So, the basic escrow works by two people working through a third party to exchange (usually money) for some other form of goods or services.
In a transaction where both people are honest, the escrow business can essentially be automatic since the buyer gets his goods and approves release of funds, only when there is a dispute does human interaction become necessary. Therefore, I propose the following system:
-
you create an escrow transaction for the amount, authorised by your key and containing the recipient’s key/data etc - this block cannot be claimed until a subsequent block is issued by the buyer to approve it, it’s also impossible for the buyer to reclaim it without the seller approving it to be returned.
-
it enters the network, gets verified and the seller sends the goods, once the buyer gets them, he creates a release transaction and the seller gets his bitcoins.
-
if a dispute occurs and both parties are refusing to release the money one way or the other, clearly it’s now necessary to get a third party to arbitrate - in this situation, a signature from both the buyer and seller authorising a third party is required which will give that third party ownership of the original escrow transaction and they can then arbitrate the matter