Yes that is true, but there are not incentives for someone to trick you. The whole premise of bitcoin is that it makes it unprofitable to trick you, not impossible. Miners can always do a double spend attack together or even someone could rent out almost all of the mining rigs for couple of hours. It is just that it should be very hard for that to be profitable.
Nothing personal @NameWithheld I donât think it is bad to be skeptical at all, but it is interesting how you got in to the crypto world in the first place with such a worry of something not being guaranteed by someone with authority 
I think it is very nice to have people with all kinds of perspectives in this community 
I enjoyed the conversation with you and seeing your worries about the technology
Well, I happen to be sceptical of fiat, too, strangely enough.
Iâm interested in Bisq exactly for the promise of greater security, in many ways, of distributed vs centralised exchanges.
But that does not mean that they are 100% secure. And specifically, sending fiat to an unknown, would still be perceived as risky, even if the Bisq system made that, via the hassle of arbitration, 100% secure, which it doesnât.
Could this be one of the reasons why there are only 11 trades of any kind offered on Bisq right now?
This is a looooong way from being the active, liquid exchange weâd like to see.
Bisq needs zero, or at least minimal barriers to entry, and maybe even incentives, if it is to grow.
I am sure that we would all love to see it grow, but letâs not make that stay in the way of keeping true to what the projectâs purpose in the first place. There is no need for it to grow if it is not decentralized or secure anymore.
I am very busy with dev stuff, so I cannot follow all the discussions here. But have you read the white paper? If not please do so to avoid mis-interpretations.
There are a lot of reasons for the volume being kinda low: Delays due to Bitcoinâs scaling issues, lacking of awarenes of Bitsquareâs advantages, Bad PR, low liquidity, not enough incentives to create offersâŚ
The reason is most definitely not low security. Thatâs just factually wrong. I consider Bitsquare the most secure exchange!
The whitepaper explains the rationale behind the trade process. FIAT issues are the same for all exchanges. Bitsquare minimizes the risk by only allowing the hardest (to charge back) payment methods. BTC-Alt trading is 100% secure if you do it right (wait for confirmations). All potential fiat chargeback risks are disincentivised to a level where itâs not economically feasible to attack. Almost 4000 trades without chargeback attacks proves me right here.
I agree on this one, but existing barriers serve a purpose that canât be dropped as long as there are no alternative solutions. Improvement proposals are welcome by anyone at anytime. Why wouldnât they be?
Incentives are a better way to deal with it and weâre constantly trying to build them. This can happen in many ways. Even raising awareness by spreading the word can be considered that.
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some nice pimping of bitsquare on this popular youtube channel.
hopefully people do some reading and understanding before installing.
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Why not integrate a wizard for new users allowing them to buy on BitIt : https://www.bitit.io/
25$/⏠with no documentsâŚ
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How does that address my concerns about exchanging fiat by direct transfer to some unknownâs bank account.
Listen, how difficult is it to understand that sending fiat to some unknown guy is inherently risky, and at least perceived as riskier than sending it to a centralised exchange, which is at least a known risk with some history of being used by lots of people. Especially if one then takes the crypto out of the centralised exchange to oneâs own wallet?
And, âhopefully people do someâ thinking âandâ reconsidering âbeforeâ replying with snidey comments.
That is debatable. Disregarding the fact that you can know the trader just as much as a centralized exchange, you still get a single person who has a lot of bank details recorded from the trades. That makes him a good target for a hack (single point of failure). Besides the motivation for not cheating the protocol are the same, loss of a security deposit, so the incentives are the same. If users get to choose who they use as a fiat holder then you get a same thing. There are no clear benefits compared to the current system. More centralization means more risk.
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Then, letâs debate!
Can, but only in very few cases. What does âknowâ mean when everything is remote/decentralised? Very little.
You are confusing two things. Someone knowing my bank details, and someone getting my fiat. They are not the same thing. In the first case, no-one has my money yet. In the second case, they already do.
Agreed, But again, you are not comparing like for like. A hack of an exchange is not the same type of risk, even, as some unknown running off with my fiat.
In the first case, the risk I take is that some third party hacker is going to steal my coin.
In the second case, the risk I take is that the other party in the transaction itself is going to steal it.
Is that clear enough now, to distinguish between the two risks? I really donât know how I can state it any more clearly than that.
Again, youâre conflating the two risks. How is a third party hacker cheating the protocol?
Also, the incentive to the Bisq trader taking my fiat is his deposit being much less than my fiat, if the arbitration system doesnât work properly for me. And I have no more reason to trust an arbitration system than customer support at a decentralised exchange.
There is a reason why escrow accounts exist, to deal with these exact issues. Crypto does away with the need for them for crypto-crypto transactions (or, rather, replaces them with another protocol) but not for fiat-crypto on the fiat side. The fiat side transaction lies outside the protocol. Thatâs the issue, for me.
Now, I will give you that risk is reduced for crypto-crypto transactions, and maybe risk is still reduced, overall, when including fiat transactions. But, for me, the risk of the fiat transactions on their own has increased, even if the overall risk across all transactions has decreased.
I agree, I got a little off the topic in my reply. The risk off privacy should be considered as well, but your concern is on the security. The security in Bitsquare as in any system, can not be perfect, but it is the best idea currently know to the developers.
The security of your fiat is in that the BTC seller has to lock not just their security deposit, but the BTC trade amount as well in the multisig. The security deposit is there so that they donât end up with a normal trade if they just stop responding after they get the fiat or claim that they never got it in the first place. You will get both if the dispute ends in your favor.
The arbitration system has certain advantages over the centralized exchange. One is that the arbitration is done with multisig instead of the usual escrow service in the centralized system, but these can exist as well in some centralized exchanges. The second one is that you get to choose the arbitrator, this makes Bitsquare a number of centralized mutlisig exchanges that use the same protocol, and as such share the code aspect of security, opposed to the centralized exchanges where every exchange has to code their own software with unknown security(this one i open source).
I hope this fills in your concerns. If you still have an idea how to improve it, I am sure we would all love to give it a thought.
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