Revolutionizing International Trade: 5 Key Benefits of the ArbStore

The ArbStore is a platform that revolutionizes trust and dispute resolution in international trade online. It offers a secure framework for decentralized escrow and arbitration, eliminating the need for traditional intermediaries.

Parties involved in transactions can select expert arbiters from the available pool and create customized smart contracts within the platform —without coding or complex steps.

These contracts, powered by Obyte, are legal and based on predefined conditions, ensuring transparency and efficiency. The ArbStore fosters cost-effective, timely, and fair-trade interactions by providing a global, accessible, and customizable solution for resolving disputes without traditional courts or expensive middlemen.

In other words, anyone, everywhere, anytime, could access safe, decentralized, and easy international purchases and sales with strangers. We’ll explore here some of the advantages this will bring to international trade.

Global Accessibility

The ArbStore platform is accessible to parties from around the world, promoting inclusive and borderless trade interactions. With the ability to select arbiters based on their expertise and language proficiency, parties can effectively communicate and resolve disputes across different jurisdictions, languages, and cultures.

This accessibility enhances trust and cooperation among international trading partners.

Besides, one of the key factors contributing to the accessibility here is the utilization of cryptocurrencies.

Unlike traditional financial systems that often involve complex currency conversions, cross-border transaction fees, and delays, cryptocurrencies offer a seamless and efficient means of value exchange on a global scale.

It’s possible to use GBYTEs, stablecoins, or any other token available for importing to Obyte via Counterstake Bridge. ArbStore isn’t a financial entity, and it doesn’t hold or custody funds for the parties. By using digital assets, the ArbStore enables parties engaged in international trade to transact directly, bypassing the challenges associated with traditional fiat currencies.

Flexibility and Customization

ArbStore allows parties to tailor their trade agreements and dispute resolution mechanisms to their specific needs. Users can select arbiters with expertise relevant to their industry, ensuring that disputes are resolved by professionals with a deep understanding of the subject matter.

Additionally, the ability to choose among different arbiters with their own terms and fees offers flexibility and adaptability to various trade scenarios.

The creation of the contracts is fully customized as well. The parties can discuss their terms externally, or internally, by using the encrypted chat available in the Obyte wallet.

The contract is a written text, like any other legal contract, and both parties must read it and select an arbiter before depositing the funds and sending them.

However, the arbiter won’t be involved (or take any fees) unless one of the parties initiates a dispute. If the transaction goes as expected, the arbitration won’t be necessary.

On the other hand, Obyte also offers the creation of personalized tokens that require no coding skills. Its user-friendly interface facilitates the design of custom tokens to represent assets, services, or rights. These tokens can then be seamlessly integrated into contracts with arbitration via the ArbStore platform.

Speed and Efficiency

International trade can be hampered by time-consuming legal processes and bureaucratic hurdles. ArbStore's decentralized escrow and arbitration system streamlines dispute resolution. Smart contracts automatically execute once predefined conditions are met, ensuring the release of funds in a timely manner.

This accelerates the overall trade process, allowing parties to focus on their core business activities.

Of course, if one of the parties thinks that the agreed conditions weren’t met, they can involve the human factor in the form of an arbiter. It follows a process in which both parties must present their evidence and arguments to the arbiter.

The latter will be the last responsible for releasing the funds to the winning party, likely in some days.

It may not sound like a quick process in case of disputes, but traditional services could take weeks or even months to reach a result and require recognition and enforcement in the fiat world. Not to mention that international transactions with fiat money are usually cumbersome, slow, and expensive.

In the ArbStore case, once the arbiter has taken a decision based on their analysis of the facts and the documentation presented to them, they only need to click on a button to immediately release the funds from the smart contract.

Lower Costs

Traditional methods of international trade often involve significant costs, including legal fees, court expenses, and fees for intermediaries such as escrow agents. At the same time, settlement times could take several days, and negative changes in the economy worldwide (like banking issues, supply chain turbulence, or political sanctions) could seriously limit international trade.

By utilizing the ArbStore platform, parties can significantly reduce these costs. With transparent and competitive arbiter fees, users can choose the most cost-effective option for dispute resolution, ensuring that more resources are directed toward the actual trade transaction.

According to Aceris Law LLC, “For a relatively simple [international] arbitration requiring 1,500 hours of legal work, for instance, if billed at the rate of USD 300/hour, legal fees would equal USD 450,000 per arbitration.”

Some companies offer the service including a filing fee between $2,000 and $6,000, besides a high percentage to properly manage the case.

On the contrary, the ArbStore only takes 0.75% per case, and making any contract with arbitration (decentralized escrow) from the Obyte wallet only requires some very small ledger transaction fees. That’s between 700 and 5,000 bytes (up to $0.000060) per operation. There’s no such thing as a “filing fee” in the ArbStore.

Only in the event of a dispute, the plaintiff party has to pay the fee asked by the selected arbiter. That currently varies between 2% and 5%, with an optional minimum and maximum —e.g., “2%, min $50, max $1,000.”

Decentralization and Privacy

As we mentioned above, the Obyte wallet has an encrypted chat. This means no one but the involved parties could read or know about what’s in there. The messages (including the ones sent to a chatbot) and contracts are always stored in the user(s) device(s), and never in the cloud.

Therefore, no one, not even the ArbStore, the arbiter, or Obyte, have access to your data since the beginning. It’s completely decentralized and private.

Only if one of the parties decides to disclose the contract to other people or an arbiter is called to solve a dispute, the content of the agreement would be known to someone else. However, it’s important to note that the arbiters are bound by the ArbStore Privacy Policy.

Going a bit further, after arbitration, the losing party could share the contract with the ArbStore moderators to appeal the arbiter’s decision.

Nobody else learns about the terms of the contract unless, of course, required by law or any party discloses them, likely in violation of the contract’s own non-disclosure terms.

For their part, the funds will always be safe inside a decentralized smart contract built on Obyte. That means no one but the involved parties has access to them, not even the ArbStore or Obyte itself. That’s why it’s of the utmost importance to back up and protect the private keys from your wallet.

How to Start in the ArbStore?

It’s easy, it’s useful, and it’s cheap. First of all, both parties need to download, back up, and pair their Obyte wallets. This is a simple and light app available for Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The security settings are in the “Global Preferences” section, while the pairing is done by adding a new device (Contact) in the Chat tab.

Given that smart contracts only work with cryptocurrencies, one of the parties (the buyer) must fund their wallet with their preferred token. In the Receive tab, it’s possible to find a button to buy new coins. Independently of the contract currency, some funds in GBYTE will be necessary to pay transaction fees (usually less than $1).

The parties can discuss and copy their agreement through the encrypted chat, and select their preferred arbiter from the ArbStore. Once done, the buyer shares with the seller their Obyte address, and the seller offers a Contract with Arbitration by clicking on it. Then it’s just a matter of filling the spaces, paying for the contract, and shipping the goods.

The funds will be locked in the smart contract until the conditions are met. In case of dispute, the plaintiff contacts the previously selected arbiter, pays for their fees, and starts the arbitration process.

After studying the evidence presented by the parties, the arbiter releases the funds to the winning party. And that’s it!

Moreover, to register as an arbiter, it’s only necessary to follow the instructions of a chatbot in the Obyte wallet. You can read the Arbiter’s Guide too!

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