Frequently Asked Questions

Who is working on this?

What’s stopping the Patron or even the Free Agent from also becoming an Arbiter and scamming people by falsely approving or denying the monies held in escrow?

From Luxas.
The Patron picks the Arbiter (and they talk to make sure it’s a good fit). Then the Patron seals the deal by funding the escrow. Once the money is in the Arbiter’s hands, the Free Agent can feel confident about working.
You are right about this though… in the most anonymous mode, a single human can pretend to be two different roles (Patron + Arbiter) and trick a Free Agent into submitting work and then “refunding” the money (back to himself).
With a proper reputation system this scam won’t last long - maybe one or two low-paying gigs.
But if people are operating NON-100% anonymously, this becomes infeasible. If I, Vinney, am the Patron, and, say, PABLOF7z is the Arbiter, we clearly are different people. Perfect pseudonymity can come with risks. But it also comes with lots of reward (like total freedom).

Isn’t this an ideal application for multisignature Bitcoin? This is basically a 2-of-3 transaction between buyer, seller and arbiter.

From Globe99.
Yes, something like this would be great for multisig - Someone could extend Catallax to include it.
I want the base layer to be as simple as possible - and if we leave multisigs out of it, in exchange we get #cashu nutsack wallets for new users on day one, which comes “for free” just by using the Nostr protocol under us.
This is a good argument for leaving the “payment receipt” aspect of Catallax fairly flexible.

Where are the rest of the FAQs?

I haven’t yet been asked the same question too many times. Start asking me things and this will fill out.