Bisq 2 (Bisq Easy)
7.1/10 total
A separate application from Bisq 1, not an upgrade to it, released as v2.0.0 on 16 March 2024 and shipping the Bisq Easy protocol. The escrow model is the whole difference: Bisq 1 locks both sides' bitcoin in a 2-of-2 multisig with security deposits, while Bisq Easy has no escrow and no deposit at all. The buyer sends fiat, the seller then sends bitcoin directly, and the only thing protecting the buyer is that the seller burned BSQ to build a reputation that is destroyed if they cheat. A mediator can talk to both sides but cannot move anyone's coins.
Scores
Weights are published in the method and applied identically to every entry.
For
- No account, no email, no identity, ever; the app runs over Tor by default
- No trade fee, no security deposit and no miner fee for the buyer
- AGPL and built by the Bisq DAO, so the protocol and the client are both auditable
- Nothing is ever custodied: the seller sends bitcoin straight to the buyer's own wallet
- Designed for people with no bitcoin yet, who cannot post the collateral Bisq 1 demands
Against
- No escrow. If the seller takes your fiat and vanishes, the mediator can only ban them, not recover your money
- Reputation-backed pricing means sellers charge a premium that can be far above market on small trades
- Bitcoin only; the multisig protocol and monero atomic swaps are still roadmap items
- v2 has been out since March 2024, so its own track record is short even though Bisq 1 is a decade old
- Desktop application over Tor, which is slower and thinner on liquidity than a hosted marketplace
Agent access 1/10
A desktop JavaFX client on a Tor P2P overlay with no public REST API for trading, so an unattended agent cannot discover, quote or complete a Bisq Easy trade.
Reported separately and not counted in the total. It measures what an autonomous agent can do unattended, not whether the service is safe to use.
Fees
0% own fee
Bisq Easy charges the buyer no trade fee, no security deposit and no miner fee. The cost is the seller's premium, which the project's own wiki warned could run 10-15% above market because the seller is carrying all the counterparty risk and has burned BSQ to build reputation. Check the offer against spot; on a small trade the premium can dwarf any swap service's fee.
Specification
- Type
- Peer-to-peer
- KYC policy
- No KYC
- Custody model
- direct
- Account required
- no
- Assets
- 1
- Chains
- 1
- Operating since
- 2024
- Jurisdiction
- none
- Onion service
- yes
- Works without JS
- yes
- Open source
- yes
- Facts checked
- 2026-07-31
Links
Plain links, no referral parameters. Verify the domain yourself; phishing clones of every service in this table exist.