Nice to see permanent progress of Blocknet !

yes there are fees. amount to be decided.  fees paid to holders of the blocknet.  the current idea is that anyone with over 10,000 will get fees to start but this is not set in stone yet. as more users start using the DX this will come down. ask synechist for more info.  right now the UI is the next step.

unless blocknet can accept and pay USD to and from my bank without a intermediary holding it, then its not the distributed exchange I am looking for...I know thats a big ask...but there it is the only way to put the exchange risk out of business

For the time being, I suggest using fiat gateways to get across the fiat:crypto divide.

They're regional and centralised by nature, so aren't a natural component of a protocol-based, borderless decentralised exchange.

We've been putting a bit of time into the notion of a coin pegged to USD. This way, traders could park their coins somewhere stable instead of sleeping in BTC. However, it's not clear how to keep this both decentralised and non-gameable.

For now, you can trade trustlessly across any currency pair that uses either the Bitcoin Core API or the Ethereum codebase.

Stay safe.

Maybe use "Tether" for that? It is an Omni asset already pegged to the USD.

Yes, that came up in conversation - and I'm an old follower of Omni Mastercoin.

I need to check out their implementation, especially its degree of centralisation (if any).

If it's trustless in the required respects, then I see no problem in using it. Way better than reinventing the wheel. :-)

Just keeping this current:

I think you have to PM your working email to synechist:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=148620

I think time is running out for Block to be purchased under 100k sats.