Hiring 1 Developer to Build a P2P Steem/USD Gateway!

in #budget6 years ago

Are we ready to buy and sell Steem with any fiat currency through peer to peer transactions without ever needing to leave the Steem blockchain or sign up for another exchange? While thousands of us said yes on the last post, we did not have a way to fund it in 2017. Today we do! Will you read the executive summary of this post below because it quickly explains how our gateway/exchange will work and how we will collaborate to build it?

Executive Summary!


  1. The Problem and Solution! Getting started buying and selling cryptocurrency online is challenging. We have the opportunity to be the first blockchain to build a successful peer to peer fiat gateway/exchange with instant transactions and no fees. In other words, anyone with a Steem account will be able to use our application to buy and sell Steem directly with other users in any fiat currency like USD, EUR, KRW, etc.
  2. No licensing or regulations are needed because our gateway with never touch any of the money. Functionally our application will be more like a dating app which helps people meet up while not actually participating in the date, sex, or marriage. Compliance with any financial regulations will be the responsibility of the users. Our application will assist both by educating users about what laws apply and by guiding transactions through the path of least regulatory resistance.
  3. The key features of the app will include a trust score, private messaging, dynamic pricing, feedback system, and filters by location and payment method. Our application's key strength will be the ability to use nearly any established method of payment to buy Steem directly from another user with Steem. Exploitation by users is our key weakness ranging from fraudulent charge backs on PayPal to getting robbed on an in person cash transaction. Our features will help manage this limitation by guiding users to the safest transactions based on all of our trust signals.
  4. Now Hiring! Starting today we have a job opening for one developer willing to build a functional first version and then continue improving it. The requirements to apply are that the developer be/become a Steem witness and earn at least 100 votes to validate a foundation of support among our community. If there are two or more developers wanting to apply, the first with a minimum viable product wins. Collaboration among multiple developers is also acceptable if everyone agrees and splits the same payment.
  5. Pay and Benefits? Each month, our chosen developer will earn the lesser of 1,000 Steem or $10,000 USD in Steem paid from @budgets as long as the developer is actively coding and improving the application. Additional perks of building this will include a witness vote from me, upvotes on updates from bids by @budgets, and 1 on 1 interviews.
  6. How To Apply? To apply, join my discord server from https://jerrybanfield.com/contact/ and ask Michel Gerard who is @gmichelbkk on Steem to upgrade to the member role in order to gain access to the "steemf" channel where I am available to discuss getting started. For those of us wanting to play a support role such as doing graphics for the website or testing the first functional version prior to public release, we are welcome to join the channel as well while being asked to avoid chatting until the time for help is needed.

Details!


For the 1% of us that want to get deeper into how this will work, let me explain in the rest of the post and matching video!

Why Hire 1 Steem Witness to Build a P2P Fiat Gateway?


I think a peer-to-peer exchange would be fantastically useful in the cryptocurrency world because right now one of the hardest things to do is to buy in or even to sell if we have earned cryptocurrency without having signed up on an exchange somewhere. We often experience high fees, long transaction wait times if we are going through things like Bitcoin and we have to go through cumbersome processes to get our accounts ready to handle higher levels of transaction.

The difficulty for the majority of us to change fiat currency like USD into digital currencies like Steem seems ridiculous in a world filled with ACH transfers, instant PayPal payments, wire transfers, Western Union, and thousands of other ways that we are already using to move money around all the time. Our problem is that up until today the majority of buying and selling of cryptocurrencies is forced through regulated exchanges and financial institutions which then defeats a significant part of the purpose of having cryptocurrencies to begin with.

While most other cryptocurrencies have almost no chance to build a peer to peer exchange/gateway because of a lack of trust signals and high transaction fees, on Steem we have a unique opportunity to use all of our existing contributions to Steem to establish a foundation of trust for transactions. All we need is a developer to code it for us based on how I already see it working.

Now Hiring 1 Steem Witness to Build a P2P Fiat Gateway!


Today I am now hiring one developer to build a decentralized peer-to-peer exchange that we will use on Steem to directly buy and sell US dollars and other fiat currencies directly with Steem on this exchange.

Now, I'm calling it an exchange and a gateway interchangeably because almost everyone understands the idea of an exchange. However, more technically it will be a peer to peer gateway application that assists users in identifying other users to directly transact with. This means functionally it is more like a dating app which helps users identify other users to meet and does not participate in the date, sex, or marriage that may follow.

In yet another way of saying it, no centralized authority will touch any of the money going back and forth. That gives it huge advantages over many of the existing exchanges and also creates some unique disadvantages because users will be completely interacting with each other which opens room for potential issues when it comes to trust. I have already seen a long way into how to build the app to minimize the ability for users to scam others and to maximize the rate of successful transactions. If you'd like to try to build this or you know someone who might like to try to build this, would you please continue reading because this will explain exactly how to do it?

Funding?


The money comes from the @budgets account on Steem. We have essentially crowdfunding through the bidding bot on my account funded by my Steem power and the delegations to me which in total brings in thousands of dollars a day. Today the expected total bids for upvotes are over $5,000. About half of this is paid back every day to delegators in automatic payments while the other half fund projects for Steem paid directly into the @budgets account. This post is a proposal through the budget proposal system to request funding for this project.

Value for Steem?


This project will be fantastically helpful for the Steem blockchain to not only help us buy and sell Steem directly to US dollars and other fiat currencies with each other, but also to bring in users all over the crypto world struggling to buy in using other exchanges, to buy in straight to Steem, and then if desired change to other currencies. This will empower users already having cryptocurrencies to transact into Steem, and then sell directly to US dollars or other fiat currencies from there.

Job Requirements?


The minimum requirement to build this is to be a Steem Witness because this requires a minimum of entry level experience setting up a server and a dedication to the Steem blockchain on an ongoing basis to maintain it. For any developer new to Steem wishing to participate, becoming a Steem Witness is something I've already written a lot of guides for at Steem.guide. I already have all the tutorials needed and links to other tutorials to get a witness set up if you haven't started yet on Steem.

While anyone can just throw up a server, the second requirement is to have 100 or more votes for the Steem Witness, which means that there is confidence in the network in your witness and that you are a part of the community.

More than likely I think one or more of the existing witnesses be interested in developing this. This would potentially be the number one app on the Steem blockchain when it runs at full scale. If there is competition, then whoever gets a functional app finished first and agrees to continue developing it will immediately get two months of pay at once along the rest of the rewards listed below. If just one person wants to do this, then this job starts as soon as the the witness joins my discord channel, starts communicating with me, and commits to making it.

If no existing witness wants to give it a shot, anyone setting up a witness, getting the 100 votes, and committing to making the app in my discord channel will get the first month of pay. After any month where no functional app is ready, anyone else wanting to give it a shot and making a functional app will be able to take over.

Developer Rewards?


Whoever makes this for us successfully will enjoy a lot of rewards including a paycheck every month of 1,000 Steem or $10,000 USD worth of Steem (whichever is less) from @budgets account as long as continuing improvements are made to the application. Additional perks will include upvotes on updates about the project, a link on every page of the application to the developer's Steem profile, and a witness vote from me if not having one already.

When the application is at full scale doing millions of dollars of transactions a day and bringing thousands of new users into Steem a day, the witness will probably stand a very good chance to become and remain one of the top 20 witnesses on Steem based largely on the success of the application. At this point, the payments from @budgets will be put on hold because top 20 witnesses currently earn 260 Steem a day.

Features?


This is what the app will have:

  1. No fees.
  2. Peer to peer transactions.
  3. Clear feedback system.
  4. Ongoing improvements.
  5. Effective marketing.

The critical feature for this application is the trust score will be the system's calculation of how trustworthy it is to do a transaction with that particular user. Generating the trust score through all of the available data on the Steem blockchain combined with transactions through the application and user feedback will then allow us to present exchange rates by user and trust score with a built in messaging system for communication. Every profile will need to help qualify what kinds of transactions are possible by country, payment method, and wait time. For any application to be considered functional, the app must be able to do all of this.

With the trust score being the key feature of this gateway application, let's discuss how this is calculated further. The number of followers, the reputation, the account age and wallet data can be used on Steem to help generate a trust score. In my case, with a lot of followers, with a high reputation, with a long account history, with how much I have in my wallet today on Steem, at least according to the app, I would be a trustworthy user to do transactions with from the beginning.

Now, the trust score will also be heavily modified by the actual transactions. While I would be able to easily start out on the app with a high trust score based on my previous activity on Steem, if I had some failed transactions and users provided negative feedback about transacting with me, then my trust score would go down very quickly despite the other data.

What helps on the Steem blockchain is we have somewhere to start with because from a coding and usage view this is the most difficult part of the equation. How do we handle new users? If new users all have a zero trust score, how can anyone get started using the app? Fortunately on Steem we have a ton of existing signals to begin with that will allow us to get off the ground. For example, we can use all these blog posts that we have done to essentially to eliminate the need to start from zero.

Difficulty?


A month ago I originally posted about this and received the following feedback from @blocktrades who is one of the top witnesses and investors in Steem along with maintaining one of Steem's top exchanges at https://blocktrades.us.

"The issue is not one of software but one of regulation. I could develop a software platform to do this in a few weeks."

This feedback was extremely helpful because we can see that the difficultly of getting the software created to do this should be relatively low meaning we should easily be able to hire someone to do this!

As for the legality, I responded, "You're exactly right," which is why none of the money is touched by the app we are building here. The application we will build here acts only a communication tool that makes peer-to-peer transactions easier without charging any fees. Users are responsible for how the app is used just like with dating apps, snapchat, etc.

No Need for Licensing or Regulations!


On our gateway, users will set prices and deal directly with each other while relying on the application to help decide who to trust initially, NO LICENSING IS NECESSARY FOR THIS APPLICATION because users individually will be responsible for understanding the requirements to make fiat/cryptocurrency transactions based on country and state. If we do not trust users to do this or we say it is wrong to pass these requirements on or we demand that some centralized authority be a part of these transactions, why are we bothering with building any of this blockchain technology to begin with and not just sticking with using our existing banking system? Users are fully capable of handling the responsibility and will do it more effectively in some cases and less in others than existing exchanges.

Fortunately for users, financial regulations vary by country. If someone is doing business in one country and in another country, it doesn't matter what the US regulations are for transacting money, if neither of those users is in the US. Unfortunately with our current system today, we have very limited options for exchanges in most countries because of the need for centralized exchanges to comply with financial regulations from so many different countries.

The app in later stages will help facilitate education with country specific training for any regulations users need to know. For example, when a user signs up in the state of New York, users will be required to read and review both USA laws and NY state laws regarding cryptocurrency transactions. An optional test based on location could even be offered to improve the trust score for new users and to verify the rules are understood.

Limitations!


While centralized systems are limited in the ability for new users to sign up and participate, our application will allow anyone to use it which introduces opportunity for a lot of problems. We maximize the good and minimize the bad primarily with a clear feedback system. We are fully aware that many users might sign up with the intent to scam through sending transactions and reversing them, or put orders up, and not following through with them. We are aware that someone could come in and launder a bunch of money while becoming one of the most trusted users.

We will maximize the legal transactions between users and setup barriers to limit problems primarily with a clear feedback system to help users connect with each other. The nice thing is once users get connected with each other, they can do repeated transactions with each other, and don't need to interact with the entire market, but just have one or two, or maybe a handful of buyers and sellers to work with directly. This will also facilitate some huge buyers and sellers creating businesses through the system that will interact with lots of different people, and all the trust for that will be easy to see on Steem.

Vision?


Cryptocurrencies have the potential to open the global economy up to everyone. To make this vision reality, we need to be able to change fiat currencies directly with cryptocurrencies without having to go through a centralized authority. I see this application having a gigantic impact on not just the Steem blockchain, but the crypto world altogether as millions of users sign up for Steem to use our gateway not just to buy Steem but as an entry point to buy into thousands of different cryptocurrencies.

How to Apply?


I would be honored to collaborate with you if you would like to build this or if you know someone who would like to build this. To apply, will you please go to jerrybanfield.com/contact/ and join my Discord channel because I have a private channel there named "steemf" for us to chat in? To get access to this private channel, will you please ask Michel Gerard in discord who is @gmichelbkk on Steem to upgrade to the member role because all members on my server have access to the steemf channel?

SteemF is my tentative name for this, and that stands for "Steem Fiat" or whatever you want to abbreviate SteemF. I already own the steemf.com domain.

Witness Update?


This week my primary witness and backup servers ran smoothly with no interruptions. My seed node meanwhile crashed and I am trying to restart it myself while being willing to ask for help if I cannot do it on my own. Most of my time and energy this week has been devoted to getting this project up along with continuing existing projects like ads for Steem, tutorials on YouTube for Steem, interviews with Steemians, and working more effectively within my limitations..

In addition to this getting this job posting launched, I have been scaling up the ads for Steem on Facebook, YouTube, and Google to prepare for the hardfork 20 "velocity" update which will help us onboard more effectively. I am currently spending over $200 a day with Google and Facebook for ads on Steem. So far the ads have reached over 2 million people in 2018 resulting in thousands of shares, visits to steemit.com, and new followers from those seeing the ads, joining Steem, and then following me. A detailed report will follow soon after this project update.

I am very grateful to be in the top 30 among witnesses on Steem and plan to continue my service here indefinitely. My biggest challenge as a witness so far has been judging other witnesses for not doing enough. This comes a bit from my own insecurity combined with my all in approach to Steem. I do not invest in other currencies and devote the majority of my productive play time (aka work) to serving Steem. The rewards I am earning are fantastic for this and I continue to think of more effective ways to give back. One realization I had is that resteeming others more often is a simple thing I would love to do and am now starting to do about 10 times as often as I have done so far.

Today I am remembering my gratitude for the service of every witness that came before me and is working alongside me now without which would not give any of us a chance to experience the miracle of Steem. Some of those that have provided the most critical feedback of my service here have also helped me see exactly how to improve. The book I am listening to named Judgement Detox by Gabrielle Bernstein has been helping a lot with this along with drawing some playful counterarguments from @laurabanfield.

Thank You for Reading!


I'm excited to have the chance to get this application built on the Steem blockchain and I appreciate you learning all about it here.

If you found this post helpful on Steem, would you please upvote it and follow me because you will then be able to see more posts like this in your home feed? All SBD author rewards from this will go back to @budgets to help fund the payments to the developer meaning any upvote contributes directly to the funding for this project.

Made a witness vote for me yet? If not, would you please also make a vote for jerrybanfield as a witness or set jerrybanfield as a proxy to handle all witness votes at https://steemit.com/~witnesses because votes for witnesses are the most important we make on Steem? Every vote for me as a witness helps fund growth projects for Steem indefinitely via @budgets and my voting bot along with allowing me to represent our views and opinions about the future of Steem most effectively. Thank you to the 3,000+ of us voting already as seen at http://www.steemreports.com/witness-votes-info/?account=jerrybanfield

Love,

Jerry Banfield with edits by @gmichelbkk on the transcript from @deniskj

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So, I think it's important to make people aware of potential issues they will be faced with as users of the system you're proposing. Essentially I think you're proposing a system very similar to localbitcoins, but for altcoins and maybe with better reputation management (full disclosure, I've never used localbitcoins).

The big danger is that individual users, by repeatedly offering to sell or by crypto for money from the US or to US residents, will be considered to be money transmitters under fincen regulations. Probably the highest risk will be to US residents, since they are the most likely subject to an attempted prosecution.

There's already cases of this type, here's some related links I found on a quick search of the topic:

https://www.coindesk.com/localbitcoins-trader-pleads-guilty-money-transmitter-charge/
https://localbitcoins.com/forums/#!/general-discussion#money-transmitter-licenses

Please understand, I'm not a fan of any of the above, and I don't like to be the bearer of bad news, but I think it's important that people understand the risks for a legal entanglement.

Legal issues aside there is already an open source tool that leverages the escrow functionality of the Steem blockchain that would work for P2P transactions (I pointed this out in the comments below but I am replying here for visibility):

https://steemit.com/escrow/@xtar/open-source-standalone-gui-for-steem-escrow-transactions

Nah, people aren’t considered “money transmitters”, at least not yet :) Follow the cases that you read up on coindesk (a laughable “news” outlet, unfortunately!) and you’ll find that the case will get thrown out like every other case preceding it.

Given they pled guilty according to the article, this seems unlikely. But if you find out otherwise, I would be very interested to know about it, so let me know.

Other people pleaded guilty, too. (Remember those 2 Florida men?) And the case was thrown out. Follow these things closer and stop spreading FUD :)

The situation is very concerning for sure and it seems like everyone of these cases I see they always pled guilty. It never goes to trial with a jury. I have a feeling the people suddenly are facing 30 years or something insane and decide to plead guilty in hopes of ONLY 3 or 4 YEARS in Club FED for selling a digital coin.

I said 4 years ago that in Arizona it would be legal to buy guns from a random person in a Walgreens parking lot but it wouldn't be legal to sell a digital coin. Sure enough I was right....... they nailed a couple guys up in the Phoenix area for selling on LocalBitcoins. I'm too scared to even look up what happened to those guys. And yet no punishment for anyone involved in the 2008 financial crisis.

It even scares me to see the thumbnail for this video because it gives me the chills that they are sending this guy to Club FED for basically NOTHING. That being said I wish anyone luck who is trying to navigate the confusing laws.

 6 years ago  Reveal Comment

@blocktrades thank you for again making a reply to this post because your guidance was valuable last time to the evolution of this and is again. Our primary purpose with this exchange is to empower users in places where no reliable option exists or where using Bitcoin first with often very high fees is the only option. Currently this description fits most countries in the world while not including the USA.

Given that there are several reliable exchanges available in the USA to change into fiat, the majority of the problems seem to be with laws in the USA, and my main vision for this is global, we may opt to exclude users from the USA and/or place additional limits on using this in the USA.

With doing this to benefit users, we obviously have the highest interest in protecting users from potential problems especially from money laundering and prison time.

We're doing almost exactly this with Bitcash (www.bitcash.org)
We'll have a reputation system. It will be peer-to-peer.
Proof of concept/MVP is at: trade.bitcash.org and our wallet is in maintenance mode.
The concern @blocktrades has is understandable, but I think for smaller volumes peer-to-peer exchanges will be fine.
My main focus right now is on this project. We use the Bitshares platform because it's easier to swap 1:1 between dollars for bitUSD and then go back and forth from Steem. I think you can do one just for Steem, but you'll be dealing with order books since Steem dollars don't hold a peg. Best.

yp great!

this will be huuuuge!

@steemrollin thank you for letting us know you are working on this project! I hope it goes well and think we benefit from getting as many projects like yours functional as possible! I got an error on the sign up page.

Thanks @jerrybanfield! Yes our wallet is in maintenance mode right now since it still is in MVP mode and didn't want too many people signing up (we get a lot of traffic from people thinking our website is related to Bitcoin cash).. but we'll get back up soon .. thx!

hey @jerrybanfield,I have no words to say about you, bcoz you are to much intelligent and talented. I have learn many things from you like programming . I am very thankful to u , i really enjoy your concepts, you are my teacher. Thank you much for every thing <3
keep sharing sir <3
@sibtainali

Most Western European countries don't look kindly on unauthorized money transmitters either. Financial regulations is by far the most troublesome part of the deal. This is why becoming a notary requires years of study, and they are compensated very well for it. Users should exerce caution.

Jerry, this is a magnificent plan of action but once again, how can we avoid the Exchanges. The trouble in the U.S is just the start... It will spread worldwide extremely fast, like a virus. The moment you give your ID to the exchanges and link your bank account, your known - this is just not viable. How can we can we get around this please?

Shelley we will be building trust here primarily through what we contribute on Steem and we may combine a third party identity verification service to help show that who we are on Steem is linked to a "real" person according to a government which then will help us transact without revealing personal information. The methods of payment which reveal the least personal information will probably be preferred and it will be up to users to decide what to use and who to trust based on our recommendations.

thanks for all the help. I am still getting a grasp on things.. as a trader mostly a chartist. i wish someone had this on the Meta4 platform. if you know of any i would appreciate the direction. thanks for all the help already.

 6 years ago (edited) Reveal Comment

Thank you for the helpful reply @introvertspeaks - I'm familiar with Western Union & Moneygram but once you go over a certain limit, were back to ID. Payoneer might work better for the U.S only. In the U.K they forced me to provide bank details and Gov I.D even before I made the 1st transaction and then refused to delete my account when I asked and to add insult to injury, they were nice enough to block my account so I couldn't leave, so sadly, after all of this, I had to tell them where to go... So pretty much a dictatorship just like the rest if your'e based here.

Apart from this, I've also used Paxful.com with Amazon Gift vouchers which is connected with hefty fees but Anonymous none the less .

However, I know we now have Bitcoin Atm's available with similar painful fees but still effective if you're willing to pay the price. Binance I'm def on, seems fair, & I've traded & tried to transfer to my wallets but they also have a limit on the amount you need within your account before withdrawal is allowed. Any thoughts on the conception of Atomic Swaps - Seems quite exciting! I'll def check out your other 2 suggestions though.

Your'e a genius. Followed. Thank you

Thanks for keeping us informed :)

Thank you for the videos. I am trying to weed through all this and learn. The videos help.

please vote me and follow me

Sorry to be a Debbie Downer but Blocktrades is more than correct. Jerry, you need a fat legal budget for this. If you need a top lawyer to CYA, message me and I'll forward you the contact. Get it wrong and you could land in a BOP facility faster than you can say 'grand jury.'

trying to get my head around it all now.

This is not great news I am in the USA and would love to buy others Steem and SBD legally for cash but the laws seem so sketchy and would not want to get in any trouble but I think it should be made for world wide use please find a way to make it legal for the USA

 6 years ago  Reveal Comment

@introvertspeaks exactly thank you for giving a clear example of what we are looking to create and what it is needed because you sharing about the challenges cashing out in the Philippines along with AML/KYC being unnecessary where you are transacting with anyone outside the USA shows us clearly that when we think global, we see a huge need for a Steem/fiat exchange that is user to user!

thanks for all the help

Living comments for the upvotes.

I believe there was a mistake made when I transfered SBD's for Steem Power about 10 Days ago... I'm not sure of any other way to reach you...

COIN MAN by @pocketechange

Send an email to [email protected] with details about the transaction and we'll take a look.

Also to add to this I think it’s better to find a few developers. It will cost a bit more BUT should one developer get a better offer, go rouge, get hit by a bus, retire, etc. you’ll still have a fall back dev. Don’t underestimate the time it takes to get familiar with a new codebase!

please vote me

We probably will be collaborating with an organization which runs a witness and has multiple developers available!

Dear will you please share video tutorial on leasing SP who can lease and who can lease to different boosters, which is the best way. Thanks

That is... good to know. That would certainly be an unpleasant surprise to the uninformed.

Isn't this exactly what you told him when he proposed this idea previously?

It does look very similar which is surprising given I devoted a significant part of this post to addressing exactly what @blocktrades said last time including education for users regarding applicable laws for the transactions based on location. I am also willing to exclude US users completely if the developer wants to do this and our legal advisers suggest this approach for simplicity and safety of global users.

Yes, but he seems to have misinterpreted what I said and assumed it only applied to the business doing the matching and not to the participants, and that my objection was therefore overcome by the fact that the matching system doesn't handle the money.

I suppose he thought I hadn't bothered to read his post fully and understand it. I can see why he might have thought that; this last post was pretty long and I confess I didn't read all of it. Anyways, I hope my concerns are clarified now.

he seems to have misinterpreted what I said and assumed it only applied to the business doing the matching and not to the participants,

Did you see where I devoted an entire section to talking about this in the post because of what you wrote in the first post? Here is the most relevant section based entirely on what you said:

... because users individually will be responsible for understanding the requirements to make fiat/cryptocurrency transactions based on country and state. If we do not trust users to do this or we say it is wrong to pass these requirements on or we demand that some centralized authority be a part of these transactions, why are we bothering with building any of this blockchain technology to begin with and not just sticking with using our existing banking system? Users are fully capable of handling the responsibility and will do it more effectively in some cases and less in others than existing exchanges.

Fortunately for users, financial regulations vary by country. If someone is doing business in one country and in another country, it doesn't matter what the US regulations are for transacting money, if neither of those users is in the US. Unfortunately with our current system today, we have very limited options for exchanges in most countries because of the need for centralized exchanges to comply with financial regulations from so many different countries.

The app in later stages will help facilitate education with country specific training for any regulations users need to know. For example, when a user signs up in the state of New York, users will be required to read and review both USA laws and NY state laws regarding cryptocurrency transactions. An optional test based on location could even be offered to improve the trust score for new users and to verify the rules are understood.

Hold on, this seems to imply that the solution offsets the responsibility for fiscal due diligence onto the individuals undertaking the transaction.

Isn’t that hat hugely risky for everybody individuals using the service? I mean finance can be pretty impenetrable at the best of times. All you need is a few bad news stories and then you’ve a massive negative spotlight hanging over the thing. You really should be looking to protect users of your system, not tell them they’re on their own.

I know we all want more mainstream access, but shortcutting it isn’t the answer.

@fourfourfun the regulations are most applicable to people running entire businesses to transact money which is not obvious in the reply. An individual cashing out a little bit in earnings is unlikely to have any issues while someone buying and selling millions of dollars of Steem without compliance with the law is likely to run into the same problems as localbitcoins.

We respect users most by starting with a foundation of trust and assisting with education. Our current exchanges are based on the assumption users cannot be trusted which is why escrows and heavy restrictions are in place. People that are trusted are free to do what they please because there is no fear of what will be done. Our exchange will educate people on best practices and laws. When users abuse this trust, legal repercussions may occur.

Hi im odeniz.İ just upvoted you.visit my page and follow please :)

@blocktrades I agree with you, we have to pay attention with the regulations.... And in my country there aren't yet!!!

@yanosh01 exactly which is why we need an exchange for Italy that is easy to use! I think global first in what I do which helps me see outside of the rules where I live now!

@jerrybanfield the idea is very interesting. I'll wait some news

Hi im odeniz.İ just upvoted you.visit my page and follow please :)

please vote me

It is just another publication nothing more, false promises do not waste time.

You are obviously an expert on bullshit post.

This is a very sensitive issue that requires better acesorameinto in the legal part! It is important to know the regulations inherent to the topic or those that are being proposed. In my country Venezuela there are no regulations but we are interested in reliable sources of exchange and in a fair manner. And that approach that you are giving is very successful!

Somebody should please help me out. I am clueless about this. Tell me how to get paid or just give me a vote or reply me. Anything please !!!

I want join with you mr. can you help me

Congratulations my friend for this post! it´s very important for us who participate often in the Steem community to know the real value of this social network based on knowledge, the blockchain is the new way to make people financial independent. Do you agree with me? Best Regards.

Sabias palabras @blocktrades

localbitcoins is probably one of the better exchanges I have ever used, It utilized a form a escrow so that the person who selling you the coins actually has to place the coins in trust with localbitcoins, while buyer and seller confirm the transaction. Though they do charge a fee that is fairly high and as well demand that you initially receive the coins into one of their wallets that based on their site, instead of them being able to be sent directly to your wallet, this annoyance make up for the extra layers of security that a site like local bitcoins offers. Now if this new platform could work on the same peer to peer methodology, while at the same time enabling the end user to use their offline and hard wallets to deposit the said coins, this will be an excellent alternative to many of the exchanges that exist today. Just my two sense.

I am agree with you

Thank you @blocktrades for sharing the security risks for the USA residents. As it seems as though we are having a difficult time with several online activities legality issues. We are slowly being targeted for several activities that will help during an economic crisis. I feel that the big day is coming when we will be disallowed to have any dealings with the Cryptocurrency Markets. It is really not fair. All we ask and want to do is be included. What harm can USA do, that other nations can't. It is ridiculous. I agree with you about the localbitcoins comment. When I first started crypto activities, localbitcoins was my first choice by recommendation. I did not know anything about bitcoins, but knew on my first login that localbitcoins is not for me or anyone else. With intentions to capitalize on beginners.

So, I really like what @jerrybanfield post and project. But, I'm really still trying to understand how the system works and the daily changes confuses me. Please do not take my comment anyway wrong. It's just that I would like to be involved and post an opinion query. And I do not want to make more wrong moves and want to make the right move, before USA gets cutout.:)

Thank you for taking the time to view my reply.

Following, updated, commented and share by:
@share4angels

Saludos desde Venezuela Buen post. @adhelgeis21

Does this affect only US residents or US Citizens who travel around the world? My girlfriend is American and we travel since over 2.5 years around the world and she still is doing her tax in May. I am German but because I am not working in the country and I am since over 10 years not in the country I am legally a "Steuerausländer" or tax foreigner that means I don't need to pay tax.

It's a good question. US laws generally apply to US citizens even when they are traveling, but maybe if you're in another country at the time and you're not trading with an American, it might not apply. It's not really a few small trades that would get you in trouble anyways, I think, it's more if it starts to look like a business. I think there's also risk if the trades are big, because I think the "real" motivation behind this is money laundering concerns by US regulators.

Thanks for this explanation @blocktrades , it really helped me to understand a few more things about transactions and regulations.

Regards, @gold84

In as much as the idea is great ,it’s also important to let people know the implications of what they are getting into

This system is more efficient than the system of localbitcoin, because there is very vulnerable to fraud. although the reputation is qualified but not yet able to determine the trader honest 100%. maybe

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how about some free $ELF #aelf. You can register and start collecting free $ELF

https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@crypto.guide.btc/easy-free-coins-with-aelf-usdelf-candy-program

please vote me

This is not good idea to put post like this. If you want to be voted be more creative?? I will give you one good example:
Do you know games like wow or lineage , maybe diablo. When you were playing online there was a lot noobs they were all the time writing "exp me plzz " or "give me some items plis". Everyone ignored them and just play to gain levels. And you know what was the problem? The problem was those noobs wasting time for chatting those annoying messages but they should just go and start exping becouse there always be someone who helping but without "help please" or other similar to spam sentence

@blocktrades ...... really interesting

Hey please check out my account!

On top of that, you've got Jerry managing it. He didn't even bother to do enough research to understand the legal issues around what he is proposing.

Enough said. Again, don't reward this junk that will never happen. I am glad to see most of these large votes were purchased and our community isn't as ignorant as Jerry thought.

Berniesanders is a tool!
Have some poo

Downvotes incoming in 3....2...1....

Seconded. Saying “it’s the seller’s responsibility to comply with local laws” means you endanger your users who aren’t knowledgeable about these local laws. Non-starter, IMO. This is why I don’t use LocalBitcoins.

Jeff thank you for replying here and reinforcing the emphasis we will place on having resources available to educate users to what laws apply. Excluding countries like the USA with the most restrictions is also an option if that is best for everyone involved.

How many Steem users are actually in the USA? I believe the percentage is less than 20% meaning the majority of users here have no need to comply with laws in the USA regarding financial transactions when not buying or selling with someone in the USA.

Localbitcoins has a huge number of users and our exchange will eventually have even more! I have never used localbitcoins either because the fees are way higher than the exchanges I can use because I live in the USA and have easy access to several exchanges. Most of the people on earth cannot say the same. Most do not have a way to easily cash out $10 or $100 or $1000 of Bitcoin into a bank account. Our exchange fills a gigantic need that might be hard to see when just considering the USA.

PLEASE don't reward this bullshit post. This will never happen (just like all of Jerry's past bullshit proposals) and the funds will simply go straight to Jerry's pocket. Don't support the trash.

Bernie thank you for noticing my post again and helping me accept that often many failures are required to bring about success! I am grateful to be trusted with enough money to finance a few projects to grow Steem and am excited to get started paying the developer!

Awesome response!

I agree with @berniesanders on this as shown in MY COMMENT HERE. ugh...

Maybe it is. But where are you here for Bernie? For the sake of others?
But your remark in your post of @haejin sounds more alarming. If big whales post 10 posts a day, while 2 or 3 posts gives already big rewards. Shouldnt that be limited? What's your vision about that @admin-steemit? If steemit is for the community, would you say that 2 to 3 posts a day should be enough? I that case also smaller fish can get their rewards

It is just another publication nothing more, false promises do not waste time.

Hi im odeniz.İ just upvoted you.visit my page and follow please :)

I watched some of his videos online it helped me get an idea of what was going on in steemit, he had a post of how to use bots but thats not something i want to try myself.

I just joined steemit, follow and I follow back and upvote
If you or and anyone else is interested in changing themselves and the world,
please join the FOOD REVOLUTION!
check my intro out....
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@celestialcow/hi-steemit-i-m-celestial-cow-fully-plant-powered-food-anarchist-and-diet-revolutionist-excited-to-be-here
hope you like :)

Hey @jerrybanfield, one of our developers could take this on, feel free to contact us if you're interested

Done! Thank you for helping me see this here on the post!

@privex your contents are Good

i wish he will contact you ! i tried to contact him but no way :|

Yes bro!!!!!absolutely correct

It is just another publication nothing more, false promises do not waste time.

This is great news, the more that we can make crypto peer to peer the better. having third party exchanges just seems to archaic. Hopefully a platform like this will enable us to deal with each other, rather than a faceless exchange like binance

What does BernieSanders know anyway. I commend @jerrybanfield for his time and thought to maks this a success. @Privex do your thing!!! STEEEEEEM IT!!!

Hi im odeniz.İ just upvoted you.visit my page and follow please :)

Please allow trading of Steem and SBD to and from AUD!!
I have introduced a few friends to Steem and this would make it sooo much more convenient than bittrex, steem into btc into ltc then send ltc onto coinspot then sell on market, or vice versa for powering up!

You can use AUD to buy and sell STEEM at coinspot.com.au

The only thing with coinspot.com.au is that they don't have wallet address for STEEM so if you want to cash out your STEEM to AUD you just have to exchange your STEEM to DOGE coin using blocktrades or bittrex then send it to coinspot.com.au to exchange it to fiat.

Definitely we will be including as many fiat currencies like AUD as possible to allow for maximum local trading! I expect we will be able to launch or quickly have almost every local currency and show local currencies by default.

That sounds incredible! Will follow you for future updates, cheers!

@cryptoeater thank you very much for following me just now! I followed you as well and took a look at your profile on https://steemd.com/@cryptoeater.

I see you have not voted for any witnesses at https://steemit.com/~witnesses yet. Witness votes are the most important we make on Steem because witnesses create our blockchain in real time and are our chosen community leaders.

The easiest way to fully participate is to choose one person we trust as a "proxy" to make all of our witness votes for us. Will you please either add me to your witness votes or set me as a proxy at https://steemit.com/~witnesses because this will empower you to indefinitely support me for witness and increase the funding for @budgets?

I'm getting into bed now, I'll definitely have a look tomorrow, thanks!

i added you as a witnesses

@cj31bbe thank you very much for setting me as your proxy!

I love the idea. To me its like PAYPAL meets UBER wraped up for steem. PAYPAL = P2P transactions UBER = Technology company (not a cab company) bye bye regulations!!

Don't forget to add RON(New Romanian Leu )

I think the trust-issue should be solved by multisig fiduciary accounts like BlackHalo or BitHalo did it... it is much better than calculating a trust score. Here someone who would not do the transaction correctly would loose his blocked assets (Steem or SBD).

New users could not onboard to Steem or use Steem to convert to other currencies as they have no history at the beginning.

With BlackHalo that is not necessary and I think Steem could implement it as well, perhaps your app could add BlackHalo functionality? That would be huge!! (But using an additional artificial trust score is not the right way I think)...

https://steemit.com/steem/@mexbit/p2p-steem-usd-exchange-trust-issue-solved-by-steemhalo

Maybe we can build something like that in!

That would be amazing and a game changer! Excellent!

This looks incredible. Can't wait to see it in action!

Interesting @jerrybanfield - but I still have a few questions:

  • What do you get out of this?
  • Will this be open source?
  • Will you essentially own the gateway?
  • Will there be fees?
  • If there are fees, who will receive them?

Edit:

I just realized that if it is like Tinder, then there won't be any fees that I'm aware of.

@jerrybanfield is a witness and there more he does for the community the more votes he's likely to get which will push him up the rankings

@captaincanary exactly and the witness rewards are enough!

your amazing

@therealwolf thank you for these questions!

What do you get out of this? I get to be a part of the creation of something valuable.
Will this be open source? Yes.
Will you essentially own the gateway? No. I will own the domain while the developer will own everything else and would have the power to shift the domain as desired.
Will there be fees? No fees anywhere!

@therealwolf your Great contents

he is saying there aren't fee, but i don't understand how he can "fight" the countries regulation

The answers to all your questions are in the article. Read between the lines.

Well considering how easy it is to contract an std on tinder, you are paying for it in a way.

There is already an open source tool to handle escrow transactions. What you are proposing is already built (for the most part):

https://steemit.com/escrow/@xtar/open-source-standalone-gui-for-steem-escrow-transactions

@onthewayout thank you for linking this! If we use an escrow, then I believe we need licenses in the USA which we are not prepared to get! Trust scores will mostly eliminate the need for an escrow.

It seems like localbitcoin or locallitecoin project. How about STEEM only exchange where most coins will be traded against STEEM and STEEM will be traded heavily against USDT. It is more like HitBTC or Poloniex where getting out or in with fiat is a hard task, but trading with USDT is not a big deal. People can buy BTC/LTC/BCH/ETH/STEEM (in future?) from coinbase or any proper exchange, then trade with STEEM (i.e. instead of BTC/ETH) or USDT. However, it will require money transmitting license. With high speed, scalable TPS and zero fee, STEEM can work as transaction currency for all kinds of arbitrages among exchanges

Great hope you find one!

@jsteem your working good steem

Sounds like you've got a lot of work ahead of you. The banking laws in the US will be enough to give anyone an aneurism!

It's a great project! I'd like to have private messaging on Steemit too. I hope you can find the best person for the job.

very informative post thanks for sharing with us
@jerrybanfield
steemit is best platform and the steem crepto is big chance to rise 1000 dollar soon

This is a great idea, it needs to be as noob friendly as possible. I've used similar services to buy bitcoin and it always felt like a decent way of transacting although it was heavily based on trust. Still, as long as people have a reputation to protect they will be incentivised to act in a responsible and honest way.

Brah, wanna chat? Will do a revenue share. Also, it takes way more than 1 developer to do this on even a small scale... promise!

As a fellow Floridian I’m about to upvote you as witness. Keep up the great work !

very cool

This is soo important. we have to get products and trade happening soon. I'm all in steemit and so much more. Thanks to you Jerry

Why not to use Utopian.io you have always been bullish about this open source , and it’s not costy !

  • are you or any one else knows any problems associated with them?? Coz I am thinking to use them to develop an idea I have .

Thanks for anyone gives advice 🙏🏼

2FEA94BB-3AEA-44D6-B872-BD0724A20ED7.jpeg

You are very genius. It's amazing. I can understand a lot from your post very easily. Thanks a lot!

Wish I could help, but if you’re hiring in general on your team then I’m in!

We don't use USD currency in my country.
Can it still benefit me?

It would be much better to just add support at "BTCPayServer" by Dorian what is running hardcore stable already, feature BTC & LTC. Helping & adding Steem would give much more sense in my eyes.

It is a top docker setup with NGNIX auto-reverse DNS incl. free SSL auto-renewal.

Sounds like OTC over STEEM and fiat trading pairs

It would be a good news as it becomes more friendly to new comers!

I really like the idea, but will you support only USD? What about CAD, EUR etc..?

We will support almost every fiat currency as early as possible!

can we see indian currency also really excited about it

What not using something like bitpay to blocktrades?

Sounds great, the more options we have the better.
Hope there was an easy delegation option too, could be very beneficial !

It's really a brilliant idea. I agree it will become number one app on steemit and bring steemit to higher level

Very interesting idea...

Have you seen this ? https://steemit.com/@localsteem

My question is what lang do they want this built in. Depending on the language depends on the cost of development. A p2p exchange is no issue but what you want it made on could more or less tell us if you can afford a team or not for the amount you have stated.

Also watch out for people who will offer cheap prices most the time they are not up to date with the current forms of libs or up to date with the programming languages you want.

The developer can choose the language to build it in!

Hello!!! That would be great! It's such a pain having to go through another crypto to buy into steem. I'm pretty sure that I'm loosing money on top of the fee due to quick market fluctuations every time. You'd think at least once it would work in my favor but it never does! Hahah😂😂😂 This would be a tromendous help to the community! Thanks!

Brett you're welcome thank you for validating the need for this application!

I am followed you @brettcalloway

Love this idea!

Great idea!

Waiting to see who will get selected for this opportunity. All the eligible candidate try your luck here. Golden duck is waiting ..

looks cool!!!

I love to hear about this project, especially since I believe, that BTC is about to die soon and there have to be alternatives independently from BTC.
The only thing I find questionable in your concept is the trust factor. Trust has so many factors and is horribly complicated to calculate. There are new concepts of P2P exchanges (like Altcoin.io) that are based on Atomic Swap (or other alternatives for P2P exchange), which eliminates the trust factor at all. I think, this would spare you of the hard (or even impossible?) undertaking of making trust a calculable number.

This is exactly the way that Steemit needs to go in order to grow and evolve as a community. Peer to peer exchanging of Steem in fiat currencies. I can't wait until this becomes implemented, and this is the very first step in bringing awareness to the completion of this project.

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A great idea.. I lack the needed skills...

I really love your commitment to Steemit Jerry, Keep up the good work.

Using the cryptocurrency to hire talent is the best move they can make. Talent is rare these days but soaking up all you can through incentivized projects like this is the way to go!

you said big words !

Nice!

This sounds like a great idea, and could really add to the value of STEEM! Good luck!

If there are two or more developers wanting to apply, the first with a minimum viable product wins.

That is working on spec and is damaging to the development industry. This is not how business is done in a professional environment. While I can understand wanting something to put your hands on before spending money, you don't tell 2 contractors to go build a house for you and decide to pay for and hire the one that finishes first.

I'm pretty annoyed that you even thought that this type of practice would be acceptable and hope no quality developers are bored enough to entertain this. Surely no professional devs will unless they are just bored.

This is an insult to the development industry.

You not only have a shaky product with all sorts of risks and dangers for the users, but the way you wish it to be developed is insulting to the developers themselves. I'd be surprised if you get anywhere this way with any sort of actual quality.

I was actually excited when i saw this post.

Then i read it. Excitement vanished instantly, replaced by a bit of disgust.

if that gateway opens - it would be huge for steem I mean 10 x + huge

I very much so would look forward to this. It would honestly be ground breaking for steem as well as not many cryptos can be traded from fiat to crypto. This is why nearly everything right now goes through bitcoin, litecoin and ethereum these are the main gateway cryptos right now.

Exactly this will help us pull a huge amount of users worldwide straight into Steem and then some will go out into the rest of the cryptocurrency world. That said, I can see a ton of potential problems for running this and I am prepared for the challenge!

Not only is this the case that its hard to trade Fiat into Crypto, there just is no viable platform for this.
I have been waiting for a month with Coinbase just for my money i sent them to show up in my account! Crazy, right?
Not when you take into account that ive been waiting for 2 months with Bittstamp just to get verified.
At least i havent sent them money.
If Steemit succeeds in fixing their failure that could be a huge thing.

Because OF you I have decided to Join Steem... I feel bummed out because I feel that my very first post (this one) may be seen as a negative...
Oh well here goes..
I just joined steem but have not set anything up yet.. Basically pissed at YT..
Anyways. You just can't blow off regulations, AT least as far as the USA goes. By not opening a legit exchange, then you set up the individuals to break laws. which may or may not get them in deep crap with the IRS or maybe even arrested.
#2 if you set up the platform and some one gets ripped off, then they could sue steem because Steem was the platform that brought them together to do the transaction in the first place

3 you have to have an escrow account for people to put funds and Steem into. Just because you have trust factors is not enough.

#4 why would you blow off a great developer to hire a mediocre guy just because the mediocre guy is a witness???
#5 I would advise you don't pay by the month but buy the project.
Anyways its a great idea and would be a great addition.
You may be able to have robin hood and Gemini take on a term and be way ahead... Hope it all works out for you.
I watch your vids a lot so hopefully when I get going on Steem/DTube your info would have made it less painless...

There is already a tool to handle escrow transactions but it seems that people have forgotten about it:

https://steemit.com/escrow/@xtar/open-source-standalone-gui-for-steem-escrow-transactions

@g755 thank you for making your first comment here! I hear you and will keep in mind what you said. What we are creating is based on trust which will have different benefits and limitations than existing exchanges. When combined with existing changes, we will have a system anyone can use to get involved in crypto!

I watched every second of the video on this post this morning through my phone while I was on break. I didn't get a chance to comment and now (tonight) I wanted to say that this is one of the most solid ideas I have heard this and last year. Salute to you my friend, you have my respect!

@generation thank you for watching the video proposal for this on YouTube and remembering to comment here!

Incredible idea, next step something like BitPay for Steem so we can start working on merchant adoption!

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