I just shared this text in Komodo Platform Slack chat with others, explaining some bare basics and some tips for using BarterDEX. Just to help any new users who might be coming to test BarterDEX and might be having tough time using it.

BarterDEX is a new world. Absolutely different underneath as you expect Bitcoin is different from regular old Banking system.

So here are few main points to understand:

BarterDEX is a Decentralised Auction System to be accurate

BarterDEX is NOT really a decentralised exchange underneath at it’s core level. It is basically a decentralised Auction System. Unlike centralised exchanges it is not guaranteed what if you put the lower or higher price you will hit the orders at the top of the order book list and have it all filled and get those coins.

There are few factors which play in this process, which are UTXOs, and peer-to-peer BarterDEX network which connects it’s Sellers and Buyers to each other.

BarterDEX uses UTXOs instead of address Balances

UTXOs

In BarterDEX, instead of address balances, it uses something called UTXOs (Unspent Transaction Outputs). UTXOs are the number of small amounts of deposits which are sitting in there in your single address, and total of them all shows to you as balance. In BarterDEX GUI, you should check ‘Inventory’ to see all your UTXO’s and the deposits/amount sizes there per UTXOs.

Balance section in Exchange screen

Output of Inventory Button for KMD

The orders showing in order book are showing UTXOs as the number of UTXOs there are in the address of buyer/seller in their DEX smartaddress.

Order book of CHIPS/KMD

The Average Volume is the average volume of all the UTXOs in that address, which are on buy/sell order.

ZCredit is the level of amount some trader has deposited as a security. In case I have deposited 10 KMD as security, I can do any trade under 10 KMD worth without any confirmation waiting between atomic swap trades.

Clicked on CLAIM DEPOSIT button to see check status of deposited security funds to get zero block confirmation speed trading mode.

My ZCredit score will be dynamically updating on order book as per the equivalent of trades I’ll be doing/busy with.



Example out of 10, if I have an order in process of 2 KMD worth, my ZCredit will update as 8 KMD in order book listings



when the order of 2 KMD worth will be finished, my ZCredit will update back to 10 KMD on order books.

Showing order amounts, My Offer tab showing placed offer in market, and my offer highlighted in order book, with adjusted ZCredit according to my order value placed.

Sometimes it may go down as it depends on how many multiple or single big order it is processing. that is way for some the ZCredit it may show in negative. In case it is negative, you can expect the trade request happening with these traders will not be 0 confirmation trades. So there can be waiting involved of block confirmations between these different coins.

Order books are cached and shared on network

Also, note that the order books are updating based on the cache of the peers you are connected to. It is not a centralised order book, but a peer-to-peer shared order book which updates between all the network, exactly like how bitcoin peer-to-peers network work. So in case the order you canceled still show up in network, that can most probably be due to this cache data propagated with other peers. It will update sometime soon so don’t worry about the orders you closed showing up in network.

My Offers tab showing red stop buttons to cancel the orders placed in network.

In case you have canceled the order, by clicking on red stop button in My Offers tab, that will not complete any orders from the network coming to your node.

BarterDEX uses all UTXOs from your address when you place an offer

Note that whenever you put a trade in BarterDEX expect that the whole balance, means all UTXOs are on order. not just specific balance.

MOST IMPORTANT: Do multiple deposits to BarterDEX receiving address

The most important thing is to deposit more than 1 deposit to your BarterDEX address. Else, you won’t have much success first time playing with BarterDEX.

To decide what size of deposits you need to put in BarterDEX, just click on either buyer side or seller side order list, and check on the total of order amount it will cost.

Use that amount + 1% as deposit amount for a transaction in your smartaddress

Clicked on bottom order list with all values showing in row, it populated the BID CHIPS input fields with correct value and gave Total calculated cost example.

And the second transaction of like 1% of the amount that you will be sending to that smartaddress.

Receive button shows this dialog box. READ THE RED TEXT!

And may be 3rd transaction too, something in between or whatever amount you think of adding as extra amount to be used for further trades.

Once the trading starts with required UTXOs, it should not complain about the UTXO issues later on, as BarterDEX will keep making the set of UTXOs as you keep trading.

Have patience. You sometimes has to wait before executing next action

And sometimes you should wait for minimum of a minute when it gives some error or red notification on top right… depends on case to case. just give that same action a retry after 1 minute or so and most probably you won’t get those issues.

Trying to place offer right after putting an offer a second ago.

These are all the basic tips and tricks to get started with BarterDEX.

Hope these helps.

Happy Decentralised Trading,

Satinder Grewal