OtcExchange.net - Automated PayPal-BTC marketplace based on p2p concepts

[RunningTotal]

We're proud to announce go-live of the first automated Paypal-BitCoin marketplace based on p2p concepts - www.otcexchange.net

OtcExchange offers convinient low-fee escrow service and a marketplace to perform currency exchange operations between Paypal funds and BitCoin. http://otcexchange.net/Images/General_Scheme.png

The escrow service is using automated verification procedures thus providing payment/funds delivery guarantee for both trading parties. OtcExchange marketplace does not require its members to maintain any kind of internal balance and employ deposit/withdrawal procedures. Funds only being kept by marketplace till order fulfillment. Should order originator wish to close non-fulfilled order, correspondent BitCoin amount is being sent back to its respective owner.

The service is now working in invite-only mode which means you could only become a member by using an invitation sent by one of our existing trusted users. This is a precaution measure in order to safe marketplace community from chargeback scammers. If you reasonable believe you could prove your trustworthiness as a currency trader in order to become a marketplace member, please contact us directly on support@otcexchange.net.

We will be glad to welcome honest traders to the marketplace.

UPD Sep 21th 2011:

We've updated the engine so there are now trading limits assigned automatically for newly invited users. While having 'Invited' trust level, you are allowed to place a Sell Market order for no more than 50 USD. We're also working on the total maximum limit cap for SM orders within 45-day sliding window which corresponds to PayPal transaction appeal timeframe. The trust level has to be increased for these restriction to be removed.

Having that said, everybody wanting an invite please PM to Vitaly with email address an invite to be sent to and any additional details you feel worth to share. To get trust level increased, please mention your #otc wot, tradehill or bitcoinmarket.com username and rating.

[vvinogradoff]

As a tech lead of the project I'd like to share some more details on order processing. Those are below.

Bid Limit orders

With current marketplace work process we offer a single trading scenario where member A initiates an offer by transferring correspondent BTC amount to our system account. Once payment is confirmed and verified by BitCoin network, offer becomes available for fulfilment by other members.
http://otcexchange.net/Images/BidOrders_scheme.png

• Buyer registers a Bid Limit order, specifying PayPal amount wanted for purchase and desired price. Marketplace provides buyer with WalletID and exact BTC amount to be send.
• Buyer sends the requested BTC amount to the marketplace.
• Once transaction is confirmed by BitCoin network, the order becomes publicly visible
• Other marketplace members are now able to post Sell Market orders as a fulfilment of given Bid Limit order

Sell Market orders

Continuing the scenario started above, member B willing to fulfil the offer fully or partially is requested to place correspondent reserve and perform PayPal funds transfer following marketplace instructions. Once PayPal transfer is performed and cleared, marketplace gets automatically notified by PayPal integration services. Our escrow engine then starts a safety delay countdown and sends BitCoin payment to member B once the countdown hits zero. Should member A feel suspicious on PayPal transaction received, he/she notifies the maketplace of the potential problem before safety delay expires.
http://otcexchange.net/Images/AskRequests_Scheme.png

• Seller registers Sell Market order based on one of Bid Limit orders available on the marketplace.
• Marketplace puts a reserve on selected Bid Limit and provides Seller with a link to follow in order to perform PayPal transfer. The engine expects transfer to be completed in 10 minutes, failure to act in a timely manner results to reserve removal and Sell Market order cancellation.
• Seller uses the link provided to perform PayPal funds transfer directly to the correspondent Buyer. Seller is provided with a pregenerated and tamper protected transaction template link and only able to confirm the ongoing payment. Resulting Paypal transaction does not disclose deal details nor it reveals a BitCoin exchange deal. It only says Order#XXXXX.
• Paypal engine automatically notifies the marketplace on transaction occured. Should all sensitive transaction info match expected, marketplace considers funds transfer as successfully completed and starts a countdown (currently 24 hours) to send out deal BTC amount to Seller
• Should there be no Complaint requests on Paypal transaction from Buyer during countdown, marketplace finally releases BitCoin amount to Seller.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Great job guys, the site seems nicely put together.

Quick question- if I register as a seller and I use the escrow service, the buy decides to dispute it.
I'm screwed, paypay sides with the buyer ALWAYS as you cannot prove delivery. What happens then?

Will you refund me?

-Charlie

[zer0]

You will get robbed of everything. Stay away from Paypal, it would be safer to use a payment gateway for credit cards and risk that instead of this nonsense paypal escrow that's going to end up seized by them and you losing everything

[vvinogradoff]

Quick question- if I register as a seller and I use the escrow service, the buy decides to dispute it.
I'm screwed, paypay sides with the buyer ALWAYS as you cannot prove delivery. What happens then?

Will you refund me?

Charlie, in case of proved fraud we will refund any fees collected for correspondent deal. Also, we will provide you with all info we have on file for the member - IPs, transaction history and ID verification document scans if there were any. That's the best we can do.

Risk of being scammed by CC/ACH chargeback is always there, that's why we run in invite only.

[vvinogradoff]

You will get robbed of everything. Stay away from Paypal, it would be safer to use a payment gateway for credit cards and risk that instead of this nonsense paypal escrow that's going to end up seized by them and you losing everything

People do trade BitCoins for PayPal. Some of them even use eBay for that purpose and pretty happy with the process despite eBay considers this a ToS violation and ends up the listing immediately once found. I also know there are dozens of stories how traders were ripped off by scammers on chargebacks, and (surprise!) payment gateway won't save you from being ripped. It's 100% the same - you get a chargeback and your merchant charges funds back from you. That's it.

There's NO 100% safe way to trade with reversible payment methods which PayPal, Credit Cards and ACH eCheck transactions are. Having that said, each and every advice to prefer one reversible method over another is a worthless bullshit.

You should only consider the place where you're trading on and the person you're dealing with. Period.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

You will get robbed of everything. Stay away from Paypal, it would be safer to use a payment gateway for credit cards and risk that instead of this nonsense paypal escrow that's going to end up seized by them and you losing everything

People do trade BitCoins for PayPal. Some of them even use eBay for that purpose and pretty happy with the process despite eBay considers this a ToS violation and ends up the listing immediately once found. I also know there are dozens of stories how traders were ripped off by scammers on chargebacks, and (surprise!) payment gateway won't save you from being ripped. It's 100% the same - you get a chargeback and your merchant charges funds back from you. That's it.

There's NO 100% safe way to trade with reversible payment methods which PayPal, Credit Cards and ACH eCheck transactions are. Having that said, each and every advice to prefer one reversible method over another is a worthless bullshit.

You should only consider the place where you're trading on and the person you're dealing with. Period.

Good Luck! I'd like to try it out, send me an invite!

[marks1976]

I would like an invite also.  I have a Verified Paypal account.  You might be able to offer different levels of service based on the amount of information you are making the transaction with.  Quite possibly small trades for unverified.  Larger amount for verified and even larger for verified and photo ID or something like that.  I get payments from ebay into paypal and would love to make it easier for me to go from paypal to bitcoin.  It takes a long time to transfer to dwolla or other payment for different exchanges.

[vvinogradoff]

You might be able to offer different levels of service based on the amount of information you are making the transaction with.  Quite possibly small trades for unverified.  Larger amount for verified and even larger for verified and photo ID or something like that.

Marks, thanks for the suggestion. Your invite is on its way.

We're actually in process of making a decision on new member policies and restrictions. It's obvious now that we have to offer something to new BitCoin community members. Most probably, that's going to be a fairly limited access with restrictions removed upon identity verification. Within several days there'll be a correpsondent notification to all members once marketplace engine is capable to enforce restrictions based on trust level.

For now we have several options to recognize definitely trustworth traders:
1. #bitcoin-otc WoT (web of trust) rating. You're also advised to mention the #otc username under 'About' section.
2. Tradehill rating. You're also advised to mention the #otc username under 'About' section.
3. Personal identity document scans (state or federal), confirming your name, age and address + 0.10$ paypal charge in order to expose confirmed billing/shipping address. Address on identity documents should match one used in paypal.

As always, suggestions are highly welcome here.

[teesee]

I would like an invite if there are any.

[vvinogradoff]

We've updated the engine so there are now trading limits assigned automatically for newly invited users. While having 'Invited' trust level, you are allowed to place a Sell Market order for no more than 50 USD. We're also working on the total maximum limit cap for SM orders within 45-day sliding window which corresponds to PayPal transaction appeal timeframe. The trust level has to be increased for these restriction to be removed.

Having that said, anybody wanting an invite please PM me with email address the invite to be sent to and any additional details you feel worth to share. To get trust level increased, please mention your #otc wot, tradehill or bitcoinmarket.com username and rating.

teesee, your invite is on its way.

[vvinogradoff]

How to buy Paypal on marketplace
There are just a few steps one should do in order to open a Bid Limit offer here. First of all, enter the desired Paypal volume and the price you would like this volume to be purchased at. Should you wish to provide an option to partially fulfil your order, please mark down the correspondent checkbox and specify minimum volume. Being set, this one ensures that no single fulfilment deal could be made on your offer with a volume lower than the given minimum

http://otcexchange.net/Images/otc_tutorial_buy_1.png

Once order parameters are enterned, hit the button and the marketplace gives a wallet ID and the total BTC amount to be sent. This includes both the actual order volume cost and a marketplace fee. Once payment is set, kindly hit confirm on order for marketplace to start watching the payment status within BitCoin network.

http://otcexchange.net/Images/otc_tutorial_buy_2.png

Your order is completely set and ready for fulfilment once BitCoin network confirms the payment and its amount.

If you didn't like the idea - simply hit Cancel and your order is going to be removed without any further processing or consequences.

[vvinogradoff]

How to sell Paypal on marketplace

The sell option is only available here on the marketplace if there are some bid offers opened. The general idea is that you could only respond to the Bid Order when willing to sell Paypal funds. This restriction corresponds to a common sense - you cannot send Paypal funds to the marketplace, so at the moment of transaction start you should already know whom you're going to transfer funds to.

So, in order to sell some Paypal right instantly there are few steps to be done. First of all, specify the desired Paypal volume to be sold. The marketplace will attempt to find Bid Limit orders matching your request and ask you to pick up the one you like more. We recommend to pick one with a highest price since member trust level and overall turnover has practically no difference to you when setting a Sell Market order.

http://otcexchange.net/Images/otc_tutorial_sell_1.png

Once Bid Limit order is choosen, the marketplace shows a total BTC amount you are going to be funded wih once deal is cleared. Hit confirmation button if you like what you see and see the next page confirming deal values.

http://otcexchange.net/Images/otc_tutorial_sell_2.png

This page also shows a "Transfer" button which you have to hit and be redirected to PayPal website in order to perform funds transfer required by the deal. Hit this one and follow Paypal instructions. You are required to perform the funds transfer in 10 minutes while Bid Market order or its part is kept reserved for you.

http://otcexchange.net/Images/otc_tutorial_sell_3.png

Once funds transfer is complete, hit Confirm. The deal will be automatically tracked by the marketplace using Paypal payment notifications.

If you didn't like the idea - simply hit Cancel and your order is going to be removed without any further processing or consequences.