Note that holding Mastercoins in escrow is quite different from holding Bitcoins in escrow. Bitcoin is well established and by taking certain precautions I can minimize the risk of losing someone's Bitcoins. Mastercoin on the other hand is an evolving protocol and I've already seen a couple of transactions that were open to interpretation. I will of course do my best but I have to stress that I can't take on any responsibility for Mastercoins held in escrow for prefunded orders.
DGulari, regarding your comment about Pouncer: I want to highlight that he has been of enormous help and put countless hours of his time into this.
However, I had hoped that there would be an upper limit on fees. I don't think any single transaction should exceed $100 or .1BTC. Each transaction takes the same work - whether it is for 1MSC or 1000MSC. Can't we make a flat fee? That makes more sense.
For the transaction I just funded, the fee would be over $400. I think this is excessive. You guys are awesome and I am glad for your help - but I'd like fees to be in the spirit of bitcoin rather than Visa.
For higher amounts that might indeed be quite a large fee. And you're right, the amount of work is the same for small and large amounts. What changes is the amount of responsibility. I don't have any concerns holding 10 MSC in escrow because I could compensate a loss of 10 MSC out of my own pocket. But holding a couple of hundred Mastercoins is another thing and my gut tells me that this could lead to problems. That's why I think a percentage fee is justified.
But an upper limit on fees could be a solution, I'll be thinking about that.
For your first prefunded order, let's go without any fees at all. I'd like to test this concept and see how it works, so there's no need for a fee right now.
Maybe I didn't understand but if you are saying that you are not taking responsibility to loss of MSC and the amount of time is the same why is a percentage fee justified on large trades?
Alghough I said that I can't take any responsibility I still feel I have to be extra careful when handling MSC worth 40,000$ (or whatever amount). If people trust me with their Mastercoins I will of course do everything to keep them safe. And I know that I would try to cover losses if they would be the result of a mistake I made.
Now there are many things that could potentially go wrong when holding and sending Mastercoins. So all this is a high-risk operation for me.
As I said, I feel very comfortable holding large amounts of Bitcoins since I know exactly what to do to keep them safe and how to send them. That's why I did not charge a fee for Bitcoin escrows yet.
But I don't feel comfortable holding large amounts of MSC for the reasons described above. Larger amounts of MSC to be lost = more risk for me = more bad feelings for me = higher fee to be paid. That's why I think a percentage fee is justified.
But that's just how it is for me personally. If someone wants to do this kind of escrow for free I'd be more than happy because I'd prefer to leave this to others.
And as I said before, I'll be thinking about an upper limit to the fee.
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On another note, DGulari did you already send MSCs to the escrow address at 1LdgFp2gLvWfkPnyTYAtH7ENnzgBDdNwfd?
I do see
incoming 0.00006 BTC, but ME and MC aren't showing incoming MSCs:
http://mastercoin-explorer.com/addresses/1LdgFp2gLvWfkPnyTYAtH7ENnzgBDdNwfdhttps://masterchest.info/lookupadd.aspx?address=1LdgFp2gLvWfkPnyTYAtH7ENnzgBDdNwfd