When I create an offer with an altcoin, e.g. XMR, is there a way to set the trade time to less than 24 hours?
I don’t see why someone who takes an offer needs so much time to make the payment. What am I missing here…?
1 Like
I think that is just a default there, since someone could create an offer and forget about it.
Liquidity wasn’t so good back when this was made, especially not with Monero.
I don’t think you can setup a custom trade limit unfortunately, maybe that option gets added in the future.
If I understand correctly the time limit is from the moment someone “takes” the trade. I don’t see how it’s related to liquidity.
If I want to buy bitcoin with XMR, I need a couple of bitcoin confirmations, then it takes me a few minutes to initiate a transaction. It will then normally take a few more minutes to get to the first Monero blockchain confirmation. So the whole thing is easily done in less than an hour.
To be more accommodating and allow for times it’s more difficult to quickly get a confirmation without high fees, I can understand if the time period is set to say 3 hours (I think that’s what coinpayments require). But 24 hours? just a way for people to quickly grab an offer whether they’re ready to trade or not, and just follow through, or eventually not, at the end of the day.
I do hope shorter period can be set for altcoins in the future.
As said Alex, I don’t think you can modify the trade time at your will atm.
But we take notice of the point and we will pass it to the devs.
1 Like
Thank you. In my opinion, defining a max period of say 3-4 hours for altcoins will make things much more manageable. And if it’s possible to add the flexibility as a feature, even better.
I get cases of people taking my offer within minutes, then waiting 20 hours just to initiate payment. Probably trying to get a better rate? Seems a bit stupid to me to do all this effort for minor sums. Or perhaps they have some kind of automated mechanism for that? for example, wait for rate X during the 24 hours, then forfeit the 0.01 BTC security deposit if the rate isn’t good enough or pay when the time limit is nearly over otherwise? Still, does not make sense for small amounts.
I agree with @viscote. It would be great if the offer maker had the ability to set a custom time limit within the Bisq software. People tend to procrastinate. If the offer taker reads in the offer itself that it must be completed within a short time frame, they are more likely to act promptly and then everyone can get on with their business. If they don’t like the short time frame, they don’t have to take the offer.
1 Like
Well I agree with you both personally, but devs are kinda busy at the moment with the DAO stuff. I assume devs would love to add it, but we have too few devs at the moment 
If anyone knows any Java devs willing to earn some BSQ (Bisq’s DAO tokens), let them know that there will most certainly be a reward for that (as well as lot of other dev work in Bisq) 
The issue is that sometimes 24h might really be needed. For example, when the liquidity was low, offers often just sat there for a while (few days even) until they were taken. Trade period starts when the offer is taken, however maker of the offer might not be at their computer when the offer is taken (for example he/she might be at work). Until recently, we didn’t have an mobile app either for notifications, so you can imagine how this could affect longer trade periods.
As for so called forward trading, when users bail on their deposit, that is a known issue in Bisq that has it’s counter measures. Low trade limits and high deposits, make this unprofitable in most cases when Bitcoin price volatility isn’t very high, as we are fortunate, I guess, that it currently isn’t.
So I imagine there is no real profitability in doing so now and earning a security deposit amount in 24h is pretty good in my opinion
Thanks for the thoughtful reply @alexej996. Indeed I am aware that dev resources are spread thin at the moment - I was just in the mood to throw in some support for the other member’s suggestion. 
Everything will come together in good time. 
You bring up a good point about situations where a longer time limit may be needed. I would hope that the offer maker would think through his/her schedule prior to deciding on the time limit, so that they won’t return to an expired trade once back from work, etc. This brought another thought to mind - I’m curious if the Bisq software could be programmed to allow the offer maker to change the time limit “on the fly”, so to speak? I.E. if the offer maker’s personal schedule changes for whatever reason, they could shorten or lengthen the time limit without canceling and reposting the offer? This idea of course isn’t of critical importance, but it would be a nice time saver. 
1 Like
How does a 24 period help here? the maker doesn’t need to be next to his computer when the offer is taken, he needs to be there when it’s paid. If it’s paid during his work hours, and it’s near the end of the 24 hrs period, he will miss it nonetheless. If the offer is paid during the time he sleeps, and it’s near the end of the 24hrs period, he will miss it again. He can’t control it since he doesn’t know when the offer will be taken.
When an offer expires in 3-4 hours, it’s easier to plan ahead, be there, and confirm payment quickly - this also serves the interest of the taker. If I posted an offer, nobody took it and I can’t be available for next hours anymore. Easy - I’ll remove it, no problem. And will post again when I’m available. It takes seconds. I will always be able to confirm on time. No delay for me. No delay for takers. Win win.
BTC/altcoins are not time-zone related so we can still expect offers done around the clock, according to the time zones of users.
BTW This concept works very well in localbitcoins and paxful.
The longer the period the more attractive is forward trading I guess.
I will experiment with slightly higher security deposits. I guess that the higher they are the longer it will take for the offer to be taken (or increasing the possibility it will never be taken), so this potentially adds another delay. Similarly for lower trade sizes - will make things take more time if makers to split an offer to a few, smaller ones.
Well, if I need to sell 1BTC now I don’t want to wait 24hrs and discover I earned 0.01 and need to wait 24hrs again to find out if the next trade is paid or not. Actually, I would be willing to pay 0.01 to make sure the trade goes faster if that was at all possible! As things stand now, it doesn’t matter how good my offer is for the taker, they can still take a lot of time paying.
Yes, Bisq offers can already be edited, if this feature is added, it would be good for it to be editable as well.
Hey, I agree with you. It would be a great feature for all the reasons that you specified, I am just saying that sometimes 24h is useful so we can’t just make them all 3h trade periods (which I am aware wasn’t your suggestion either, I am just explaining why this might be introduced in the first place).
In this exact scenario, when a user A is at work and his offer is taken 6h before his shift is over and he gets home. Trader B could either pay him within those 6h (likely the case, I agree) or after those 6h. In the first case, he will have the time to get home and accept the payment before the timer runs out, which 3h (or even 6h in this case) period wouldn’t allow. If he is paid after 6h and he is home anyway, that means that user B needed more then 6h to send the payment for some reason, so it is useful to have 24h period.
The point is that Bisq doesn’t force every trade to be 24h, it just allows traders to take that much time at maximum before the trade is finished (and all altcoins are treated equally). I understand your worry of forward trading and having shorter trade limits would obviously help, but I am just saying that there is a cost to it (we need more devs that will be paid in BSQ). Security deposits can also be increased which also helps with this issue just as much, however there is a cost to that as well, as you mentioned, although this is all we can do at the moment.
So in conclusion:
- I agree
- there was no mistake made on anyone’s part here
- we need more devs
1 Like