Hi stashers. Solo dev from Switzerland here. Since February I run kashilo.com, a classifieds site (think Craigslist / Kleinanzeigen) built for people who want to buy and sell real goods with Monero and without handing over an identity.
What it does today:
- No email, no phone, no name. Your account is a random key that never leaves your device.
- Chat is end-to-end encrypted. Keys are derived on your device, so I cannot read messages. I do not want to.
- Listings are free, run 100 days, renew for free.
- Proof-of-work captcha instead of reCAPTCHA. No Google, no cookies.
- Prices in XMR or fiat with live conversion. Payment is peer-to-peer between you and the other side. I never touch funds.
- Reputation grows only through deals both parties confirmed.
- Blind meeting points for in-person trades, listings that self-destruct after the deal, public Q&A on listings.
- Opt-in mirroring to Nostr as NIP-99 events, so a listing also shows up in Nostr marketplace clients.
- Seven languages. Focus is DACH (Switzerland, Germany, Austria), but nothing stops you elsewhere.
Not there yet, no point hiding it: no escrow (a 2/3 Monero multisig with me as arbiter only is designed, not built), and the code is not public yet (AGPL release is planned).
Honest numbers: the listing fee was 0.10 USD in XMR and made about 3.70 USD in five months, so I dropped it. Listings keep coming in. Confirmed deals in six months: one. Supply exists, buyers who actually spend XMR on goods do not, or deals die somewhere between chat and handover.
What I can see as operator: that a listing exists, that two pseudonymous accounts exchanged encrypted messages about it, and when. What I cannot see: what they wrote. Same limit as any server-relayed E2E chat, and it is written in the privacy policy.
So my question to people who actually spend Monero: what would make you buy a used bike, a phone, or a book from a stranger for XMR? Escrow first? More reach? Lower prices? A different category mix? Or is p2p classifieds simply not how you spend?
I read every reply and will tip the useful ones.
I hope I won't duplicate other comments in the thread, but my guess is your issue isn't with people that want to spend monero; it's more closely tied to network effects and marketing. This is my first time hearing about your project, and something of this nature requires that you put it in front of the target customers so that they are away of it's existence and will likely have more people using it. Just visited the site now and i like its design and very easy to navigate as well. As someone operating a two sided market, you have the classic chicken and egg problem where you need both buyers and sellers to join at a relatively equal rate. In conclusion, it's the marketing that you need more focus on atm in my opinion, as there are definitely a lot of people (myself included) who are more than glad to spend xmr
Thank you and no duplication needed, the thread is unanimous: reach first. Since yesterday a few things landed from this very thread: a chosen name, a profile picture and a signed proof that links a kashilo profile to an X or Nostr account, checkable at kashilo.com/verify/Schmidt. If you ever spend XMR here and something is confusing, say so, I read everything.
First, @untraceable is right here on the first problem: people simply do not know Kashilo exists: every time I mention it (and I do mention it!), the answer is "never heard of it". I already put it next to XmrBazaar on the earn-XMR list here (also re-shared on Twitter, Substack, Nostr, Pitch, Dread) but one list is not reach. Supply without word-of-mouth is just a catalog...
Second: the multistep Monero multisig is a real pain point. I do not think custodial escrow is a good idea (just an example!) but if Kashilo had a simple escrow flow, that alone would attract people to sell/buy physical goods: a lot of bazaar users complained about multisig ceremony.
@SoulReaver mentioned spirobel’s FROST/offline-arbiter design is the more interesting path (and Anarkio is looking into it already). Still: new multisig escrow has to earn trust in public: people need to believe they will not lose the money before they will lock it.
Third, personal. I live and breath this parallel Monero economy, I still will not buy physical goods for XMR (and I get why you do not want digital goods on Kashilo).
Two reasons:
P.S. If this reads as "team bazaar", it is not: I want the counter-economy (with or without Monero). It is personal: it helped me survive when I was not allowed to work -age- and documents-wise. States keep studying System D and admitting they cannot kill it. I just want to give back to thing that helped me and help more people who are ready step out of that trap.
This 🐈⬛ is me :)
https://stasher.news/uploads/279
Thank you, also for sharing kashilo in five places before I ever asked. "Never heard of it" is the honest state and the thread agrees: reach first.
Escrow: no custodial variant, agreed. The ceremony complaint is the useful part. If an escrow needs a ceremony the user notices, it has already lost. FROST with offline arbiters is the path I will read into and trust for it has to be earned in public and in small amounts first.
Your two personal reasons hit hardest. Safety: blind meeting points hide the address, shipping exists, but nothing yet hides your address from the seller, like a parcel locker. That gap is real. And "spend Monero only on what only Monero buys" reframes the whole category question. A used bike is fiat's job. Anti-surveillance hardware, privacy phones, the things that keep the parallel economy running, that is what a Monero catalog should be full of. I did not see that clearly before today.
re: Anti-surveillance
I wrote on my Substack What XmrBazaar’s Best-Selling Categories Reveal
https://stasher.news/uploads/282
Crossposted here if you want to discuss this topic separately: What XmrBazaar’s Best-Selling Categories Reveal
That is the uncomfortable part and thank you for the data. kashilo excludes services and digital goods by rule and your numbers say the demand sits exactly there: proxy shopping, assistance, accounts held on someone else's name. Gift cards are allowed. Proxy shopping is a service, so today it is out.
I chose "physical goods only" to keep fraud and legal exposure small for a one-person operation. Whether that is a principle or just caution I have to think about properly, not promise in a comment. What I take from your piece tonight: the winning category is "break the surveillance chain", and a used-goods board does not do that on its own.
re: Gift cards are allowed
From personal experience, gift cards are impossible to verify. See, for example, my mediator's terms:
You need that multisig.
Consider newer stuff for it, thought this's uncharted grounds:
#338506
There're parts of bazaar some people don't agree with, read the forums, study the conversation, see how you can differentiate your site and if you can iterate faster. If you truly believe your platform is solving pain points of people better/faster, just shill it there gracefully/elegantly.
https://xmrbazaar.com/forum/
If you don't feel like reading all the convo, ask an LLM like Manus to crawl the whole thing and give you a summary or link for important threads.
I don't think you need to wait for seller permission to advertise their stuff on social media, they get free hosting of the listing, it's reasonable you get reasonable right to post about it on social media. After all it's for benefit of everyone. The seller would benefit of being on a platform that's actively pushing promotion of their listing and the platform rather than not doing it.
I was following your @kashilo on social media but stopped since it was sharing generic info type of stuff last I checked. Signal/noise ratio on social media is important IMO, sometimes less is more.
You think no email is a feature, perhaps for some, but how would people get notified of new orders? Expecting people to sit on website is lacking UX. IDK if your platform allows for P2P Monero exchange listings, but no way I'm making a listing and constantly checking a small platform to see if there's any new orders, you better lower the energy needed for people to try it via offering external notifications like emails etc. or simplex whatever.
I logged into my acc, name shows "SubtleMoose52" wtf that's, no way to change username? If I can't set my name to SoulReaver, no multisig, no way for anyone to trust me on your platform in any way shape or form. You might be leaning on anon angle too much, missing the portion that trust is derived from clean reputation.
Your platform has cleaner design in some sense but too barebones. Bazaar might look busy but relative to amount of listings and sellers, the actual sales are limited. By some averages and there's like 8 sales/day happening, and it's average, meaning surely it skews towards somewhere. That's the market share you're trying to get a slice from currently, good for you to consider.
Some of it is really marketing, you need good yappers/shillers, or become one yourself.
etc.
Thanks, that is a lot of useful signal.
Multisig: agreed, it is the biggest gap. I had 2-of-3 with the platform as arbiter on paper; the DKG approach with offline arbitrators in your post is new to me and I will read it properly.
Notifications: you do not have to sit on the site. Browser push exists for new messages, questions and expiring listings, in-app notifications too. No email by design and nothing like SimpleX yet. If push is not enough for sellers, that is worth hearing.
Username: you are right, the name is generated at registration and cannot be changed today. That is a gap, not a principle. Reputation on the platform comes from confirmed deals, and a name you actually chose is part of that.
Social: promoting listings only with the seller's tick is a deliberate choice, some sellers here do not want their listing on X or Nostr at all. The generic posts on X are fair criticism, fewer and more concrete is the fix.
Bazaar forum: will read. Eight sales a day as the whole market is a sobering and useful number.
Your site’s design looks really clean and loads very quickly so well done on creating something like this! (I did notice the location map being blocked though)
Your question needs a bit of a preamble.
I do think you are missing the point if your assumption is that improved features will make people use your site.
There is a difference between having a well designed website and a good product. Development and marketing are different fields of expertise and unfortunately for developers marketing is the king of product/service adoption.
One thing that will need to be overcome is customer objections such as:
Why would I use this over XMR Bazaar?
If I’m being perfectly honest I don’t see any reason to use this site right now over something like XMR Bazaar. The Bazaar has the added advantage of being constantly marketed via the Monero Talk podcast and Douglas Tuman who is respected and trusted in the community. There is also the annual Monerotopia conference which drives traffic and engagement to the site. The boosted posts also demonstrate that people are making XMR on the site through advertising listings. Not to mention everyone who already has listings and the motivation to drive their own networks to the site.
I honestly think you would be better partnering with the folks behind XMR Bazaar and offering your services, use this website as a demonstration of your skill and drive.
To answer your question specifically in terms of what would make someone buy a bike. The Monero community needs to understand that total anonymity is great for escaping tyranny but is damaging to business.
In business there needs to be an element of transparency, people need to know that you are putting your reputation on the line if nothing else, should you prove to be a crook in trade. This is particularly true for people outside of internet culture / tech.
There is great risk meeting face to face to pick up a bike for example. Facebook marketplace overcomes this by linking your listing to your personal Facebook profile. Before I pick up a bike I can review someone's posts and image uploads and determine if they look trustworthy or if they might mug me lol
Right now the Monero community is very small, and the need for two marketplaces is not necessary. I think if you wanted to continue with this project the best thing you could do is mimic Facebook marketplace in its layout and advertising. Meta has spent $$$ fine tuning that site and you can essentially leverage all their research. Right now something XMR Bazaar does not do too well is finding listings close to your location for pick up. It does this with manual input but really needs to make listing more relevant without manual customization. Also having all the boosted posts at the top of the site will accustom users to ignore them like people do for the first search result in Google. Notice how in Facebook Marketplace the ads are randomly distributed among the listings relevant by category and location.
Other than that you need to build an audience before you build the product or align yourself with an existing audience through partnerships. Amazon really grew through affiliate marketing.
My goal here is to encourage you not discourage you, entrepreneurs don’t fail they learn and you clearly are a very skilled and accomplished developer. I hope this gives you some direction!
Thank you, this is the kind of answer I hoped for.
Map: which browser or blocker? Tiles and geocoding come straight from openstreetmap.org, so a strict blocker stops them. Proxying that through my own server is worth doing anyway, one less third party.
XMR Bazaar: I am not trying to replace it and I will not pretend the numbers say otherwise. What kashilo does differently: no email or login identity, chat the operator cannot read, seven languages, European focus. Whether that is reason enough is exactly what the one confirmed deal answers today.
Trust: agreed and it is the bet. No identity, but reputation from deals both sides confirmed, capped per partner so friends cannot inflate it, a photo verification with a generated code, public Q&A on each listing. All of it is thin until deals exist. Chicken and egg and marketing, not features, is the way out. Point taken.
Location: radius search exists (5 to 200 km) but you have to set it. Making nearby the default is a good call.
using Brave - this is the message I see:
Access Blocked
App is not following the tile usage policy of OpenStreetMap's volunteer-run servers: osm.wiki/blocked
Thanks for the detail. That message comes from OpenStreetMap's tile servers. From here the tiles load fine and the site sends no referrer at all, so I cannot reproduce it. OSM blocks some exit ranges. Either way the right fix is the same: stop loading map tiles from OSM's volunteer servers and serve them from my side, which also keeps your IP away from a third party. Noted.
Correction. Douglas Tuman pointed out on X that XmrBazaar's chat is encrypted client-side as well and that signup there needs no email either. Both true, see their FAQ. So two of the four points above are not differences, and I was wrong to list them as such. What actually differs is smaller: kashilo has no password and no chosen username, the account is a key that stays on your device. Languages and the European focus stand
I would consider myself pretty in-tune with what exists in the Monero ecosystem, and the first time I heard about Kashilo was earlier this week in a post of AilliA's here: #339008
Besides that, Network effects: XMR Bazaar has existed for much longer and users already trust it. these users have little reason to switch platforms until kashilo has the same level of trust and as good user experience, not just listings. Sellers, however, don't have much at risk, they don't really have much to lose by putting a listing up. That explains your "lots of listings but few deals" conundrum.
In my view, the two things you should try to tackle are :
1- marketing, get some word of mouth going, get your name out more, and show off what you're building, promote interesting listings. Show up in social media. Go on Monero Talk/Monerotopia
2-patience/perseverance.
Thanks and thanks for the pointer to AilliA's list. I had not seen it.
Your diagnosis is the sharpest one in this thread: sellers risk nothing, so free listings pile up while buyers, who carry the risk, stay where trust already exists. Dropping the fee removed friction and created no demand, which is the same finding from the other side.
Marketing it is. One constraint I keep: listings get promoted on X or Nostr only when the seller ticks the box for it, so "show off interesting listings" runs on opt-in. Slower but consistent with the rest.
Patience: noted and taken.
I just had another look, and something else that is a problem is that when you choose a region, if there's no items for that region, it seems to just default you to a different region. So for example, I chose United States, and instead of seeing United States listings, I'm seeing listings in Nuremberg.
I don't think it would be a problem if you put something like no listings found in the location and then put a spacer and put something like listings in other regions.
But if I click on United States and click search, and it finds zero listings, it should not tell me it found 30 listings, for example. Which is what it does now
I must say I also do like the fact that listings get removed after 100 days of inactivity. That is one feature that other marketplaces ought to copy.
You found a real bug, not a fallback. The country selector was never wired to the query, so whatever you picked, you got every listing. Worse than what you described and it also means what I told X_Presso above about the country filter was wrong at the time.
Fixed and deployed just now: the filter actually filters, "All countries" is the new default and a shared link like kashilo.com/?country=us opens with the selector set and an honest zero. Reload once if you still see the old version. Your "no listings here, but here is what exists elsewhere" idea is better than a bare zero and goes on the list.
I'm not sure about the wording about handing over the item. I was not sure if that meant you had to meet the person in person at all times and weren't able to exchange an item through the mail at all.
The way I read your site was that the only method to receive the item you are looking for is for a physical handover to occur, and that would be difficult with the size of the Monero community, especially in smaller locations
Fair point and that one is on me. Shipping is supported: every listing has a "Shipping available" checkbox plus a shipping cost and both show on the listing. Meeting points are optional for people who prefer to hand over in person. Address exchange for a shipment happens in the encrypted chat, so it stays between the two of you.
The impression comes from my post and from the About page, which highlights meeting points and never mentions shipping. That page gets fixed. Thanks for reading closely.
One final thing, and this is your personal preference, and I can understand why, but this stops people from listing items that they resell and don't have physical possession of.
Say I currently have a store on Bazaar selling new phones. Well, I don't actually have those new phones in my possession. If somebody orders a new phone, I would then turn around and order it from Amazon, etc. and have it delivered to them.
Nothing in the terms stops that. The rule is physical goods only, no services or digital items. The "proof of possession" photo is optional: a listing without it is simply unverified and buyers see that. So a reseller who orders on demand can list, they just cannot carry the verified badge, which seems fair to the buyer. If you meant something else on the site that reads as a ban, point me to it.
ah, my bad. In that case, I was under the incorrect impression that you could not list an item without the verification photo. I'll chalk that up to me not reading properly
Your site seems clear. I’ll love to see listing in other parts of the world. I wonder if I create listings where I live that might spark the fire here…
Thanks, and yes, please do. Listings are not limited to Switzerland: the location picker accepts any place OpenStreetMap knows and the country filter in search covers 25 countries so far (US, Canada, UK, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa among them). If yours is missing from the filter, tell me which one and I add it.
One seller who actually answers is how a region starts. Post something real you would sell anyway, and let me know here what was confusing along the way.
@AilliA said
This is where her and I disagree. I want anti-surveillance things as well as bikes, laundry soap, etc.
We don’t disagree @shortwavesurfer2009 :)
That line was my current situation, not the destination. The goal is the same as yours: 100% income and 100% spending inside the Monero parallel economy including bikes and laundry soap :)) But as long as I still have dirty fiat, I spend the dirty fiat first (rn that pile is 99.(9)%).
Oh, see, I've made it a habit of putting every bit of dirty fiat that I can possibly put into Monero, into Monero, as soon as I get hold of it. As like a hot potato, I get rid of it as soon as I possibly can and put it in Monero, so I have very little dirty fiat left.