[bisq-network/proposals] Increase trading fee (#99)

Tue Jul 2 10:58:46 UTC 2019

> If the biggest problem with Bisq is not enough devs, and the only way to fix that is to make contributor compensation the top priority,...

It is not the only way to attract devs but an important part in the mix. Bisq has the potential to attract contributor with its close alignment with Bitcoins philosophy as well with its interesting and challenging technical and conceptually aspects. Money is not always that important for all devs. But they also have to pay bills and not all are early Bitcoin holders to be in the lucky position to not care much about a steady income stream. As it is hard or any project (including very well funded ones) to find good developers in the space we would make our position weaker if the compensation with BSQ is not reliable (e.g. if it is very unclear how much you can sell at which price). 

> ...then even Bitcoin itself was unsustainable from the start.

Not all OS projects need a funding model. Some got lucky enough to got bootstrapped without it, like Bitcoin, Linux and a handful more. The other million of projects which never got that fate you have never heard of. We do not know how many other potential Linux and Bitcoins would have been developed if there would be a more sustainable environment for OS projects. Having a funding model is not a absolutely necessary precondition for an OS project to be successful but it increases the survival chance significantly. 

> By this line of logic, the more contributors show up, the higher the fees will have to be.

More the opposite. If the pressure to finding devs is lower BSQ stake holders can also prefer to decrease the fees. If the majority of BSQ stakeholders are traders that might be actually be a pretty realistic scenario as they have clear incentives for lower fees. But also if the majority of BSQ stakeholders are contributors/developers it is an interesting strategy for them to lower the fees if the revenue is higher than the burned fees to attract more traders by that. 

> Perhaps, instead of the customers being forced to accept the highest fees among their choices, it’s the contributors that should accept that the Bisq DAO can’t afford to pay us on a FOSS project at the same rate as we get paid in our IRL, LTV centralized economy?

As said ,competition is though in that space and I think we should avoid to make our position weaker. Dealing with the more complicate tax situation when earning BSQ instead of Fiat from a company is already an extra burden some developers might not be willing to take. Don't forget that traders will not be happy if not enough devs are around to fix problems and improve the system. If for instance some relatively small open issue like the bad fee estimation service would be fixed all traders can safe a lot of money by lower miner fees. Native segwit support is another similar thing. No devs - no improvements and no the long term no future for Bisq.

> 30%+ of the Bisq fee problem is that it doesn’t have Segwit. Is that not going to change soon?

Yes exactly. Bisq had a BitcoinJ dev who was working on that. Unfortunately he left recently. Without a strong BSQ it will be even harder to find a new one. They have a very good market position as there are more projects out using BitcoinJ than experienced devs. Devs in the Blockchain space are among the best paid in the industry.

> The days when small on-chain trades on Bitcoin/Bisq made sense are over. Only LN integration seems likely to make small trades worthwhile on Bisq again, and that for sure cannot happen any time soon.

Yes, agree that the on-chain trade protocol will not work forever. When that time comes when it becomes too expensive is not clear though. I expect we have 1-2 more years at least. Segwit will move much of the pressure away, so its highly dynamic and hard to predict. 

It is technically not clear how to use Segwit with the current trade protocol (multisig based) or any new variant. Feel free to make a proposal if you know how to do it. But the off-chain trade protocol using BSQ bonds (or a variant with BTC bonds) might be a realistic solution to the miner fee problem as well will increase privacy.

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