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Bitcoin allows for escrow transactions, where a third party can act as a referee in case there's a dispute in the transaction. It has the important property, ab
by sergiosgc 12y ago
Bitcoin allows for escrow transactions, where a third party can act as a referee in case there's a dispute in the transaction. It has the important property, absent from current escrow setups, that the escrow party never holds the money: they have the power to accept or reverse a transaction, but nothing else. It limits the trust commitment towards the escrow service.
- pjc50 12y agoPeople keep saying this, but how much is it actually used? How much do you have to pay the escrow service? How good are they at dispute resolution? Also, the money has to be kept in escrow until the possibility of a dispute is over, which adds a substantial delay.
- sergiosgc 12y agoI imagine escrow being done by the likes of Airbnb, in the case of the service. It won't be error free, but should stop the absolute frauds. In those cases, the escrow service is already paid for: it's the market that facilitated the transaction. As for the money being kept in escrow, that is the definition of escrow. The alternative is the scenario of credit card payment processors, which keep the money for a period, and retain a fixed percentage of sales turnover, as a guarantee for refunds. From the merchant perspective, the average payment delay should be shorter using bitcoin than it is with credit cards.