Oddbean

What is the ideal flow for buying on a decentralized exchange? Ideally... 1. I visit a website. I don't need to download anything. 2. I click BUY or SELL 3. I see some options who to buy from and their asking prices 4. I have a clear understanding of how this thing works. Don't just tell me the payment method, but how that transaction looks like after I hit buy. 5. Sort by payment method 6. Guide me through the transaction or better yet, facilitate it automatically. What does the dream flow look like? 1. Click buy. You are automatically offered the best deal with your preferred payment method (maybe you specified it earlier). 2. You are provided super simple step by step instructions to finish transaction. Similar for sell side. The issue I see with decentralized exchanges: 1. Have to download something 2. The whole thing looks way too complex 3. Not clear how it works Compare to centralized exchange: 1. Click buy. Done. See the difference? I think if we are to improve the UX, we have to think grandma level and start from scratch. No trying to improve a complex trading platform, but really think from the basics. What will grandma need to know or click on and how will she feel about it? You make it work for grandma. You make it work for everyone. The issue I see with Bisq (I couldn't install it, got corrupt file) is that it looks like a literal stock trading platform. NOT for an average person. I'd say you have to strip it down to 10% basics to make it work for the average person, provided you do everything else well.

Regarding the comparison, downloading something can be a much simpler experience than registering with a company and going through KYC and all that. We had a design review with 10101 Finance recently about creating two separate experiences for casual users and traders. That could be a good approach. AFAIK, Kraken and Coinbase also have regular and pro interfaces (and charge much higher fees for the regular one).

For me the payment options are a struggle, still trying to get strike to set my account up, need to commit .01 bitcoin to keep things honest on bisq. Will explore Robosats soon. Definitely not for normies, but people have to also learn a new paradigm. I have the time and know how to make it work, but it does take effort. Most people won’t even commit to verifying the source through pgp, although I always do through the command line. I guess Zelle works too, but still . . . A lot of options, which is great if you’re committed to buying non kyc, just takes more effort

In fact, some things could be improved in the first version of Bisq. I hope it looks better in Bisq2. Bisq has been my main source of Bitcoin for almost 4 years. The biggest difficulty it presented was when I had to migrate to another PC. Actually very simple as copy and paste... Point 1 of "I visit a website", okay, it depends on the person, but some may prefer to have the software under own control. If it happens something hodlhodl (like happened with AgoraDesk), goodbye and almost nothing can be done. But if we have Bisq, it seems to me that we are unstoppable. The thing is how much the process can be simplified, from downloading until you have the Bitcoin in your cold wallet.

@Relai 🇨🇭 app does a pretty good job with KYC free buying (under 1000euros/day). Only complicated part for grandma is having to sign a message if you want to transfer from the app's self-custody wallet to another one.

The need for download a software IMO is to improve decentralization. I don't think decentralized exchange can be main stream because it goes require responsibility which the vast majority of people are willing to offload. This is why fedimint are a better solution/model to mass adoption