My interpretation is that it doesn't necessarily solve escrow but solves one part of the escrow equation which is - "does the one party actually own enough money to pay". In other words because all BTC is tracked by the blockchain I can verify that the buyer has the $100 they are saying they are willing to pay me, as opposed to him simply saying "Ya I got the $100, don't worry". The "don't worry" part is eliminated because I can verify that his $100 actually does exist on the blockchain. If he decided to sell it, I could see that he is no longer the owner on the blockchain and thus rendering the "don't worry I swear I have the money" impossible. The release of the payment is still done by an escrow service.
Right - in the traditional escrow system, it takes weeks to wire money around. When buying a house that is not a big deal. But if we wanted to move escrow to be useful for much smaller payments, such as a TV set, then you could not use traditional escrow for that due to the high latency and fees ($40+!!!) that the banks will charge you overall for the fund wires.
>in the traditional escrow system, it takes weeks to wire money around.
Have you ever wired money before? Either you haven't and are believing someone else who has told you it takes weeks or you are misrepresenting it here. I've done wires internationally between AU, CA, UK, and US and internal to each country between a variety of banks and in the past 10 years I've never had a wire transfer take more than 3 days(one off) with all the rest completing the next business day at the destination or 2 days later when I've sent it after business hours at the source.
I have wired money, mostly one-offs. Sure, if it is just you wiring money to yourself it can be merely days. When you add in additional steps required to unlock funds and have the recipient transmit acknowledgement, it can take weeks to set up, fund, and use an escrow agreement. It still costs a lot of money, especially for international wires.
And fees. $40 on a $1000 wire is %4. $1000 is a small amount of money to wire. If you're moving around $millions then sure, you don't care. I don't move around $millions.
Here we are talking about turn around times in under an hour, and fees under %1, even for small transactions.
>When you add in additional steps required to unlock funds and have the recipient transmit acknowledgement, it can take weeks to set up, fund, and use an escrow agreement. It still costs a lot of money, especially for international wires.
What are these extra steps you're talking about? If I wire money to you as my escrow agent it will probably get to you next business day. You then verify whatever and send the escrow to the seller that will take another business day. Where are the weeks coming from?
>And fees. $40 on a $1000 wire is %4. $1000 is a small amount of money to wire.
Get a different bank if you're paying $40 for domestic transfers. Hell even if you're getting charged that much for international transfers.
>Here we are talking about turn around times in under an hour, and fees under %1, even for small transactions.
Except we aren't talking about comparable things since the end result is generally local currency not bitcoin you have to add in the steps and fees to convert it as well.
