Trustless Reward for Service
Any decentralised service protocol that involves an exchange of value must contend with the fact that the two parties involved have no reason to trust one another. Given the choice, each party would prefer to maximise the quality of their own outcome at the expense of the other party. Therefore, a trustless protocol is required - one where each party has a purely self-interested incentive to behave in a cooperative manner.
This fact considerably complicates the design of decentralized services. A decentralized service protocol that is as easy to use as centralized alternatives must have the following properties:
Once the service request has been made, the service provider is incentivised to do it's best to complete the work, without requiring any further action from the person making the request.
Payment is only made once the requested service has been completed.
Payment is guaranteed to be claimable once the service is completed, potentially some time after the initial request is made.
At first glance, this set of requirements appears difficult to achieve - almost contradictory. Two problems present themselves:
How can it be determined that the service was completed, without any input from the service requestor, and in a way that cannot be abused to any actor's advantage?
How can payment for the service be guaranteed, once the service is completed, without the service requestor's input?
Last updated