Quote from: dannyjpw on February 21, 2011, 10:18:13 PM

from the same link:

Quote

Jen then sends $25.00 PPUSD to Bob's Paypal account and using the link to the escrow account, requests that the funds be released.

There is no legal basis for pursuing debt denominated in bitcoin. So if Jen defaults here Bob is hosed.

Possibly I'm wrong on the legals here, but if so I'd like to know why.

Well, I think ostracism or the threat thereof is a reasonable deterrent, at least in a community this small.

Also, I think you might be misunderstanding how ClearCoin works. Let's say you want to offer me a call option for 100 BTC @ $1 with a $5 service fee, to be exercised on or before 2011-03-01.

You create a ClearCoin escrow account and fund it with 100 BTC, setting the expiration date to some date later than 2011-03-01. Then you send me the link intended for the other user. Once I verify that the account is funded, funds will be released to my address, and that the expiration date is correct, I send you the $5 fee. At any time before the expiration, I can send you $100 more and request that you release the Bitcoin. You can obviously not release, but that's going to hurt your reputation, and you will have to wait until the account expires to get your Bitcoin back. So, if the buyer does not trust the seller, they can request an expiration further in the future.