I had this idea for an Anonymous Exchange

[hazek]

Yes, past tense unfortunately my idea didn't work out because I ran into one big and crucial obstacle. Because my idea is now useless to me since I can't think of how to overcome this obstacle I figure the best thing to do is to share it any give someone else the chance to succeed.

So here it is:

I was planing on running an ESCROW website for trading paysafecards on one side and BTC on the other. My site would allow people to make an offer with paysafecards under an ID and lock that offer with their own password, my site would then check the PIN of the paysafecard if the offered balance is actually there and would also use paysafecard's option to secure the PIN with a password unknown to the owner. In effect the owner would still know the PIN but couldn't access the balance in order to insure him not trying to screw the other party. Then his offer would be displayed publicly to everyone on my website and whoever wanted to take the offer could lock it with their own password.

At this point an offer on my site has an offer ID, it has an offering party locked with their own PW and an offered paysafecard PIN locked by my website and also the other side of trade locked by someone willing to take the offer.

This someone would then see the BitCoin address that the party that made an offer entered and send the before agreed upon amount. My site would then check new blocks for that address and when it found the matching amount transferred it would unlock the PIN and PW for the paysafecard PIN to the person taking the offer which they could access through the offer ID and the pw they entered to lock the offer with.

At this point the party taking the offer got the PIN + PW and is the only party that can now use the paysafecard and also payed the BitCoins which the party that made the offer received and everyone is happy and no one knows who any of the parties were.



It's basically an ESCROW but with one big problem: even though you can manually check the balance of a paysafecard PIN here https://customer.cc.at.paysafecard.com/psccustomer/GetWelcomePanelServlet?&language=en
you can't do it automatically, which I confirmed with paysafecard through email. So the only way my idea could work is if you had an actual person checking all the PINs offered and locking them manually or find another payment option like paysafecard that had the same type of features with the option to check the balance and lock PINs automatically.

[gusti]

I read in their website that they provide an API
I think you can do that verification through API too

[hazek]

I read in their website that they provide an API
I think you can do that verification through API too

It's the "setting a password for a PIN" problem that's the crucial roadblock because it's the core mechanism that ensures either parties can't cheat the other.

[BitterTea]

If doing so manually is feasible, there's something similar in the U.S. called MoneyPak. Could you give a manual operator enough information to verify the card, but not redeem it? That would eliminate some need of trust, and might allow you to contract out the setup for BTC.

[hazek]

Nope, you pretty much need to give out the whole PIN and trust the ESCROW not to screw you.


BTW if some of you are wondering why someone would want to sell their BTC for a paysafecard, here are a few examples where you can use one as money:

Prepaid mastercard Yuna: https://www.yunacard.com/at/home/
Secure electronic financial transactions service ECash Direct: http://www.ecashdirect.net/about.html
Most popular online poker platform: http://www.pokerstars.com/

to name just a few of the really handy ones.

[mndrix]

I think an anonymous exchange will play an important role in the Bitcoin economy someday.  I particularly like your idea to use Paysafecard and the password feature to prevent double spending.

So the only way my idea could work is if you had an actual person checking all the PINs offered and locking them manually

I think you could handle the initial volumes manually.  As you gain experience with the process, you may gain insight into how to automate it.