How much security deposit? Trading fee?

Hello everybody.
I’m into BTC for quite a long time now but new to Bisq.
It’s not 100% clear to me how the security deposit works and thus how much I put in. If I understand it correctly, it should be more than the amount of BTC that I want to buy, right?
Let’s say I’d buy 1 BTC and 0.01 BTC would be the security deposit (a lot lower than the traded amount of money), then the seller could just take my fiat money (around 16k USD), lose his 0.01 BTC (around 160 USD) and make a nice profit.
Also, can we set the mining fee to what we want? If so, how?
I don’t want to pay 15$ for mining fee or more (some software wallets have you pay this much to make the tx as quick as possible) when a tx would probably be mined in less than a week (this speed is totally fine for me) at 3-4$.
Thank you in advance!
~ shelf ~

No, security deposit doesn’t need to cover the whole trade amount.
It is 0.01 BTC by default, but you can set any custom value.

BTC trade amount gets locked in a multisig as well, so the arbitrator can always insure that you receive it if you provide proof of fiat payment.

Security deposit is just a collateral and is very useful for stopping forward trading as BTC price can go up or down rapidly which would give incentive for the other trader to drop out of the trade if the price doesn’t go in his direction.

1 Like

Okay, I see - thank you very much!
From which amount of BTC do you think a higher security deposit is needed?

And what would be the minimum deposit for let’s say buying 0,01-0,02 BTC?

What about the tx fee? Can we set it as we want?

You can always just use the default for the security deposit as many people do, it is just a personal preference on how important it is for you that trade goes smoothly. So I can’t tell you when you would want to go higher, it is up to you.

Security deposit doesn’t depend on the trade amount, as far as I know, there are just global max and min values. I think that for the buyer it is 0.0005 BTC for a minimum currently. And for the seller, I am not sure, it might even be fixed to 0.003 BTC in every trade as his BTC trade amount will be locked anyway. You should be able to check all of this in the app, by trying to make an offer.

Tx fee can’t be adjusted as far as I know. At least not for transaction inside the trade, since that would probably lead to uncertainty and would impact the other trader as the trade might take longer if the fee is too low. You can set whatever fee you want however when withdrawing BTC from your internal Bisq wallet.

1 Like

Alright, got it!
What is the tx fee for the trade itself, actually?
And can I have the seller send the money directly to my hardware wallet?

Mining fee is dynamic as far I know, it uses bitcoinfees.earn.com for fee estimation. I am not sure about the exact confirmation time it is targeting.

That is a good question, but I am not sure. Maybe @ManfredKarrer knows more about this.

1 Like

It would be really good to know!
I mean, the max time for 40-50 sat looks to be under a day atm, which imho would be very well enough for a trade…
Considering a SEPA transaction takes at least a day.

Ok, let’s see what @ManfredKarrer says about the recipient wallet kind of thing… :wink:

@ManfredKarrer Is it possible to receive BTC to a hardware wallet?
Also, follow-up to the original question:
I think I understood how all of this works now.

  1. I put up a “I want to buy BTC” offer
  2. Someone accepts it, and both his and my security deposits are locked in a multisig tx together with his BTC that he sells me
  3. I pay with SEPA
    4.1) He says “The money is here” and the security deposits go back and the traded BTC go to my wallet
    4.2) He doesn’t react / disappears for whatever reason, in that case I take an arbitrator who releases the traded BTCs to me and I get those as well as my security deposit and the seller’s security deposit

Is this right?
If so, what is the security deposit good for, again?
To cover the otherwise lost transaction and trade fees for the seller if the other problematic situation kicks in (I don’t pay)?

I don’t think hardware wallets are supported. If you can simply get a Bitcoin address that Bisq can send your funds to, that will work, but I am unfortunately unfamiliar with how exactly most hardware wallets work. Hopefully I will buy one in future to check them out.

You understood correctly about how Bisq trade works. Security deposits discourage traders not to follow the protocol to release the funds or not sending fiat once they have taken an offer and changed their mind. It is also good to discourage forward trading as price of Bitcoin is very volatile and traders could just not go with the trade if the price doesn’t move in their favor.

Well a hardware wallet just means you have a device with some sort of “safe storage” chip (can’t be physically hacked by opening etc. as well as safe against viruses as it’s a separate device) that stores your private keys.
Other than that you can just use it like any software wallet.
This means I do have a regular Bitcoin address that Bisq could send my funds to.
If you want to check them out, I’d get a “Digital Bitbox” (that’s what I have). The Ledger and Trezor ones are all sold out till February or March, it seems and they cost more.

:+1: Yeah I heard about that forward trading thing already.
Though for me it was always a bit unlogical to have a security deposit if the seller actually has already locked in the whole trade amount. I think it is a good security measure for the seller, though (as stated before).

Yeah, this is why seller’s have a lower security deposit. But we still need to give them a reason to actually confirm the payment instead of forcing the other user to go to arbitration, provide proof of payment and wastes his time.

Okay that’s fine.
Though I think next time I’ll use a lower deposit… :wink:
I went with 0.01 this time but I’m not sure that I’ll always want to have so much money on my PC and transferring 0.01 BTC back and forth between PC and hardware wallet via BTC transactions might get expensive…
Probably I will just keep 0.001 BTC on my PC for security deposits like the guy in the video did.
By the way: In your experience how much time does it usually take for an offer to be accepted (I’m willing to pay a bit more than market price, put a buy order in at 9000€)?

Edit: Actually it is the highest-paying open offer atm.