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Winklevoss Twins’ Bitcoin Exchange
- TomGullen 11y agoInteresting (unfortunate?) time to launch this with the malleability attacks going on.
- eterm 11y agoIs this a dank meme based on the fall of mtgox or are there actually malleability attacks going on?
- patio11 11y agoThe Bitcoin network is presently undergoing a malleability attack designed to cause Bitcoin nodes to run out of memory. http://motherboard.vice.com/read/i-broke-bitcoin http://motherboard.vice.com/read/i-broke-bitcoin
- haakon 11y agoNot quite; there are two separate attacks currently ongoing against Bitcoin: * The malleability attack: a transaction relayer is able to change the hash of the transactions, thus confusing senders or receivers who rely on this hash to check if the transaction has confirmed. This creates a nuisance, but all money arrive where they are supposed to. This attack does not affect memory usage on nodes, and it's an old and well-known issue. * A transaction spam attack (misleadingly called a "stress test") where a shady group called coinwallet.eu creates a large amount of big transactions. These mostly have appopriate fees so that regular users who want their transactions to confirm in a timely manner has to out-bid the spammer. All the unconfirmed transactions are stored in the memory of nodes, so this severely affects memory usage (currently about 1 GB on some nodes).
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- celticninja 11y agothat is not a bad thing. edit: OP criticised the site not have a Facebook login option.
- bko 11y ago> Gemini operates fully in the United States. We work exclusively with American banks; your dollars are eligible for FDIC insurance and never leave the country Is this just for the cash balance with the exchange or the bitcoin balance as well? I can't imagine it does, but it would be a strong selling point if it did. If its not, its pretty misleading as written. > FDIC insurance covers all types of deposits received at an insured bank, including deposits in a checking account, negotiable order of withdrawal (NOW) account, savings account, money market deposit account (MMDA), time deposit such as a certificate of deposit (CD), or an official item issued by a bank, such as a cashier's check or money order. > FDIC insurance covers depositors' accounts at each insured bank, dollar-for-dollar, including principal and any accrued interest through the date of the insured bank's closing, up to the insurance limit.The FDIC does not insure money invested in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, life insurance policies, annuities or municipal securities, even if these investments are purchased at an insured bank. [0] https://www.fdic.gov/deposit/covered/ https://www.fdic.gov/deposit/covered/
- ryanworl 11y agoI think it is written fairly. Bitcoins and not dollars, and the rest of those things you listed that are covered by FDIC insurance are denominated in dollars. If someone (not you specifically) cannot understand the difference between dollars and bitcoins, they shouldn't be trading currencies.
- bko 11y agoWell, some people want exposure to bitcoins without necessarily understanding the block chain, recourse or anything really. That's the whole pitch behind everything the Winklevosses do in this domain. That's why they opened a bitcoin exchange traded fund and that's probably their rationale behind this exchange. Saying that "your dollars are eligible for FDIC insurance and never leave the country" makes someone think that their bitcoin balance is FDIC insured. I wasn't sure at first either and stock exchanges very explicitly state that their products are not FDIC insured and may lose value. Maybe the exchange has a similar disclaimer when you buy bitcoins on the exchange but I still think its a bit misleading to have that basically front and center. Nothing wrong with wanting to invest in bitcoins without fully understanding them.
- gregwtmtno 11y agoVery slick identity verification process. Instead of requiring a scan of your driver's license or other identifying document, they ask you for questions about your history. I've seen a similar process used at etrade.
- roymurdock 11y agoWhat is the difference between this exchange and say, Coinbase, that makes it "next generation"? The website is very light on details.
- Caprinicus 11y agoWell for a start coinbase is not an exchange
- quotha 11y agosure it is: https://exchange.coinbase.com/ https://exchange.coinbase.com/
- adam12 11y agoYou might want to let coinbase know that. https://exchange.coinbase.com/ https://exchange.coinbase.com/
- pmorici 11y agoYeah they are. They wern't originally but they launched 'Coinbase Exchange' a while back and now offer both their traditional broker service as well as Exchange services.
- arpit 11y agoFrom Tyler Winklevoss's answer on the Product Hunt page for Gemini: "Gemini is a New York state limited liability trust company, we did not apply for or have a BitLicense which is a much lower standard. As a limited liability trust company we are a fiduciary, which allows us to accept both individual and institutional customers under New York Banking Law (unlike the BitLicense, which does not convey such fiduciary powers). In short, we can work with both Main Street and Wall Street." Source: https://www.producthunt.com/tech/gemini-2 https://www.producthunt.com/tech/gemini-2
- roymurdock 11y agoSo the difference is that they're trying to play nice with regulators from day 1, rather than breaking the rules and rolling with the legal punches in order to serve early adopters?
- artursapek 11y agoIt's live! You can see there is some activity starting: https://cryptowat.ch/gemini https://cryptowat.ch/gemini Also, there was a great post on /r/bitcoinmarkets by the CTO of another exchange, picking apart Gemini's technical setup. Worth a read if you're into modern frontend web development. https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/3nkxh3/gemini_approved_for_launch/cvp219l https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/3nkxh3/gemi...
- SuperKlaus 11y agoHe's really just looking at the frontend side of things.
- colinplamondon 11y agoI find this kind of analysis way more interesting than highscalability. Different audiences, but these kind of frontend-centric articles are incredibly actionable.
- dubcanada 11y agoI'm not sure if 'picking apart Gemini's technical setup' is the right way to describe it, I tend to think of 'picking apart' being negative while the comments are entirely positive.
- artursapek 11y agoI meant it as in he scrutinized it.
- sandGorgon 11y agointeresting... still doesnt talk about the actual API stack though. Conformal is using golang and Coinbase is using Ruby... wonder what these guys are using.
- STRML 11y agoHey - author of that post here. I can't tell for sure what the stack is by looking at its output, but judging by common experience in the LinkedIn profiles of the engineers, it looks most likely that it's Scala.
- dmalvarado 11y agoOn an unrelated note, can anyone tell me what that parallaxy, image sliding feature of their website is, so search for it and learn it?
- StriverGuy 11y agoI was just going to comment how nice the design is on this page. The parallax is very fluid and I love the 3-D line/polygon thing going on...
- hellbanner 11y agoStart here. http://keithclark.co.uk/articles/pure-css-parallax-websites/ http://keithclark.co.uk/articles/pure-css-parallax-websites/ http://keithclark.co.uk/articles/pure-css-parallax-websites/demo3/ http://keithclark.co.uk/articles/pure-css-parallax-websites/... .. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=vertical+parralax+css+template http://lmgtfy.com/?q=vertical+parralax+css+template
- uptown 11y agoHere's a demo and a tutorial: http://callmenick.com/post/simple-parallax-scrolling-effect http://callmenick.com/post/simple-parallax-scrolling-effect
- jonknee 11y agoSo now when does Mark Zuckerberg launch his Bitcoin exchange?
- 6stringmerc 11y agoWhen he moves to a new neighborhood and wants to cloak the source of funds that buy up all the adjacent properties?
- jeron 11y agoMy bet is that Zuckerberg intends to stay there for the rest of his life. Not to say that he can't buy other properties (and all their surrounding properties as well)
- lingben 11y agoThat's why lawyers and LLC's exist.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- shostack 11y agoDid this actually happen?
- jonknee 11y agoYes. He's now in a messy lawsuit over it. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-02/zuckerberg-s-neighbors-dive-into-backyard-brawl-with-developer http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-02/zuckerberg...
- shostack 11y agoThat was a fun read--thanks for the link. So basically the sellers are pissed because they MAYBE could have gotten more cash if they had held out longer, and Zuck obfuscated who was buying. Any claims against the agent aside, sounds like a major case of sour grapes.
- hellbanner 11y agoSo, Winklevoss + Bitcoins + HN. Who's found vulns?
- dabernathy89 11y agoNot operational in Texas yet, apparently.
- cmiles74 11y agoNor in Massachusetts.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- clamstew 11y agoDid Uber open source their css?
- tetrep 11y agoThey have a reassuring security page[0]. It's nice to see they're enforcing good practices, I especially appreciate their "no-link email policy" where they will never send you links in emails, which seems like a great way to head off phishing attempts. I hope they actually present this to users in some way during sign-up though, or it won't be of much help unless a user manually navigates to the security page and reads through most of it. I'm a little disappointed that they only have level 2[1] HSMs in the cloud, as I would be uncomfortable protecting my hot wallet keys with only tamper evident protections, rather than level 3+ that actually attempt to detect intrusion and delete keys. Bitcoin makes for very quick stealing once you have keys, so reactive defenses against key loss don't help much as you're literally in a race condition with the attacker to empty the wallet (you into a non-compromised one, the attacker into their own). But I would assume they weighed cost/risk and I've never heard of a security compromise of Amazon's HSMs so it was probably a reasonable choice. edit: I should also applaud their use of PGP and (explicit) respect for responsible disclosure. [0]: https://exchange.gemini.com/security https://exchange.gemini.com/security [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIPS_140-2#Level_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIPS_140-2#Level_2
- dtwhitney 11y agoI personally know many of the engineers at Gemini and have worked with some of them in the recent past. If I were going to choose a team to build a bitcoin exchange, the people I know at Gemini would be on it. If you're into bitcoin, I think this is the place to put your money.
- cenal 11y agoWhat benefit do they offer over something like Coinbase to a casual Bitcoin observer like me?
- benmmurphy 11y agoLooking at Coinbase and Gemini as a user I would probably prefer Gemini marginally because their bullshit about using HSM. They both seem to be hosted in AWS which from my POV is a major fuckup. Gemini and Coinbase are basically running a CTF where if you can find a hypervisor exploit and get lucky you can drain their hot wallet.
- Demeisen 11y agoHow does this not create a conflicting trademark with ISE Gemini?
- howdoipython 11y agoWhat is the best way to get bitcoin without associating it with your identity (credit cards, debt cards, etc). Accepting pre-paid cards is fine too
- 2mur 11y agoLocalbitcoin has sellers who accept cash-purchased gift card codes. You're going to pay above market rate.
- kordless 11y agoGo to a local bitcoin meetup. There will usually be someone there willing to do a trade. Bring cash.
- yc1010 11y agoOn localbitcoins.com or paxful.com you can buy bitcoin with prepaid vouchers, prepare to lose 20% for keeping your identity secure.
- coinclub 11y agocoinclub allows you to mail order bitcoin here: http://coinclubng3ykuyj.onion http://coinclubng3ykuyj.onion
- pnathan 11y agoNifty. I think this is the first BTC operation I've seen where words like "compliance" are used in a serious fashion, and a direct aim at institutional investors is presented. Institutional investors are Very Serious Business, so it should be a fun ride. I'm still holding out for a BTC ETF. :-)
- lemiffe 11y agoWhat a beautiful, fast website.
- smoreilly 11y agoHonestly when banks have crappy websites it makes me really feel like the engineers doing the backend work are terrible. I know this is a horrible bias but still if you can't spend the time to make a good website who says they didn't cut corners on security?
- Zelphyr 11y agoA local Credit Union had CAPTCHA's like, "4n1m4l" and (believe it or not) "b4nK3r". When I complained they snidely remarked that they were pretty sure they knew how to handle security. That may be, but they no longer have my money. Though, for what its worth, the biggest reason I left them is because they wanted to charge me a fee to deposit cash that my kids had saved up. "Because that's what Loomis Fargo charges us." So? Cost of doing business. The irony that they were CHARGING ME TO GIVE THEM MONEY was completely lost on that particular teller.
- heyheyhey 11y agoThis guy looks into the front-end stack https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/3nkxh3/gemini_approved_for_launch/cvp219l https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/3nkxh3/gemi...
- stevenh 11y agoIt was incredibly slow here. The tab locked up the entire browser for a full 7 seconds before I could begin scrolling. The rendering frame rate of scrolling was 3-4 FPS, and only jumped back up to a fluid rate once I scrolled down past all of the images. Late 2013 MacBook Pro running Chrome.
- joshu 11y agoha, "gemini", get it?
- colordrops 11y agoNo, what's the joke?
- kylecrum 11y agoGemini = Twins. The Winklevoss brothers are twins.
- cpwright 11y agoSeems like a bad choice to me given that ISE already has an Options exchange called Gemini.
- bduerst 11y agoKind of annoying that they try to push the Authy app install first, then let you authenticate without it. Love the interface, but would even greater if they would let you short somehow.
- teekert 11y ago"Thank you! We will notify you when Gemini has launched in Netherlands." Bleh.
- bitJericho 11y agoThis is the perfect opportunity to hawk my own exchange because we should all have alternatives. http://bitcoinsexchange.itmustbetrue.com http://bitcoinsexchange.itmustbetrue.com
- chillwaves 11y agoWhy would anyone want to have a sex change for their bit coins?