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February 20, 2014, 12:05:34 AM
Last edit: February 22, 2014, 05:11:24 AM by Duane Vick |
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I'm reposting this here. Originally it was in the Bank Run! P2P thread but don't want to distract from that thread or coattail it.
I'm just thinking out loud here but maybe something can come of this.
Western Union has a way to send cash to their agent locations. These transactions can by picked up in cash by a person by simply presenting the MTCN (Money Transaction Control Number) along with ID at the agent location. Once cash is picked up, it is obviously not reversible. There's a period of about 3 days for the cash funds to be available for pickup. The downside is having to show ID.
My thinking is that there still needs to be an escrow system that works anonymously. The escrow system can rely on mining for escrow fees. A not-yet-solvable block can be created once Bob deposits BTC plus escrow fee and enters his first and last name. In order to be solved, additional information has to be input from the transaction. When Alice sends the Western Union Three Day payment, she gets a MTCN from Western Union. She then enters that MTCN into the client, the country it was sent to, and amount. She also must enter a BTC address to receive the BTC when the block is solved. Once that information is entered, A waiting period of 96 hours is created. This creates time for Bill to obtain the cash, making the fiat transfer irreversible. The escrow system encrypts all the information and checks Western Union online to verify the MTCN is valid and the receiver matches, etc. If it all matches, then the block becomes solvable. Once solved, the btc gets paid to the bitcoin address supplied by Alice. The escrow fee gets divvied up amongst those who solve the block.
This solution would have to integrate well with checking Western Union online. This might require people to do this manually. In that case it adds an actual human work component to the escrow system. Now of course, a person might just say yes or no to whether the transaction information on Western Union's website matches the information in the block. To facilitate this, I think several people would have to confirm the transaction. If your confirmation or rejection of the transaction doesn't match with the other transaction checkers, you lose points. Lose enough and escrows won't be assigned to you anymore. Truthful responses will be rewarded with small amounts of points, leading to more escrow verifications coming your way. Those who verify blocks, leading to them being solved, get a portion of the escrow fees.
I'm not a programmer and don't fully understand how blocks, etc., work so this might be full of flaws. Hopefully, not so many that it is useless even as a beginning concept.
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