Quote from: Vandroiy on June 08, 2014, 07:31:47 PM

Quote from: oakpacific on June 08, 2014, 11:31:10 AM

For many people, the problem is they are owed by some huge corporations, it's not like when it comes to debts your friend is exactly more credible than some huge corporations. Also, if the debts can only be exchanged between friends, why not just go buying bitcoins from them with cash/bank transfer?(especially the assumption here is you already trust them)

The first line reads like an insult to a lot of people's friends. I'd trust my friends more than anyone or -thing I don't know as well, including but not limited to corporations.

I think it's important to formalize trust. Just because there exists some complicated transaction using firends' trust, few would execute it by hand. If ZeroReserve manages to simplify this process enough, it becomes preferable to trusting an ominous entity that tends to eat your funds in one big bite -- like Gox and the numerous other failed exchanges.

Banking -- the trade with IOUs -- is actually quite efficient. It mostly fails on the wrong places piling up trust. If trust becomes more explicit and less reliant on magic entities doing magic things with trust they implicitly get, it's a great approach.

This.

Quote from: oakpacific on June 08, 2014, 07:49:08 PM

Quote from: Vandroiy on June 08, 2014, 07:31:47 PM

Quote from: oakpacific on June 08, 2014, 11:31:10 AM

For many people, the problem is they are owed by some huge corporations, it's not like when it comes to debts your friend is exactly more credible than some huge corporations. Also, if the debts can only be exchanged between friends, why not just go buying bitcoins from them with cash/bank transfer?(especially the assumption here is you already trust them)

The first line reads like an insult to a lot of people's friends. I'd trust my friends more than anyone or -thing I don't know as well, including but not limited to corporations.

I think it's important to formalize trust. Just because there exists some complicated transaction using firends' trust, few would execute it by hand. If ZeroReserve manages to simplify this process enough, it becomes preferable to trusting an ominous entity that tends to eat your funds in one big bite -- like Gox and the numerous other failed exchanges.

Banking -- the trade with IOUs -- is actually quite efficient. It mostly fails on the wrong places piling up trust. If trust becomes more explicit and less reliant on magic entities doing magic things with trust they implicitly get, it's a great approach.

I could agree with you or not, but it's a fact of the world that many would rather trust their money with banks, then with their friends.

Change is just a bank run away

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Also, under the assumption that you trust your friends, there are still other ways to conduct the transaction, just wire transfer money to your friend using online banking, and ask someone whom you both trust to escrow the bitcoins/audit your wire transfer, such a process is formalizable as well.

With ZeroReserve you can trade with strangers by only having to trust your friends.

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Further, if you can have a cryptographic proof of transfer, why the need for IOUs?

There's always to sides of a transaction. It's difficult to computationally enforce transfer of non cryptographic currencies and assets - but you can easily transfer IOUs with people you trust.

Maybe a list of features and a FAQ would make it easier to understand ZeroReserve.

I'll start with my current point of understanding:

1. Trade Bitcoins with strangers connected to you through chains of friends.
2. It is relatively anonymous (as long as friend chains don't get guantanamoed). Note you can also be friends with your imaginary alter ego.
3. All IOUs are direct-friend-IOUs.
4. IOUs can be pretty much anything (Dollars, Euro, Gold, ...)
5. To be able to trade you need to mutually exchange Retroshare certificates and grant credit lines in ZR to at least one friend.
6. For now to be friend with the Retroshare node "nabu" helps connectivity (bootstrapping).
7. The more ZR-friends the better as there will be more routes to exchange through.
8. Giving more credit to friends helps trading but is of course a risk.

edit:
This is in a little less than two hours from now:

Quote from: anu on June 08, 2014, 06:17:24 AM

Zero Reserve 0.1 is now pretty much feature complete. It is time to do some testing. Please join tomorrow, Monday, 18:00h UTC. No reason to fear losing money - we'll just trade TestNet Bitcoin against fools gold, Zimbabwe Dollar or German Papermark (1923).

The install procedure is outlined here:
https://github.com/zeroreserve/ZeroReserve
at the bottom of the page.

Installing ZeroReserve is not enough, it needs some setup, which is described in the Getting Started Page

Please start well before the test tomorrow - it takes some time to download the TestNet blockchain and we also need to establish the friend relationships in Retroshare. You might also want to get some TestNet Bitcoin through a faucet beforehand.

To give the testing a more realistic feel I suggest we all consider the default IOU "µg of fools" to be worth 1 USD.