[XMR] Monero - A secure, private, untraceable cryptocurrency

[Este Nuno]

That's not true at all. There are 322 people in the SuperNET slack including dozens of programmers. There's 64 people testing the api right now in slack as well. In fact you're more than welcome to help come test, or run a node. There are well over $1000 in bug bounty rewards split up every week to anyone who finds bugs. It's also being independently reviewed by Kristov Atlas. I'd love to see even more people going over the code as I really want to see some more legitimate criticism. Anyone interested should inquire though as you'll likely be compensated somewhat at least.

I'm anything but an altcoin fanatic, I don't even own any alts other than some BTM that was donated to be by members of the community for work I've done. Seems there are still some arrogant assholes here who like to assume things instead of actually fact checking their bullshit first before posting.

It has not been independently reviewed by Kristov as far as I can tell. He "started on the review of the design" on November 13, and that was the last I could find on it.

Also, if anyone wants to continue to discuss Bitcoindark their thread is that-a-way:)

Like I said before I don't want to start an off-topic conversation especially about a coin I have no involvement in and don't follow closely at all.

I don't know what's taking him so long. They should get other people not involved to review as well though definitely. I've been saying that from the beginning.

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[bitcoinrocks]

Since we're talking about cloning/forking OB, do you guys realize that in OB the items you're selling are stored on your node only and if your node is disconnected from the network then your items disappear from the marketplace?

http://forum.openbazaar.org/index.php?p=/discussion/105/need-a-permanent-node-to-set-up-a-store

Given the above, why would XMR, a coin concerned with privacy and anonymity, build anything on top of OB?  Am I missing something?

[smooth]

Since we're talking about cloning/forking OB, do you guys realize that in OB the items you're selling are stored on your node only and if your node is disconnected from the network then your items disappear from the marketplace?

http://forum.openbazaar.org/index.php?p=/discussion/105/need-a-permanent-node-to-set-up-a-store

Given the above, why would XMR, a coin concerned with privacy and anonymity, build anything on top of OB?  Am I missing something?

Not every bit of buying and selling needs to be anonymous (nor do I necessarily want people rifling through my finances just because I happen to transact with them non-anonymously), but if you do want to run a p2p marketplace anonymously, do it as a hidden service on Tor or i2p.

Perhaps someday there will be some tools/packages that make this easier to set up, or support for it built into the OB/FB code itself (as we plan to do with the Monero node and i2p). I wouldn't be surprised.

[e-coinomist]

OB has got about 260 open bugs actually, some of them I will have to fix to get monero parts working. but I also suppose, the most complicated part will be developing of well-operating monero escrow without multisig.

260 open bugs, some of which he'd have to fix before modifying it to work without multisig and modifying it to work with XMR. Doesn't seem realistic for that to be done in a month, and even if it were, the result would still be buggy. I hate to be a wet blanket, but let's maybe think about this. Would a buggy Freebazaar with no multi-sig really get much use even as a marketing tool? Would it really be superior to an onion site or IRC channel with a reputation system and escrow agents? We'd end up throwing more money at re-modifying it to use multi-sig once XMR finally gets working multisig. If core XMR devs hold Atrides as a software engineer in high esteem, then that's enough for me. But there's always an opportunity cost. He could be paid to work on something else.

260 or 2600 does not really matter. Did some research since this is a new toppic for me. The experts come to this conclusion

it seems people like the convenience and are aggregatively uninterested in more complicated setups.
...
This makes for the easiest prediction ever about OpenBazaar or Syscoin or P2Pox: they’re not going to take off.
http://www.deepdotweb.com/2015/01/03/2014-in-the-dark-net-markets-by-the-numbers/

[jehst]

There is a connected issue lurking here that is going to pose a problem for Freebazaar. It's volatility. If I sold something on Monero Freebazaar two days ago, and the XMR was held in escrow, then my profit margin (calculated in the currency that my costs are priced in), would've almost certainly been erased by XMR/BTC's plunge. Users don't have a way to hedge against Monero's volatility.

With bitcoin, there are well-developed margin trading and options trading platforms now. If a merchant is selling 2 BTC worth of merchandise on Freebazaar, and 2 BTC is put in escrow, he can immediately borrow 2 BTC on Bitfinex and sell them for his desired currency. If bitcoin's price plummets, he takes no risk. When the 2 BTC are released from escrow, he uses those BTC to cover the short. Of course, this may be complicated and time consuming from the merchant's perspective. First, it requires the merchant to keep some USD on Bitfinex as collateral in order to borrow the BTC. Money that will be sitting there doing nothing, which is an opportunity cost. Second, borrowing the BTC also comes at a cost in the form of interest. Third, selling the BTC incurs fees. Fourth, there is counter-party risk in leaving funds on BitFinex. So hedging comes at a cost.

Let's go back to the basics. What do we want out a customer-merchant transaction:

We want (at least):
1) Security for both parties
2) Low costs for both parties
3) Convenience

But, like Zooko's triangle, we are finding it difficult to satisfy all three at the same time.

If we make the customer safe by using escrow, the merchant's costs go way up due to volatility.
If we lower the merchant's costs by letting him get paid upfront, the customer's security goes way down.
If we tell the merchant to go on Bitfinex and do short sales every time a customer escrows funds, that is inconvenient and costly as well.

So what is the market's solution?

1. In bitcoin's normal clearnet marketplaces, the customer often simply forgoes any consumer protections such as escrow and trusts the merchant. He trusts Dell. Dell has a long history, a solid return policy, and there's little risk. In an extreme scenario involving a very large order, the customer can sue Dell in court and they will likely arrive at a settlement. This is a reasonable situation, especially if the merchant gives the customer a discount in exchange for the costs that the merchant will save (no charge-back fraud). The customer is happy to receive the discount. The merchant is also happy, as he can utilize a payment processor such as Bitpay or Coinbase to immediately convert some or all of his payment into government fiat. He no longer has to deal with fraud.

2. If you look at bitcoin's dark net marketplaces, the market's solution is the same. Customers voluntarily give up escrow and pay anonymous merchants upfront. These merchants offer discounts in exchange. This is known as "FE" (Finalize Early).  
Finalize early: This is the release of escrow funds before the seller knows that the conditions of the contract have been met. This is used to reduce seller risk from BTC price fluctuation, and against market shutdown. This is also used to scam buyers as after the escrow has been released there is no recourse for the buyer if the seller does not deliver on their promises. As you can imagine, customers are frequently scammed after they FE.

The prevalence of FE in anonymous darknet markets means that customers are not using multi-sig or escrow even when it is available and offered by default.

To bring it all back to XMR Freebazaar, my conclusion is thus:

The market has already rejected the escrow approach (which is what Freebazaar uses) in both the clearnet and the darknet markets. Escrowed cryptocurrency is far too volatile, making costs for merchants prohibitively high. Even in the world of government fiat currencies, where volatility is not a problem, the escrow approach is not often used except in special circumstances. It is used in far less than 1% of online transactions. The market consistently settles on security-imperfect solutions in exchange for speed and convenience. We can sit here and call these customers stupid for giving up their security, and we can create high-security, decentralized platforms such as Freebazaar to use Monero on, but this is simply not what people want. So it's not going to be used.

[David Latapie]

In situations where people need to hold XMR for a significant period of time (e.g. a merchant waiting for his escrowed XMR to be released, or someone using XMR to go between government currencies when traveling), they will want to be able to hedge against losses measured in EUR or USD or CNY. If we want to support an external project, perhaps we should consider one that allows them to do this easily and fluidly.

So you suggest we make sure to have an easy hedging solution by the time FreeBazaar is finished (a finish-to-finish dependancy, as it is called in projec management)? Am I reading it right? If yes, I consider this requires diverting financing and energy to the search of such tool. Do you have any lead?

[jehst]

In situations where people need to hold XMR for a significant period of time (e.g. a merchant waiting for his escrowed XMR to be released, or someone using XMR to go between government currencies when traveling), they will want to be able to hedge against losses measured in EUR or USD or CNY. If we want to support an external project, perhaps we should consider one that allows them to do this easily and fluidly.

So you suggest we make sure to have an easy hedging solution by the time FreeBazaar is finished (a finish-to-finish dependancy, as it is called in projec management)? Am I reading it right? If yes, I consider this requires diverting financing and energy to the search of such tool. Do you have any lead?

No, my conclusion about Openbazaar/Freebazaar is that it's never going to have any significant use (even with bitcoin) and it would be a very good idea not to get XMR involved with it at all.

The suggestion is completely separate. I'm going to delete it from that post and post separately about that.

[coinits]

In situations where people need to hold XMR for a significant period of time (e.g. a merchant waiting for his escrowed XMR to be released, or someone using XMR to go between government currencies when traveling), they will want to be able to hedge against losses measured in EUR or USD or CNY. If we want to support an external project, perhaps we should consider one that allows them to do this easily and fluidly.

So you suggest we make sure to have an easy hedging solution by the time FreeBazaar is finished (a finish-to-finish dependancy, as it is called in projec management)? Am I reading it right? If yes, I consider this requires diverting financing and energy to the search of such tool. Do you have any lead?

No, my conclusion about Openbazaar/Freebazaar is that it's never going to have any significant use (even with bitcoin) and it would be a very good idea not to get XMR involved with it at all.

The suggestion is completely separate. I'm going to delete it from that post and post separately about that.

As long as people/merchants are concerned with getting a crypto converted to fiat the crypto world will never go mainstream. It is unfortunate that people do not see what crypto is really for, a replacement to fiat, not a way to collect more fiat.

[jehst]

In situations where people need to hold XMR for a significant period of time (e.g. a merchant waiting for his escrowed XMR to be released, or someone using XMR to go between government currencies when traveling), they will want to be able to hedge against losses measured in EUR or USD or CNY. If we want to support an external project, perhaps we should consider one that allows them to do this easily and fluidly.

So you suggest we make sure to have an easy hedging solution by the time FreeBazaar is finished (a finish-to-finish dependancy, as it is called in projec management)? Am I reading it right? If yes, I consider this requires diverting financing and energy to the search of such tool. Do you have any lead?

No, my conclusion about Openbazaar/Freebazaar is that it's never going to have any significant use (even with bitcoin) and it would be a very good idea not to get XMR involved with it at all.

The suggestion is completely separate. I'm going to delete it from that post and post separately about that.

As long as people/merchants are concerned with getting a crypto converted to fiat the crypto world will never go mainstream. It is unfortunate that people do not see what crypto is really for, a replacement to fiat, not a way to collect more fiat.

People who negotiate large, long-term, international contracts in mainstream currencies like USD/EUR/RUB/CNY need to buy and sell options to hedge against volatility as well. Every currency deals with volatility. Smaller currencies simply have to deal with it more.

[thelibertycap]

it seems escrow/multisig is a good tool to bootstrap seller's reputation but is not really necessary afterwards when the seller is well established.
this is an interesting point of view - it would mean that openbazaar can use such seller bootstrapping with multisig/escrow using any crypto and than let buyers use monero simply out of convenience.

[liteon]

it seems escrow/multisig is a good tool to bootstrap seller's reputation but is not really necessary afterwards when the seller is well established.
this is an interesting point of view - it would mean that openbazaar can use such seller bootstrapping with multisig/escrow using any crypto and than let buyers use monero simply out of convenience.

multisig is not goin' to happen

[thelibertycap]

it seems escrow/multisig is a good tool to bootstrap seller's reputation but is not really necessary afterwards when the seller is well established.
this is an interesting point of view - it would mean that openbazaar can use such seller bootstrapping with multisig/escrow using any crypto and than let buyers use monero simply out of convenience.

multisig is not goin' to happen

i think you are missing the point of my post

[arnuschky]

it seems escrow/multisig is a good tool to bootstrap seller's reputation but is not really necessary afterwards when the seller is well established.
this is an interesting point of view - it would mean that openbazaar can use such seller bootstrapping with multisig/escrow using any crypto and than let buyers use monero simply out of convenience.

multisig is not goin' to happen

Source? Why?

Does anyone have more info on XMR multisig? I only find requests for more info, but no definitive statements. Is anyone working on this at all, even on a theoretical level?

[jehst]

it seems escrow/multisig is a good tool to bootstrap seller's reputation but is not really necessary afterwards when the seller is well established.
this is an interesting point of view - it would mean that openbazaar can use such seller bootstrapping with multisig/escrow using any crypto and than let buyers use monero simply out of convenience.

Even bitcoin's OpenBazaar will have abysmal volume let alone XMR's version. Centralized websites will remain the hotbeds of commerce.

[GingerAle]

my thoughts, for whatever they're worth:

this whole multisig / escrow thing - isn't it possible to create an autonomous 3rd party?

buyer buys something, sends XMR to autonomous 3rd party (ATP).
buyer receives thing, notifies ATP that item is good
ATP sends funds to seller

ATP funds can be distributed to special wallets of network participants (wallets under control of ATP).

Aspects of this concept (decentralized autonomous reserve) are outlined in the DAFne thread. The OP has become thick. My fault. I ramble.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=881888.0

it would be possible for the community to vote if a dispute occurs to control the ATP.

this might utilize a sister blockchain.

edited to add: sorry its brief, i gotta run to work.

[papa_lazzarou]

Source? Why?

Does anyone have more info on XMR multisig? I only find requests for more info, but no definitive statements. Is anyone working on this at all, even on a theoretical level?

The last we heard of it:

Anybody familiar with OpenBazaar source code? How big of an effort do you think it would be to implement an XMR version of it?

ideally we'd need multisig. we're working on a version of it where no one can tell you're using multisig on the blockchain (the tx look the same as any other tx).

And

You mean the keys actually involved in the multi sig look the same as usual keys in a ring?

yup. as opposed to bitcoin, where they are stored in the multisig script (and so you can publicly tell all those who are involved). this will be offchain tech, granted we can get it working in the near future.

[fluffypony]

Does anyone have more info on XMR multisig? I only find requests for more info, but no definitive statements. Is anyone working on this at all, even on a theoretical level?

I guess what he means is that it's not going to happen right now. It's something that the Monero Research Lab will look at, but it's not something that they're actively pursuing at this stage (they have other things that they're focusing on that they'll be releasing over the coming while).

[ZuSinus]

Lost password from my wallet. You can reset it or recover?

[tacotime]

Source? Why?

Does anyone have more info on XMR multisig? I only find requests for more info, but no definitive statements. Is anyone working on this at all, even on a theoretical level?

The last we heard of it:

Anybody familiar with OpenBazaar source code? How big of an effort do you think it would be to implement an XMR version of it?

ideally we'd need multisig. we're working on a version of it where no one can tell you're using multisig on the blockchain (the tx look the same as any other tx).

And

You mean the keys actually involved in the multi sig look the same as usual keys in a ring?

yup. as opposed to bitcoin, where they are stored in the multisig script (and so you can publicly tell all those who are involved). this will be offchain tech, granted we can get it working in the near future.

Simplest multisig scheme is described here: https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/wizardry/brs.pdf

[BitmoreCoin]

Lost password from my wallet. You can reset it or recover?

If you remember the 24 words, you can reset your wallet.