I think I know why we have little liquidity in Bisq. When someone accesses here does it to buy or sell their BTC, not so much to speculate as it would in a conventional exchange. The people I talk to compare the service with Local Bitcoins.
For example if someone wants to buy BTC, you can access a page of third parties like this and buy it. https://btcdirect.eu/en-gb
There is the answer. The transaction is made at market price. Bisq is unattractive because bids deviate significantly from the market price.
It might be a good idea to limit offers to a maximum market price of 5%, and you must follow market oscillations, until the bidder withdraws the offer or someone else takes it.
Spread can also get quite large also on Localbitcoins. Right now, the spread in the NOK/BTC on Localbitcoins is 8%, and people are still trading. This is a consequence of local market conditions stifled by uncooperative banks. I am sure this is not just the case in Norway. So, a 5% spread on Localbitcoins is actually a good deal in some markets even though it seems high.
40% spread, which is the max allowed in bisq must invariably be a rip-off.
Rather than 5%, I suggest 10% (in either direction), simply to avoid uninformed people getting ripped off on bisq.
10% is standard. The user change it to max. 20% in the settings. I fear if we change that some folks will complain that they don’t like the change… The trade fee should regulate that. With a 16% distance you pay 4 times the default fee! There might be some low liquid markets where high distance is justified.
Now all offers of sale BTC SEPA and USD exceed 10% of distance. It is deterrent to traders, they see it and look for another alternative. Perhaps the non-modifiable 10% limit was better.
I think partly its because those offer remain in the offerbook. Good offers are taken usually quickly. But I agree partially with your opinion. Just remember that when we set the limit that some folks complained.
I think its better to leave it to the user rather than tell the users they can’t sell for more than x percent.
I see the issue of not enough users willing to buy or sell on bisq.
In the end if a user wants to buy bitcoin now and there is only one offer for a +10% price it’s his decision if he wants to buy.
More users == more trades == more offers == more competition == lower price offers
In general, it is better to let the market decide, but when the market is not very liquid, it may be better to set limits. When I go to Bisq is to buy or sell BTC at a fair price on a reliable site, I don’t consider finding a great deal or selling with an exaggerated profit. For strong emotions we already have centralized exchanges, right? When Bisq can have a more complete order book, the margin could be opened. Either way, it’s hard to know what’s going to get better. Any experienced economists who can tell us anything?
I would prefer to increase the fee price for far-off offers instead limiting the % value.
Users who don’t see good offer can create their own.
Also the current low liquidity is probably related to the price decline. Our core user base are BTC holders IMO so nobody sells at that price. I have seen that several times when price was “depressive” liquidity was going very low…
I am in Pakistan. Our options are limited to LocalBItcoins, credit cards and a local BC exchange. All these are non-viable for an investor due to huge margins. So I am currently trying to find a way to get my fiat onto one of the exchanges or buy through Bisq. During the process I’ve learned quite a bit about the problems people will one day face when governments get nervous about crypto.
Now I haven’t checked the order book today, but if I see the same margin as on LBS, creditcard btc sellers, or the local exchange in Pakistan, why would I use Bisq, or even run the app since it would slow down my PC. (I am a non-techie, forgive my mistakes about computers. But I am representative of the majority of the world.)
I have spoken to a couple of other BISQ users–I actually did that before joining–and they are full of praise. The problem they complain of is high margin and low liquidity. (They only buy when margins are really low or zero.) All of them want to support a decentralized exchange, but the exchange also has to offer something that may be supported. They are not willing to buy at a higher margin than what they can currently buy for. These Bisq users are from USA.
There’s also a thread on this forum about potential China users after the exchange ban. Thats a huge opportunity, but like me they too will eventually get tired and sit on the sidelines while BISQ either improves, or another decentralized exchange comes along.
My proposal is simply limit the margin to less than LBC and credit cards etc. As far as I’m concerned sellers and buyers on Bisq should be happy with a max 5% margin. Anymore than that will take buyers to other easier options.
Also another way might be to link the prices from an exchange/average of exchanges. Whaleclub does that by using bitfinix. This way there are no complaints over the buy/sell rates. Any individual wanting to charge more could do so, but others selling at market rate would get priority by the buyers. But I guess a lot of us would be happy to receive fiat for our crypto direct through Bisq users, and avoid the problems created by exchanges.
This is a mistake, Bisq fees are below 0.5%, the price is put by the merchant. If there were more traders, there would be more competition among them to offer better prices. But with a little patience it is possible to buy well.
You can add your own offer with a good price and help that way to get better spreads. Bisq is a community project, the offers are done by users, so it depends on them to provide better prices and better liquidity.
You can see the market price (taken from Bitcoin average) on the top menu. With a percentage based offer price you float with the price swings. E.g. Setting an offer with 1% means if market price is 4000 USD your price as seller is 4040 USD, as buyer 3960 USD. If market price moves to 5000 USD your price as seller is 4050 USD, as buyer 3950 USD.
so we have the problem that nobody wants to sell at the current price as we all think the price will go up in future time.
Its true that it might be easier for people to buy on centralized Exchanges, but do not forget that Bisq is secure fast and anonym, thats the biggest plus about bisq imho.
I might try to add some Offers but I still want my “security” e.g a higher fee because I sell.
Another thing maybe for a new post, can I run Bisq on my linux server? I did try it via SSH -X and some Screen and attach and detach but it did not work good.
Yes I also think that the current price situation is not very attractive for most Bisq users. In a “hodl and wait” market trade volume is low. Though for arbitrage traders it might be a good time. Buyers have good opportunities atm.
Re server: @mepistol has managed to run on hosted service with UI.
We are working on APIs so once that out it will be easier to run a headless node.
I’m new here but I think that the >5% offers are better then no offer at all.
Some markets require such fees such as places with high fraud risk, capital controls, bank account closure risks etc.
I also dislike such high markups and feel turned off by them, but brute-force (hard coded margin limit) is not the best way to go about them.
My suggestion is we work to bring more users.
If you know how to use the software, try and evangelize some new users. Word of mouth is cool, blogs or Youtube are better.
And simplifying the software even further would help too. I felt the software was over my head first time I looked at it. It took me a couple days until I finally felt comfortable enough to give it my first go.
To be honest, 5% fee is the smallest fee you can buy Bitcoin for in my country and two years ago it was 10%. So even those offers are valuable in some places.