitmit. Using coingig and cryptothrift I have made 1 sale in the past week. I miss bitmit.

[moderate]

I hope some real professionals with deep pockets for developers, marketers, and lawyers step up to buy BitMit.

BitMit has the potential to be the next eBay, just as Bitcoin may replace Paypal.

Sure you could roll your own BitMit clone.  Many people are trying that approach.

But just as eBay's first mover advantage provided them with instant dotcom name recognition, BitMit's overwhelming early market presence makes their brand very valuable.

With some adult supervision, the room for growth is mind-boggling.

Maybe a Coinsortium of investors will purchase BitMit and take it public on Kate's new Ciphertrade exchange...   

Some people don't realize there is no need to be the first in the market. Do you search with Yahoo or Google ? If none, you are likely searching with other option which is even newer than them.

I was making 1-2 sales per day using bitmit. Using coingig and cryptothrift I have made 1 sale in the past week. I miss bitmit.

It is likely that coingig and cryptothrift won't achieve the same user base as bitmit, just because they add nothing to what we already got and have to build trust. You don't need to be the first in the game, but you need to add some good value to the service if you want to take over (hint to the new sites: bad talking about the competitors doesn't add value). In this specific case it will be very easy to take over as bitmit is going away, but most likely some of the user base will stop using this kind of service, and other part will fragment among the available options.