Kleros has partnered with open source foundation Market Protocol to provide a decentralised trading and dispute resolution technology platform.

Kleros, whose name is derived from the Greek word for Kleroterion (a stone randomisation device used in democratic processes in ancient Greece), provides decentralised arbitration services for “virtually anything”.

The company proposes doing this using Ethereum smart contracts. Its dispute resolution technology can be used to arbitrate all kinds of disputes in industries such as e-commerce, finance and insurance.

Federico Ast, CEO of Kleros, says: “As in other critical use cases such as e-commerce and payments, this is another step for our protocol to build the dispute resolution infrastructure for the global decentralised economy to operate smoothly and securely.”

Seth Rubin, CEO and co-founder of Market Protocol, adds: “With trustless settlement, we are guaranteed to have issues from time to time. This can be as simple as bad data or worse, malicious data.”

Market Protocol powers derivative trading of any asset – of which Kleros says creates a framework allowing traders to establish long or short positions without lending or borrowing.

Contracts are guaranteed solvent with no counterparty risk. Users can trade cross-chain, off-chain or on-chain relationships, such as Monero/ETH or APPL/stablecoin using ERC20 assets as collateral while remaining on the Ethereum blockchain.

According to Kleros, the protocol provides the pieces necessary for others to create decentralised exchanges and applications.

Market Protocol’s first beta dApp was released on Rinkeby test network in April.

Ink-ed

Back in March, Ink Protocol, a Y-Combinator backed decentralised reputation and payments system for P2P marketplaces, said it will join forces with Kleros to provide users with a way to settle transaction disputes.

The plan is for Ink to offer a “trustless digital identity” for sellers that exists across multiple marketplaces.

Sellers build a public reputation over time, with buyers leaving a review after every transaction. This review is written onto the Ethereum blockchain – an immutable, permanent ledger.