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Buttercoin – US-based Bitcoin exchange
- ck2 13y agoThere are a few US based now right? Can the market support so many US exchanges? (do any have working USD ?) buttercoin (no selling yet? ACH? wire? CC?) coinbase (technically not an exchange but USD works) campbx (bank halted ACH/wire transfers on January 31, 2014) kraken (located in SF, USD back soon: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7321703 ) coinsetter (in beta, bank approved USD) cryptsy (located in FL, USD soon, registered Money Services Business/BSA/FinCEN) coinlab (never opened exchange) coinmx (may not actually be in US, overseas CC charges, be careful)
- EricDeb 13y agoI think kraken (https://www.kraken.com/ https://www.kraken.com/) is based in the US as well.
- fastest963 13y agoI signed up and they won't let me exchange USD<->BTC because they're not registered yet. Is anyone else able actually use them?
- contingencies 13y agoWe are in the death throws of partnering with a much larger bank to facilitate USD settlement connectivity at the quality our users deserve. We completed our relationship with our last parter about a week ago. It sounds like you just joined during the short intermission... hang in there.
- ScottBurson 13y agoLet's hope the throes aren't really that deathly :-)
- saxaholic 13y agoI joined six weeks ago and am still only pre-verified for tiers 2 and 3. I doubt that the reason fastest963 can't trade USD is because of the reason you just gave. Kraken needs to be more forthcoming with which states it's properly registered in to deal with USD, because I know it's not registered in California or Kansas.
- contingencies 13y agoI will emphasize that this is not my area and I am not commenting in an official capacity but IIRC it's less about 'registered in', and more about 'has state-specific financial licenses for' versus 'has a business presence in' versus individual state law. Somewhat like the mess that is US the domestic tax nexus. Anyway, I believe there are legal reasons why, owing to the above, we are not allowed to divulge state-on-state policy. We have a really good legal team. Yes, this sounds nuts and is entirely counterintuitive, but that's the US legal system for you.
- ck2 13y agokraken is owned by payward which is a UK business https://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/ltd/payward https://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/ltd/payward Their bank is German. I don't think it is a US business. Oh wait, maybe yes: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1rztum/release_the_kraken_part_2/cdsjrcu http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1rztum/release_the_... CEO is Jesse Powell. Company address is in San Francisco
- EricDeb 13y agoAh well their site contact office is US so I just assumed. Good correction - parent companies are important in the world of bitcoin.
- contingencies 13y agoThis is incorrect - I suppose we should make this clearer on our site. For the record: Kraken is owned and operated by Payward. Payward's parent company is a US company. The Payward entity in the UK is one of many overseas entities that we have across half a dozen jurisdictions already, and that number is growing... particularly here in Asia.
- waterlesscloud 13y agoAmong the coin traders I know, no one is at all clear on where you're based. You definitely need to be a lot more obvious about it. :-)
- presty 13y agoThe coin traders you know need to get better info. They are based in SF and Jesse can be usually found at the SF Bitcoin Meetup.
- drcode 13y agoFirst time I've ever seen someone complain about too many bitcoin exchanges :)
- benajnim 13y agoUntil there's one that doesn't suck, there should be more competition keeping the exchanges innovating and improving their services to be more competitive.
- MartinCron 13y agoA stable market ecosystem should have at least two that don't suck.
- VanV 13y agoI think it's a bit of a stretch to include coinlab, they don't seem to ever have actually launched a US exchange. Also, Kraken looks to be US based but don't yet allow US customers to trade USD pairs, only crypto/crypto so far. Would also really like to see exchanges offer proper websocket/streaming API access, so far the only two who have shut down (Bitfloor, MtGox). Trying to write a proper trading algo against unreliable "REST" APIs is generally an exercise in frustration.
- contingencies 13y agoWe literally just suspended USD pairs last week as we are upgrading our connectivity to a much larger bank that can offer us the quality of USD settlement our users deserve. We'll be live again with USD very soon. In the mean time, we still have other conventional currencies... notably EUR.
- ok_craig 13y agoThey're all "USD soon" but none of them actually have it. The real race is to getting that available. Til then none of them will really take off, since you can't really trade between USD and bitcoin if you can't deposit or withdraw the USD.
- ck2 13y agoIt leads me to believe the government might be convincing banks not to do business with bitcoin. Note how campbx's bank yanked their account. Others are having a lot of difficulty getting a bank to work with them. Free market says some bank should have stepped up by now unless maybe there are outside influences stopping them.
- dinkumthinkum 13y agoDo you think banks really need convincing not to business with bitcoin?
- dobbsbob 13y agoRisk, banks don't want to deal with it since a tsunami of fraudulent wires will be heading their way because scammers can turn their botnet obtained bank logins to untraceable bitcoins. That and all sorts of black PR on cryptocurrencies they don't want extra work for their compliance officers. Offshore banks don't seem to mind but it will cost hefty transfer fees
- jccooper 13y agoYou can get USD in and out of CampBX. You just have to do it with money orders. (Which is nearly as fast as ACH, though much less convenient.)
- waterlesscloud 13y agoI wouldn't expect CampBX to survive a lot longer. Without a banking partner they're fighting a very steep battle. Their volume has always been tiny tiny tiny even in the best of times.
- janzer 13y agoFrom the casual attention I pay to this, I thought Coinbase was one of the, if not the, largest US exchange at this point. I'm surprised no one has even mentioned it here. Am I missing something?
- gnaritas 13y agoCoinbase is not an exchange; they're a broker, when you buy there you're buying from Coinbase, not from someone else's sell order like you would at an exchange. Exchanges match buyers to sellers.
- losvedir 13y agoIs it disclosed where Coinbase gets their bitcoin?
- gnaritas 13y agoFound this... From Brian Armstrong, Coinbase Agent, via the coinbase support site, 11 Nov 2012: "We integrate with a variety of exchanges and also hold our own reserves. When you sell your bitcoins for USD we usually sell them to other Coinbase users at some point down the line (this is where our reserves come from), but we may cash them out if needed. In general, our goal is to abstract away some of the complexity so it's a simpler process for our users. What we have now is a good start but not finished by any means. Hope it helps!"
- npongratz 13y agoThis doesn't prove Coinbase gets their Bitcoin from Bitstamp, but the plot makes a compelling inference worthy of further research: "Coinbase buy price is pegged to Bitstamp" (Dec 2013): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=392422.0 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=392422.0
- haakon 13y agoCoinsetter (https://www.coinsetter.com/ https://www.coinsetter.com/) is a US based exchange launching this year with VC funding.
- waterlesscloud 13y agoI'll be surprised if Cryptsy ever makes it to USD. Also, while they have a very wide range of alts to gamble with (and let's face it, the smaller alts are pure gambles), the experience of using the site does not inspire faith in their technological abilities. I would not be at all shocked to learn they have significant security holes.
- ck2 13y agoThey seem very serious about obeying all regulations/filings so it is just a matter of them finding a bank to play along.
- waterlesscloud 13y agoThey don't even make an effort at KYC compliance.
- ck2 13y agoI assume that would come when fiat (USD) transfers come online. Why set that barrier for coin to coin exchanges?
- whyenot 13y agoThis blog post from Cryptsy on transaction malleability was somewhat reassuring. http://blog.cryptsy.com/post/77809302091/transaction-malleability-why-it-didnt-affect-cryptsy http://blog.cryptsy.com/post/77809302091/transaction-malleab...
- presty 13y agoI too have to cast serious doubts about Cryptsy's tech abilities. I navigated their website before they were publicly known (their website was already operational) and found some disturbing errors - nothing big, but I did not dig deep.
- dragontamer 13y agoVaultOfSatoshi looks pretty slick, and currently accepts USD. I don't know its trustworthiness however.
- ck2 13y agoApparently they are Canadian owned, but I do not know where their bank is located. Honorable mention for North America.
- kolev 13y agoYou forgot CoinMKT, Atomic-Trade, and Cryptsy.
- ck2 13y agoCryptsy is up there but you are right CoinMKT is US based and has USD working with a US bank. They also have a very clean website. They just need better marketing because I never heard of them. Atomic-Trade is also in US and apparears to have a US bank relationship. Another one I never heard of them so they need to hire some marketing people. Unfortunately I can no longer edit my post.
- starfishjenga 13y agoWhy don't these guys list their bios on the website in a prominent location? I find it difficult to trust any exchange that doesn't do this personally.
- brubaker 13y agoI dont really care about their bios, google ventures and ycombinator backing is much more significant.
- callmevlad 13y agoI don't think they're trying to hide anything, maybe just haven't gotten around to creating an About page. Both founders used to work for Microsoft: https://angel.co/buttercoin https://angel.co/buttercoin
- cedricdahl 13y agoHi starfishjenga, Cedric Dahl here, co-founder and CEO of Buttercoin. We have bios which will be available in Buttercoin's About section, if you'd like to learn more about us in the meantime, here is additional info: Bennett and I both used to work at Microsoft, we left to start an analytics company, founded a hacker house (NerdTribe.com), and later made a documentary film, People in Motion: http://youtu.be/QH09YCtpKaw http://youtu.be/QH09YCtpKaw, before stating our current project, Buttercoin.com
- whisk3rs 13y agoFinally, CSS that I can really trust!
- chrisBob 13y agoSeriously! Why is everyone going with iOS 7 style instead of having a web page with some information on it. I am about to start writing my first CSS page, but before I do I want to know: Is it still possible to use hyperlinks on a fancy CSS page? As far as I can tell all they do is look cool and scroll. I miss being able to click and get more info
- gone35 13y agoThis. Doesn't even work on Safari on my iPad: it only shows a blank page. I seriously think this Web 3.0 fashion has gone way out of hand, like in the early days of the web with amimated GIFs, auto-play, and other awfully unusable gimmicks. Every web designer should open this website every day, and ponder: http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ P.D.: On a bitter, petty unrelated note: this footnote strikes me as trying too hard to be cute: "Buttercoin is lovingly crafted in Palo Alto, California". I don't think a Bitcoin exchange should be equated to, I don't know, some organic high-end coffee brew, or the latest Jony Ive creation... It just leaves a weird taste in my mouth.
- alexgaribay 13y agoIn one of other comments is linked a document about front-end support. They are not focused on cross-browser compatibility at the moment. Basically the latest modern browsers are the only ones supported.
- ScottBurson 13y ago> http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ That is a hoot! When people ask why my site looks so plain I am definitely going to point them here :-)
- Vvector 13y agoWill they take any of my GoxCoins?
- lucb1e 13y agoI'm afraid those all got Goxed.
- artursapek 13y agoYou got a public API? I'd love to add this exchange to Cryptowatch[1] right away ;) The landing page is pretty bare, but this looks like it's made by professionals. I'm excited to see another player enter the field and looking forward to getting access and learning more. [1] http://cryptowat.ch http://cryptowat.ch
- cedricdahl 13y agoHi artursapek, yes, our API will be available shortly after launch.
- mkaziz 13y agoIs a US-based exchange trustworthy? I have a feeling it'll exist at the mercy of the Feds.
- chrisBob 13y ago"The Fed" says they are outside their jurisdiction. http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/feb/27/janet-yellen-federal-reserve-no-authority-regulate-bitcoin http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/feb/27/janet-yellen...
- ck2 13y agoIt's not the fed you have to worry about, it is prosecutors and senators trying to make a name for themselves with unnecessary law and regulations.
- berberous 13y ago"The Fed" =/= "The Feds" While it may be outside the Federal Reserve's jurisdiction, there are many other federal agencies.
- contingencies 13y agoThe Federal Reserve is not part of the US government. It is a private organization.
- zecho 13y agoIt's partly private. To say it is not part of government is also inaccurate. It is independent of several branches in many respects, but relies in the government in others, by design. For example, the chair and vice chair are appointed and confirmed. Congress has oversight of the system but does not appropriate funds to the system.
- contingencies 13y agoMy understanding is that legally, it's not part of the government. That makes it private, with any voluntary government relationships being just that. This doesn't make what you are saying untrue, but what you are saying isn't exactly clear either. (Thought experiment: Obviously, if one did wield influence on a central bank after winning the rights to run it from a nation, one would try to keep public perceptions as wishy-washy as possible in order to keep pockets safely lined and one's fiscal hegemony in place.)
- jyu 13y agoI'm a bit fuzzy on the details, but this is my recollection of Buttercoin's history. Please reply with corrections, and I'll edit. Mtgox crash about 1 year ago, when their trade engine could not keep up with the large number of transactions. Later we found out that Mtgox could not handle more than something like 50 transactions / second. Buttercoin was a developer's response to Mtgox's crash. To build a better mouse trap that could handle 100x more trade volume than Mtgox. https://buttercoin.hackpad.com/FAQ-QTRSMzlkLD6 https://buttercoin.hackpad.com/FAQ-QTRSMzlkLD6 It was originally supposed to be open source, to improve the underlying machinery for all bitcoin exchanges. There were some really bright and ambitious people involved in the beginning too. Somewhere a couple months in, the core developers took VC money, and decided to launch their own exchange instead. I haven't kept up with the project enough to know if they are holding to the initial open source exchange source code promises, but I'm not surprised at all that they want to cash in on becoming a big centralized exchange. It'd probably be hard to be VC funded, while also giving away their competitive advantage (highly scalable trade engine source code) for free. https://buttercoin.hackpad.com/FAQ-QTRSMzlkLD6 https://buttercoin.hackpad.com/FAQ-QTRSMzlkLD6 http://www.reddit.com/r/buttercoin http://www.reddit.com/r/buttercoin
- VMG 13y agoThere is also a github repo. https://github.com/buttercoin/buttercoin https://github.com/buttercoin/buttercoin
- throwaway5857 13y agothat hasn't been updated in NINE MONTHS this was a scam they got a bunch of people to write the software for them and then took it closed source shame on them
- 1qaz2wsx3edc 13y agoI understand your point of view, but isn't that sort of the spirit of open source software? To take it and build something with it. I mean, they didn't close the repo, it's still up there, they just made the decision to not contribute back as they decided to build a business around it. Others can too.
- wehadfun 13y agois the title real or is it some random number generator
- pbreit 13y agoIs the "lovingly crafted" bisque just a joke at this point?
- lifeformed 13y agoI infuse my projects with spite and hatred.
- Tossrock 13y agoI'm confused by the usage of bisque here. Are you saying "lovingly crafted" as a phrase is... soup-like?
- pbreit 13y agoSorry, a colloquialism I use with some friends and was kind of wondering how it works without knowing. "BS" is maybe a bit strong in this instance but you get the idea?
- cheshire137 13y agoDat AngularJS.
- lukejduncan 13y agoWhy not just buy/sell on Coinbase?
- gnaritas 13y agoCoinbase is not an exchange, they're a retail broker, the fees are way too high for trading.
- scott_karana 13y agoNot really an exchange, is it? More of a payment processor? Could be wrong.
- samweinberg 13y agoNo you're right. Coinbase does payment processing and hosted wallets. Users can buy or sell bitcoins to Coinbase, but it's not an exchange in the sense that any two users can trade USD/BTC with each other.
- Me1000 13y agoAs mentioned, Coinbase is not an exchange and honestly leaves much to be desired (limited instant buys, for example). I think the better reason is that allowing any single Bitcoin trading company to get too big is unhealthy (see MtGox). Having competing companies is very much in the interest of the btc community.
- fat0wl 13y agonow that mt gox is all effed up a US exchange's name counts as a news headline?
- ck2 13y agoa US exchange with actual US bank transfers for USD is actually a big thing because it is hard to get done
- shomyo 13y agoUS-based. The most dangerous for bitcoin-based business.
- powera 13y agoSo they say "The security of your funds is our #1 priority. Our team goes above and beyond all banking security best practices to create the world's most secure Bitcoin trading platform" but no other details are provided? Is there any reason to believe any part of that statement without further details?
- ixmatus 13y agoNot until I see a security audit will I believe any exchange is secure. I believed Mt. Gox had "resolved" the basic issue of password hashing back when they were compromised until I found out they were using a home-grown "run sha512 1000x" solution. That, plus I know as a programmer I like to think I'm disciplined enough to be a secure programmer until my software is audited or pentested. Then I realize how naive I really am. Like I said, I'm not trusting any exchanges until I start seeing rigorous security measures (more than "security is our #1 priority" bullshit) in the form of audits, pentesting, and etc... That said I also know very few people that actually use their personal BTC wallets and encrypt it with GPG + a two factor challenge (to avoid the possibility of key loggers).
- tlrobinson 13y agoBetter yet, assume it's not secure and don't store funds there. Deposit, trade, withdrawal.* *does not apply to day traders
- homakov 13y agoNot until I see a security audit will I believe any exchange is secure definitely! Everyone saying "im secure" must also say "the X will prove it"
- brudgers 13y agoIf it is in fact the world's most secure bitcoin trading platform does it make bitcoin safe relative to other end user services such as traditional banks or credit cards? The difference I see is that using Visa and MasterCard do not require me to believe they are the smartest people in the room. All I have to believe is that when someone else uses my account they will try to detect it, correct it and keep me whole - which they have done several times. The system works because it does not need to prevent all fraud. Maybe ButterCoin has solved that problem but YC and Google's investments are not evidence one way or the other.
- kolev 13y agoThe last thing Bitcoin needs is a bunch of exchanges without liquidity!
- Aqueous 13y agoButterCoin- you can just feel it slipping from your fingers.
- kenrikm 13y agoI saw the tagline "Safe, Easy, Fast" and what sprang to mind was "Pick Two". Maybe it's all the Bitcoin failures that make my cynical but I've never really seen these executed well. I guess time will tell.
- tinbad 13y agoOk guys explain this: I've signed up for early access and was placed 6817, my friend sitting next to me signed up right after and was 6827, my gf signed up 30 secs later and is 6837. See a pattern? If they have to lie about their number of sign ups I wonder how trustworthy the rest of the service will be. I know it's just a detail but why would you do something like this? Fake it until you make it?
- nestlequ1k 13y agoWell, the former Reddit founder is on the team. And I seem to recall reading something about how that did that with early Reddit posts too (marking the voting counts much higher to make it seem like they have more users than they did). They just didn't quite do it good enough. Would have made it more believable if they did a random 5 to 10 addition on each signup. Probably had to rush out the landing page to capitalize on the opportune MtGox disaster.
- cedricdahl 13y agoHi tinbad, thanks for signing up for early access. We appreciate that your friend and girlfriend also joined. Let us know if you have ideas for how we might verify our numbers as being authentic while also protecting user privacy / security, we'll be happy to oblige.
- asciimo 13y agoI just signed up and was placed near 12,000 in the queue. That's a surprisingly large number.
- samweinberg 13y agoThe form should limit the number of digits allowed in the "I want to spend" field. Right now, it says I'll receive more bitcoins than the total possible mined coins cap (21 million). http://i.imgur.com/pCUTqOz.png http://i.imgur.com/pCUTqOz.png Obviously it's a mock form, but shouldn't it at least be accurate?
- druska 13y agoButtercoin dropped the original JavaScript repository and rewrote the entire thing in Scala/Java. They are not releasing the new software, but planning on white-labeling their new product (very similar to bex.io).
- yeukhon 13y agoI honestly think the most trusthworthy exchange so far has been dogecoin. I haven't really heard anyone scamming anybody. Is dogecoin going to last for another 2-3 years? Anyone know?
- jermaink 13y agoI like that you put the ticker query into the browser tab :)
- cedricdahl 13y agoThanks jermaink, having the ticker in the browser tab came from user testing. Please let us know if you have additional ideas on how we can make things more convenient / nicer.
- GamblersFallacy 13y agoLooks like buttercoin is going to use MongoDB 0_o https://github.com/buttercoin/ReactiveMongo https://github.com/buttercoin/ReactiveMongo
- bitcoinlive 13y agoCrypto currency news : http://cryptocurrencylive.com/newest http://cryptocurrencylive.com/newest
- kirk21 13y agoIf you are in the EU: check www.coinnext.com
- moeedm 13y ago"Easy, safe, fast" - Because we say so.