Payout transaction not working as described

Development
1

In the bitsquare white paper description, the payout transaction is not working as described.

When the seller has received the fiat currency in their bank, he signs the payout transaction which is published to the Bitcoin network (clicks ‘confirm payment received’) and is supposed to receive their deposit back.

This doesn’t happen.

What appears to be happening is that the buyer has to manually confirm that the seller has sent that confimation as well. ONLY then is the sellers deposit refunded!

That last confirmation by the buyer seems like a completely redundant step in the contract (from the seller’s perspective). This is because the deposits and Bitcoin were already signed for at the START of the contract!

Obviously, if the seller has received the fiat currency (and confirmed that he has received it), the seller’s half of the contract is fulfilled, so there is no need for the buyer to have any more involvement in it.

As I have found out in practice, if the buyer does not manually confirm the confirmation sent by the seller, then the seller’s deposit is hanging in limbo at the escrow address ad infinitum until the buyer acknowledges receipt!

I know it seems weird that the buyer would not confirm receipt of the confirmation and in doing so release the Bitcoin to his wallet, but this is what’s happening in my case.

I can only think of one reason why this last redundant step would appear to be necessary, and that’s where the buyer manually chooses where to send his Bitcoin to after hitting confirm, but that could have been included at the start of the contract i.e. at which address to receive the Bitcoin payment and the deposit refund.

All that is actually needed is for the seller to hit confirm at his end to trigger release of the deposits and the Bitcoin to the buyer.

Proof that the transaction was completed would be in the Bitcoin blockchain of course. This, again, makes the buyers manual confirmation completely unnecessary.

2

There’s an obvious bug here now too.

2+ days have elapsed now without the buyer confirming receipt of my confirmation and the ‘Open a dispute’ text states that ‘I’ have not confirmed the receipt of the payment! LOL

Now opening a dispute.

3

Ok, dispute was handled (not very professionally at all I have to say!).

(Think you should add something like:

" I’m about to close this trade. Is there anything else you would like to say or attachments to add before I do so? "

Much better than summarily just CLOSING it without ANY warning at all. END OF!)

Got my deposit back though.

Another bug to report.

Although the trade is complete, it still shows as an ‘open trade’ in the portfolio tab with a big red ‘1’ on the main screen.

4

Thanks for the feedback.

Bitsquare is not a company. It’s a self-funded open-source project. You can’t expect the same service you get from companies with millions of funding.

Since you’re demanding high standards, your very welcome to participate and help imroving things you don’t like. I’m looking forward to your contributions.

5

I thought I was contributing by supplying feedback and risking MY own personal funds to complete strangers to test this alpha product, which obviously requires a lot more care and attention.

In addition, the majority of the trades available are just profiteers, offering Bitcoin for sale @ 5-10% above the market rate and offering to buy at about 5-10% below the market price.

That’s hardly a way to attract more users to the application, but people are people, greedy as always.

Anyway, if the general attitude is as as sarcastic and sour as yours, you can rely on me not contributing any further.

6

My attitude is neither sarcastic nor sour and I’m thankful for your feedback. I’m was just stating the facts. If you see room for improvement, please go ahead and build. Everyone is free to do so.

Your funds were never at risk. Please don’t leave that impression.

Furthermore you’re welcome to create offers with small deviation from market price. I agree, that would be valuable for the project.

7

I am sorry that you feel that way.
I just can tell you (as the unprofessional arbitrator) that I work off my ass since 2,5 years, working 12 hours a day non stop, doing basically everything from coding, designing, dispure resolving, customer care, promoting… and as I am currently on vacations trying to recharge batteries and therefore not being 100% present for the project.

People are used to VC funded projects and not so much to OS projects where no funds are available to hire people to distribute the work load. That project aims to be a community project but unfortunately reality lacks behind our intentions.
There is ton of work and few hands… (1000 thanks to those hands!!!)

So I hope that gives u a bit of impression from the other side…

8

@ManfredKarrer

I had no idea that you personally were the sole arbiter. How am I supposed to know that? I am not a mind reader.

I’m just reporting the facts as they are. You obviously seem overworked and tired and I’m sorry to hear that. Apparently (reading another post), you are on holiday, so hopefully you get a good rest.

Obviously, bitsquare relies on arbitration as its linchpin for trust. Without that working properly, very few people are likely to use it?

Maybe you have some friends that you can delegate the work to in the mean time?

As you can see above from the original post, there is either a bug in the software or it’s a badly designed algorithm, which if it had worked properly would not even have involved arbitration anyway.

I wish you luck with your project. It seems like a really good idea.

However, if I’m going to be criticised for reporting bugs etc. then there’s no point in posting anything further.

Regards and best wishes for the future.

9

@marc[quote=“marc, post:6, topic:587”]
My attitude is neither sarcastic nor sour and I’m thankful for your feedback. I’m was just stating the facts. If you see room for improvement, please go ahead and build. Everyone is free to do so.
[/quote]

The requirement for users of bitsquare to be Java developers is not sarcastic? Is it realistic even?

10

There are team members who will become arbitrators as well. Probably soon we will expand that. The fully decentrl. arbitr. system where anyone can become an arbitrator need more work and will not be impl. soon.
I did not follow the whole post (as I try to reduce my work load) but it sounds like a bug.
P2P systems are much harder than centralized, there are many points where things can go wrong. Luckily the nr. of disputes/bugs is not too high, but of course if you experience one you have a different view.

I am working on that Synergetic cooperation concept to get a solution to scale up and find more people working on the project, beside those who donate their effort and time on altruisitc motivations. But that all takes time…

Me and Marc did not criticize you for reporting. We are happy to get input and also critical input. We just wanted to point out that this project is a different nature than what people are usually used to.

11

I didn’t say, mean or imply that. I even proposed a way to contribute, where no Java skills are needed. There are many ways like that and reporting bugs is one of them as well.

I’m truly sorry if you feel being ridiculed. I’ll re-read and try to improve my communication.

12

Guys, I hope you don’t mind me chipping in, I know it’s not my business. I just wanted to re-iterate a few things because I think it’s pertinent.

@ManfredKarrer First of all, I really appreciate the work you’ve been doing with this. It really does seem a labour of love. I know you can’t be an expert in all these things and i keep returning to the thought that maybe the Dash community could really help you with the workload… not just financially but also, for example, they have some very good developers and Project Managers. I know you know Amanda from Dash Detailed, so maybe she can help you reach the right people and also help you to submit a budget proposal. I think a budget proposal to integrate dash as a native currency would attract more developers; a shared interest to see bitsquare succeed.

(As a side note; it looks like Wall of Coins proposal is going to fail but I think that’s because they are a commercial setup and asking for a lot of money.)

@BitConcerned I don’t think English is Manfred’s main language so maybe this impacted on your experience. Well, just a thought.