Facebook Marketplace, Amazon, Airbnb and Cash App, in one platform priced in sat

[jhone225]

I built CashSats.com, a peer to peer marketplace where people buy, sell and rent things priced in sats. I am the owner, solo, no company or investors behind it.

How it works: sellers list items, buyers message them, the two settle directly between themselves. The site never holds funds and never touches the payment. No KYC, no account funding, no custody. Listings and accounts are free.

There is also a rentals side, so you can rent out gear or property for sats instead of selling.

Businesses can get a verified store section on the site, free. Products can be added manually, or if the business runs on Shopify they sync in automatically and refresh every night, so there is no catalog to manage by hand.

I built it because I got tired of holding sats with nowhere to actually use them. Every P2P tool out there is for swapping BTC and fiat. None of them let you just buy a couch or rent a camera.

It is live and it works, but it is early. Not many listings yet.

There is no escrow. Buyer and seller deal with each other directly and the platform stays out of it.

Have a look if you get a chance and tell me what needs fixing. Criticism is more useful to me right now than anything else, and if you think it is worth passing on to someone, I would appreciate that.

[TheButterZone]

The HTML5 canvas data image upload in Tor Browser bug follows me EVERYWHERE

https://assets.cashsats.com/6e15c833d7a997dddb42302d2960d737.png is NOT my logo I uploaded as Profile Picture!
https://assets.cashsats.com/ab5982cde4f182bda25c040435dfa45a.jpg is NOT my product photo! Initially appeared correct in thumbnail, but not after clicking Post Listing.

ETA: Fixed

Only other issue so far, is when I tried to set my BTC address I ran up against TOTP rejections no matter how many seconds were left, then "Too many wallet updates. Try again later."

Finally worked after I updated Bio again, then tried Save Wallet again.

[BitMaxz]

Interesting site. We actually need a site like this but it has some flaws since you mention no escrow. I am sure this will lead to many scams.

Look, if no escrow is involved here, if someone is randomly selling something there—rentals, service, or products—seller or buyer, how can they trust each other if the buyer sends the Sats? Do you think the seller will send this product or execute the service? They can easily get out if the payment is directly to the seller's wallet.
The thing is, this kind of service should have an active escrow; without them, this would end up with the house of scammers.

[jhone225]

Thanks for signing up and testing it properly. Useful report, and the second link confirms it: the listing photo is hit too, not just the profile picture.

Both issues make sense. The image one comes from how photos are processed in the browser before upload, which privacy browsers block, and the wallet one looks like the rate limit counting the wrong thing. I am looking at both now and will fix them for everyone, not just Tor. I will post here when they are done.

Please let me know if you run into anything else. There is also a Help section on the site, and the bug report form comes straight to me.


Fair point, and it is the first thing everyone asks.

To be precise about what I am: the site is a listing and messaging platform. Buyer and seller find each other and settle between themselves, the way they do on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. Neither of those holds your money either, and people use them every day because most trades happen in person. That is the model for now, meet up, see the item, hand over the sats.

For buying without meeting, that is what the Official Store section is for. Same idea as an Amazon store: a real business applies, I verify it is a real business, and it gets a verified store. That verification is the trust, not escrow.

For everyone else, what I have is trust scores, reviews, reports, moderation, and a safety reminder that shows every time before you meet someone. That does not stop a scam mid-trade and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

Honest reason there is none yet: I am a solo founder in Vancouver, and holding funds here means registration and compliance I cannot carry alone right now. The plan is a wallet for buying, selling, sending and receiving, the same way Cash App works, and an auction section where people can cash out their sats. Escrow comes after that, once I can do it properly. I am looking for a co-founder to get there faster.

[jhone225]

The HTML5 canvas data image upload in Tor Browser bug follows me EVERYWHERE

https://assets.cashsats.com/6e15c833d7a997dddb42302d2960d737.png is NOT my logo I uploaded as Profile Picture!
https://assets.cashsats.com/ab5982cde4f182bda25c040435dfa45a.jpg is NOT my product photo! Initially appeared correct in thumbnail, but not after clicking Post Listing.

Only other issue so far, is when I tried to set my BTC address I ran up against TOTP rejections no matter how many seconds were left, then "Too many wallet updates. Try again later."

Finally worked after I updated Bio again, then tried Save Wallet again.

Hey TheButterZone, sorry for the delay. Both are fixed, re-upload your profile picture and listing photo when you get a chance.

Your fiat float suggestion is in too. Sellers can now anchor a listing in USD or CAD and the sats figure floats to match the spot price, or keep it fixed in sats if they prefer.

Thanks for taking the time to actually use the site and report all of it, that was genuinely useful.

[SFR10]

@jhone225

CashSats is free for all verified users. You get 21 marketplace listings + 21 rentals, and unlimited contact unlocks.

Am I correct in assuming that this is a freemium model where anything beyond the above limits will cost a fee?
^{- If I'm wrong, then how are you planning to keep maintaining it for the foreseeable future?}

Every user starts with a Trust Score of 100 out of 100. When you receive a 4 or 5 star review, your score goes up by 5. When you receive a 1 or 2 star review, it goes down by 5. A 3 star review does not change your score. The score is capped between 0 and 100.

There's a contradiction in the quote above: If the trust score starts at 100 and someone receives a 4/5-star review, their trust score goes beyond the capped amount.
^{- IMO, it'd be better to start at 0... In addition, it won't give the wrong idea to some users who might think a new seller can be trusted.}

[nobswebdev]

You will need to add some escrow system, because there will be a lot of scams. xmrbazaar.com started with only direct p2p trades, but at some point they had to add escrow system. They implemented it on top of Monero 2/3 multisig, so it matches decentralized model of the market.

[Vod]

How it works: The site never holds funds and never touches the payment.

There is also a rentals side, so you can rent out gear or property for sats instead of selling.

So a user can rent something for a portion of it's value each month with no KYC?  Why would they send the renter another payment after they received the item?

[jhone225]

@jhone225

CashSats is free for all verified users. You get 21 marketplace listings + 21 rentals, and unlimited contact unlocks.

Am I correct in assuming that this is a freemium model where anything beyond the above limits will cost a fee?
^{- If I'm wrong, then how are you planning to keep maintaining it for the foreseeable future?}

Every user starts with a Trust Score of 100 out of 100. When you receive a 4 or 5 star review, your score goes up by 5. When you receive a 1 or 2 star review, it goes down by 5. A 3 star review does not change your score. The score is capped between 0 and 100.

There's a contradiction in the quote above: If the trust score starts at 100 and someone receives a 4/5-star review, their trust score goes beyond the capped amount.
^{- IMO, it'd be better to start at 0... In addition, it won't give the wrong idea to some users who might think a new seller can be trusted.}

You are correct, and I did not catch that myself. Starting at 100 with a cap of 100 means a new account displays as maximum trust and good reviews cannot move it. That is a real flaw, sorry for that. I am replacing the trust score with a star rating instead. Stars come only from reviews, they appear after 5 reviews rather than being granted, and the review count sits beside them so volume is visible.

On the money side: not freemium. The limits are hard caps, you cannot go past them and there is no paid upgrade to raise them. They exist for cost control for now. I am solo with no team and no funding yet, and the Bitcoin VC companies I have spoken to want to see users before they invest, so I am keeping running costs tight until then and will raise the caps as the site grows.

Longer term the revenue comes from transactions rather than from charging people to list: fees on the wallet, the store side, and the auction section, once those are built.

[jhone225]

How it works: The site never holds funds and never touches the payment.

There is also a rentals side, so you can rent out gear or property for sats instead of selling.

So a user can rent something for a portion of it's value each month with no KYC?  Why would they send the renter another payment after they received the item?

Rentals right now work the way Craigslist, Kijiji and Facebook Marketplace rentals do. All three are free, hold no money, verify nobody, and put the risk on the two people dealing. Craigslist says it on their own safety page: not involved in any transaction, no payments, no escrow, no buyer protection, and their number one rule is deal locally with people you can meet in person. That is the same position I am in today. The two sides meet, agree a deposit, sign whatever contract they want between themselves, and the site is only where they found each other.

The wallet changes that. Escrow and held deposits are on the table, and so is verification where the law requires it, but how far each goes depends on what I can actually do legally, and those rules differ by country. So I am not promising specifics I have not confirmed. Non-custodial multisig is the other route, where the coins sit in an address I cannot move on my own, which is what XmrBazaar does. I am looking at all of it and we will see how it goes.

For now, local and in person is what rentals are for.

[jhone225]

You will need to add some escrow system, because there will be a lot of scams. xmrbazaar.com started with only direct p2p trades, but at some point they had to add escrow system. They implemented it on top of Monero 2/3 multisig, so it matches decentralized model of the market.

True, and a good example. Multisig and escrow are both options I am considering for the future, as the platform grows and I am able to bring in funding or a partner to build it properly.