Yeah, that's why I pointed out that an escrow service isn't going to provide the same kind of protection in this case.  The only thing John would be able to provide, is ensuring that the chips get ordered; he can't really protect them after that.

If you personally had 780BTC, you could give that to John as collateral, but I don't know anyone who would be crazy enough to lock away 780BTC for a few months.

Please put me down for 46.926 BTC for 600 chips, + however much is needed for fees (currently 2%).

EDIT: Oh, and thank you for taking the time to put all of this together.