Recently put some bitcoin for sale.
second day, a “buyer” accepted my offer, but as a new user, immediately realized they were not set up for ACH with their bank and sent me a message explaining they were unable to fill the buy, and never opened the app since then.
so I wait 5 days for arbitration, arbitrator takes a couple days to even look, then they need to wait for buyer to respond, even tho they never opened the app again to receive my response.
Finally, after my 5 day wait, another 5 days for arbitrator to rule on my case, and now unless the “buyer” magically appears to accept arbitration I must wait another 10 days for the timelock to run out…
this is all rather inconvenient. I’m sure it’s difficult to balance the concerns of all parties involved… but if a buyer immediately realizes they can’t make the payment and ghosts, 3 weeks to unlock funds seems on the extreme end of caution and regard for a buyer who has nothing on the line here… which the bisq software KNOWS whether a payment has been made or not, and KNOWS whether the user even looked at these messages.
This is my second time selling on BISQ, sure it is a fluke, but really really inconvenient. I don’t know enough about this system to understand all of the cases and constraints, and don’t pretend this is an easy system to manage… but it does give me some caution that whenever I make a sell order, I’m in for a potentially very lengthy lock-in
HI, there is a multiple level dispute resolution system: between peers, mediator and arbitrator.
As the funds are into a 2of2 multisig, mediators only suggest a payout that both traders need to accept, but they can’t enforce it. If one of trader is not responding, mediator have not much to do. The P2P nature of Bisq has this inconveniences.
After 20 days since the start the trade, which is when the deposit tx got into a Bitcoin block, a timelocked transaction (delayed tx) can be spent. This transaction is signed at the beginning of the trade and any trader can publish it. It’s a backup which sends the funds to an address controlled by the DAO, and in that moment arbitration for a reimbursement of that donated funds can begin.
I agree that 20 days to start arbitration is too much, I even tried to change it to 12 days, but unfortunately changes on the trade protocol require a hard fork and are critical for the security of the system. So, even when that proposal was approved, I don’t think it will be actually implemented.
To prevent those situations from happening over and over, your peer will probably lose all the security deposit as a penalty and most of it will be awarded to you as a compensation for the time lost and cost of opportunity (although in the last times BTC price has gone up and that’s good for not settling a sell offer, as now the unsold BTC are more valuable).
As a side note, since there is no central server, Bisq doesn’t know this info. It would not change much the dispute resolution system anyways.
Who is at fault is clear in your case, the problem is that handling this funds in a decentralized is a very fragile issue that needs to be handled carefully.
This is my second time selling on BISQ, sure it is a fluke, but really really inconvenient. I don’t know enough about this system to understand all of the cases and constraints, and don’t pretend this is an easy system to manage…
Welcome to Bisq
I think you might be confusing the role of mediator with arbitrator.
The mediator is a neutral party. They are one that makes the proposal for you and the other trader to accept. Neither trader is obliged to accept the offer.
The arbitrator is like the judge. Most disputes do not go to arbitration as they are settled in mediation. If trades get to arbitration it if for the arbitrator to decide who should get the BTC or how the BTC is split.
When trading with a buyer that has been flaky (not paying or communicating poorly) I think sellers should request compensation as it might take a while for the BTC returned and there are a few Mediation / Arbitration hoops to get through before that is the case.
you suggesting I may have been better off escalating to dispute? I was under the assumption that would slow down my process, and wasn’t sure of potential gain for escalating.
now I’m realizing by accepting the mediators decision, I actually slowed down the process myself
suppose I’m just shaking my fist into the wind here.
seem to be hitting delays upon delays lately
hmmm… my client doesn’t show them as having opened the messages since then… but yeah, the more I think of it, not so simple to prove they are unresponsive based on what my client knows.
If your peer is not accepting the mediation suggestion it doesn’t matter if you accept or reject it, both traders need to accept the mediation suggestion to finish the trade.
Otherwise, arbitration can’t start until next 20 days since the trade began.
You had bad luck, arbitration happens for less than 1% of the trades.
I do not know the details to say what you were best doing.
But if you are being held up now by the other trader not responding you can ask the arbitrator to compensate you for your inconvenience from the other traders security deposit.
90% of arbitration cases are to do with one party not responding. Most of these cases end with the other trader being compensated in BTC for the inconvenience.
I finally got this dispute settled and refund covered.
the part I don’t understand is all the talk about a deposit and how that’s supposed to compensate me, but when I went back to do the same exact offer, with default values, as before, I can’t afford to sell that much… my existing funds don’t cover
so… did I lose something on this trade? or did the default deposit % increase?
what happened so now even though I’ve been compensated, I don’t have enough balance to sell the same I tried before the dispute?
