I see there is a lending system to help new users, but I wonder if this is still not a barrier to entry, either to the Bitsquare community, or Bitcoin as a whole.
Is there not some way to get this deducted from either the fiat being sold for bitcoin and/or from the bitcoin being bought.
And yes, I realise that the later would not work for the deposit, only for the fee.
How about having some kind of escrow account used only for this purpose?
PS I do realise that barriers to entry are used as ways of increasing security by reducing likelihood of bad actors using the system. But it also is a barrier to entry of legitimate users.
Security deposit will be customizable in the next versions of the software. This is the biggest barrier to start using bitcoin with Bitsquare and hopefully there will be offers with low enough security deposits, maybe for trading with small amount (for example: buying amounts of BTC smaller then current security deposit, as people might not need to match the security deposit to be as high as the whole trade).
Fees are small and even smaller if using the future Bitsquare DAO token and for such small amounts it is not that hard to get your hands on (maybe contribute to some project like bitsquare or ask someone to lend you or even spend some free time visiting bitcoin faucets).
Hopefully it will not be that hard in the future to completely start with bitcoin using only bitsquare, even if you don’t own any. Maybe you promote a project on some forum or somewere locally and get some crypto to start with or mine some cryptocurrency for a short period to get some small amounts to start with trading on bitsquare on some small deposit offers.
You can sell your or your comuters work already for crypto, so this shouldn’t be too hard for a lot of people and it can only get easier.
Thanks for the detailed response, Alexe.
I’ve seen a few offers for work ief btc, but they’re all coding.
Do you know of any legit sites that offer gigs for crypto?
And I always thought faucets were scammy.
Open to trying them, though, if there are any that are genuine and give a reasonable amount of btc per minute/click/whatever.
There are many early/second stage adopters that’ll be able and inclined to use such methods. But for society-wide inclusivity, it would need to be a lot more accessible. Something your grandmother could manage, to paraphrase Dash.
As another solution, do you think there is some kind of work for the bitsquare network that could be done by/reserved for new members to allow them to accrue some btc and thereby gain entry to the trading and also gain a bit of reputation? Would be a bit of a barrier to bad actors, still, but a good way for newbies to jump on the wagon, and bring some value to the network at the same time.
No problem I don’t know of any site that pays in crypto in particular, but there are many that do for a certain crypto or a certain job. For example, steem altcoin pays for posting articles that are liked by the network. There are people or projects offering rewards every now and then for something and pay in BTC. That is usually case by case but bitsquare has some bounty rewards open if you are familiar with Java(https://github.com/bitsquare/bitsquare/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3A"Bounty+task").
I used some faucets back in the day to get my first btc. Took me a lot of time to get small amount, even tho the price eventually grew. I don’t really want to recommend any, because it would probably take you 2 whole days of clicking to get a dollar worth of btc, but they paid as promised till now.
And about work in bitsquare, hopefully we will be seeing this when the DAO gets going which is in the next version. Maybe we should have some promoting rewards or something like that, we shall see.
But ofc the easiest way of getting a significant amount in the btc if you have none already is to buy it at a centralized exchange, but that comes with a risk of privacy ofc, even tho just sending btc to a new address could mean to the observer you sold it already or just participating in a trade with altcoin and back would help.
I would recommend to find a person on a bitcoin forum from your local region that is willing to sell you btc in person, he/she will not ask you for any personal details obviously. Or just look around, follow some bitcoin news or forums and I guarantee you that sooner or later you will see a bounty you can grab. There was a bitsqare bounty just 3 months ago for recommendation of new name(it will be bisq), you will see them more and more, and they are not that rare on the internet.
I agree it’s a bummer for creating a barrier for people to get started with bitcoin through bitsquare.
To make it expensive to put up nefarious fiat offers I think it could be cool, might work…if you could choose to do some kind of proof of work, instead of locking 0.1 bitcoin.
You can mine some crypto and sell it. That is as close as it gets now. I doubt it can work tho, because once you did the work(mining) then again you have nothing to lose afterwards, so no motivation to follow the protocol, doing it after the payment makes no sense either. You need to place something on the line if you don’t send the fiat and get it back if you do. If you get back money and put in the PoW then you are just mining.
The deposit is a small amount, so a small risk, and it could be automated in some way with a fund contributed by the community. Say, by a fairly minimal deposit fund that gets recycled back into the network all the time and is funded by a minimal extra fee on this first transaction.
What really concerns me is having to trust someone with a larger fiat transfer for any later, larger transactions, without having it (the fiat) locked until both sides commit. This is a small risk for the first transaction, but a much larger risk for any meaningful purchases.
There is a trade limit so huge transactions are not possible.
Beside that you don’t lock up your funds as long the taker has not taken it. They are local on your wallet and just in a “reserved” state.
As soon the taker takes an offer funds of both traders go into the 2of3 MultiSig in 1 transaction, so no risk of “who pays first”. If the buyer does not pay it goes to arbitration and if he failed he will lose his deposit (will be customizable by maker in next release).
The deposit is locked up together with the trade amount in 1 tx.
There is just no way to do that in a decentralized and secure manner. You need a security deposit, otherwise it requires trust in your trading partner or using someone as an escrow. You can always use a centralized exchange for that.
To my understanding paypal has a high chargeback risk, so it is highly unlikely it will ever be used in bitsquare.
If you just need a small amount of btc to get started, you could use the site wesellcrypto.com to buy a small amount with paypal. They charge a big percentage and restrict how much you can buy at a time, which is why I’m trying Bitsquare, but if you just need a little btc in the beginning, I’ve used them successfully.
Btw, not affiliated with them in any way and not trying to be spammy, just wanted to be helpful
Sorry, Manfred, I must not be understanding something.
How is it that the funds are reserved, if I am paying fiat direct to the crypto seller’s bank account?
And, even if “huge transactions” are not possible, the risk still increases with the size of the transaction up to whatever the limit is, if I have to make a fiat transfer to someone’s bank account.
You open an offer to sell btc, the funds stay in your wallet but enter reserved status so that you can’t use them again to fund another offer that you don’t have the funds to
As soon as the offer is taken, funds go into a 2-3 multisig address, so that no single party (arbitrator, seller, buyer) can spend the funds.
Once the arrival of the payment (fiat) is confirmed by the btc seller, the two traders keys are used to move the funds to the buyers address.
This process is safe as long as there happens no chargeback. That’s why we choose payment methods that are nearly impossible to charge back.
When you are the buyer and have nothing but good intentions, you’re perfectly safe.
This only protects the seller of the Cryptos, not the buyer!
Only the Bitcoin funds go into the multisig, not the fiat.
What is to stop a bad actor taking the fiat and then claiming it wasn’t sent?
If you don’t confirm you got the funds, both parties will have to provide proof to their claims to an arbitrator. The funds stay in the multisig until settled.
It is common to use PageSigner(program that stores https responses encrypted with the server TLS certificate) to prove that your online banking webpage claims you sent the funds.
Exactly my point.
More inconvenience just to prove something that shouldn’t have to be proved.
More risk than should be necessary.
More barriers to entry.
I was a trader on Poloniex and Kraken within days with minimal risk of the type I am discussing. Why would I come here instead?
he is explaining to use pagesigner for FIAT, in the case of a dispute. btc/crypto trading is basicly the same as all the exchanges. safer than an exchange if you think about.
I don’t know of any site that pays in crypto in particular, but there are many that do for a certain crypto or a certain job. For example, steem altcoin pays for posting articles that are liked by the network. There are people or projects offering rewards every now and then for something and pay in BTC. That is usually case by case but bitsquare has some bounty rewards open if you are familiar with Java(