7 ms·

I'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

by jyu 13y ago

I'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 ago
There is also a github repo. https://github.com/buttercoin/buttercoin https://github.com/buttercoin/buttercoin
- throwaway5857 13y ago
  that 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 ago
    I 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.
    - maaku 13y ago
      Open source, yes. Free software, no. Sadly this was open source, not free.
      - wcoenen 13y ago
        Free software typically doesn't force you to share changes either, as long as you don't distribute the binaries. Patching GPL code and using it in a web application without ever releasing the source is perfectly fine. The Affero GPL was designed to force the release of source even in that case. That's the only license I know which has that property though.
        maaku 13y ago
        Free software != GPL. One could argue that the Affero GPL represents a continuation of the ideals which gave birth to the GPL, now that more and more applications have moved to being network services (something less common in 80's).
  - codys 13y ago
    Which is the reason for the AGPL license. Those people contributed their code under the MIT license. This is absolutely allowed.
    - makomk 13y ago
      It's legal, but that certainly doesn't mean it's ethical or that it inspires trust.
  - marcbarbosa 13y ago
    I don't think it's a scam. According to kevin-buttercoin comment a month ago, they are working on Scala based version, and it will be opensourced. Source: https://github.com/buttercoin/buttercoin/issues/65 https://github.com/buttercoin/buttercoin/issues/65
    - 1qaz2wsx3edc 13y ago
      I've actually talked with Kevin before, they do seem to care about open-source & security & scalability. I mean, from what we talked about, I got the sense they do. But for them, I think things are moving fast, and it's hard to please everyone, all the time, especially when you need to prioritize the business. It seems they care about open-source as a reassurance to security. And I think they do want to give back to the community.
  - MrBlue 13y ago
    They also took a lot of donations in BTC which they never returned after pivoting their project to a private closed source solution. Shame on them for sure.
    - Raphael 13y ago
      Starting off on the wrong foot.
      - psykovsky 13y ago
        With all the money they already have on the bank I suspect they don't agree with you.
  - gfarley 13y ago
    I remember when this project was in hyper-drive on freenode. They were working 18 hour days the first week and made a lot of grand promises. I had doubts as to whether it could last considering how they rebuffed any and everyone who criticized the project's choice of programming language. Time will tell how legit this is
- danbruc 13y ago
  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. And then they build their system using CoffeeScript, a dynamically typed language? They are kidding me? EDIT: Another comment implies they rebuild the engine using Scala.
  - tg3 13y ago
    Excuse my ignorance, but what about a dynamically-typed language makes an application inherently less secure?
    - recursive 13y ago
      It's harder to reason about the behavior of a program running in an environment that allows monkey patching and eval().
      - oh_sigh 13y ago
        You can just have a style guide that disallows those constructs.
        meddlepal 13y ago
        Which unlike a compiler has a higher chance of being improperly applied or ignored.
    - danbruc 13y ago
      Assuming your design is correct and secure - and that is already really hard to do - you still have to ensure that you implementation matches your design, i.e. contains no defects, and this is harder in a dynamically typed language, because there are classes of defects that the compiler of a statically typed language will catch while they go unnoticed using a dynamically typed language. So dynamically typed languages are not less correct or secure on their own, they just do not prevent you from writing incorrect or insecure code in the same way statically typed languages do. One example I once read about are control systems for rockets and missiles - they use different data types for x, y and z coordinates. They are all just numbers but you really want to make sure that you do not accidentally swap two variables and the missile turns left while it should ascend. And you just can not enforce such constraints in dynamically typed languages.
tzz 13y ago
Here are the frontend and backend designs: https://docs.google.com/a/coinharvest.com/document/d/1w0JPnGVX5IXzuFWPyJOnLA0jRIbqVKJO4n-CcNBmnkg/edit?pli=1# https://docs.google.com/a/coinharvest.com/document/d/1w0JPnG... https://docs.google.com/a/coinharvest.com/document/d/1qfEnnV3ZfThPbBT9gPJ_0Cp1WxsCf_Lq5LJ5X56pNw4/edit?pli=1 https://docs.google.com/a/coinharvest.com/document/d/1qfEnnV...
- danbruc 13y ago
  Seven pages for the design of a complete exchange system, and most of them - four to be precise - for the web frontend. What could possibly go wrong? (Don't take this comment to serious, they will probably have done a lot of work beyond that. I just want to point out that these documents say nothing at all. This is what you come up with during the first day of brainstorming.)
hft_throwaway 13y ago
The matching engine described in these documents is not anywhere close to state of the art. The big exchanges can get you fills wire-to-wire sub 100 micros now with binary protocols that you can just cast into a struct without parsing. Open sourcing it wouldn't be a big deal. Heck the original ISLAND would probably give them a run for their money: http://josh.com/notes/island-ecn-10th-birthday/ http://josh.com/notes/island-ecn-10th-birthday/ Besides, exchanges are a network effect problem primarily. People will continue to trade where there's liquidity unless a new market offers something substantially better. Look how many people still used Mt Gox with its constant freezes and rumored insolvency.
gamblor956 13y ago
Signs that Buttercoin is probably a scam: 1) Buttercoin does not appear to be a registered money transmitter. They've known about this requirement for months, they've had the financial capabilities to do this for months...and yet they haven't bothered so far. See http://www.fincen.gov/financial_institutions/msb/msbstateselector.html http://www.fincen.gov/financial_institutions/msb/msbstatesel.... 2) They started off as open source, took a bunch of free code, and then ended the open source aspects of the project. 3) They took a substantial amount of BTC donations (even more substantial now with the higher F/X rate) and never returned those donations when the project pivoted from an open source software project to a V/C funded business. One of these red flags is bad enough, but 3 together is a big, red, flashing "STAY AWAY". They clearly don't have the professionalism or the wherewithal to handle the basic foundational aspects of their professed industry. I recommend staying away from them before they become the next MtGox.
- DanielRibeiro 13y ago
  On the other hand, they are a YC company: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/buttercoin http://www.crunchbase.com/company/buttercoin
  - joering2 13y ago
    So is AirBnb with one of the coowners listed on top 100 FBI cyberscammers list. Im sorry but having a rubberstamp of PG is not the same as having blessing of Elon Musk, for example. PG seems to be drifting into the dark side. What worked for Airbnb (scamming people on craiglist to solicit airbnb) worked as charm on SocialCam when the idea was to scam as many of your Facebook friends as possible.
    - sheetjs 13y ago
      Similar questions were raised when discussing InstallMonetizer (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711), a company that makes drive-by installers > I think people will be wondering if this resembles the founders' ideas when they were funded by [PG], and if this represents the kind of company you wish to be funding.
cedricdahl 13y ago
Hey jyu, Benentt (Buttercoin's CTO / co-founder) has been talking to our approach and plan wrt the open source trade execution engine on reddit, I'll add his latest thread below as it does a nice job of adding context to the conversation. === Copied from http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1z86t7/reddit_cofounder_here_heres_early_access_to_my/cfrg63i http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1z86t7/reddit_cofou... By Rev. C. Bennett Hoffman Buttercoin CTO === The project started off as a bit of announce-first development in response to the MtGox issues during the run-up in price last April. We had a lot of really enthusiastic people all trying to figure out what it was we were actually trying to do. Many people wanted to build a completely distributed exchange, others wanted to go other directions. That's the beauty of open projects, even if it can be a bit overwhelming. Cedric and I already had an interview with Y Combinator scheduled to pitch a different bitcoin idea. A few of us decided to focus on building something we could use to launch a real platform and pitch that instead. We started from scratch and kept it closed to focus on that, always with the intention of opening it back up once it was at least somewhat usable. It's taken way to long to get there. Why are we waiting for launch? Mostly because we're too busy. There's still a good amount of code specific to our deployment mixed into the stuff that's actually usable by anyone else. I'm embarrassed to admit we even have a couple of test passwords and API keys floating around in the repos. In short, we're humans of limited capacity. If I were to do it again, I'd go about things differently, but if we can put up a technically solid trading platform that helps make bitcoin (and other digital currencies) more widely adopted, then I'll have no regrets. === Hope this helps add context to where we are and why. If you have more questions, please ask, we'll do our best to answer quickly.

by jyu 13y ago

VMG 13y ago

There is also a github repo. https://github.com/buttercoin/buttercoin https://github.com/buttercoin/buttercoin

throwaway5857 13y ago
that 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 ago
  I 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.
  - maaku 13y ago
    Open source, yes. Free software, no. Sadly this was open source, not free.
    - wcoenen 13y ago
      Free software typically doesn't force you to share changes either, as long as you don't distribute the binaries. Patching GPL code and using it in a web application without ever releasing the source is perfectly fine. The Affero GPL was designed to force the release of source even in that case. That's the only license I know which has that property though.
      - maaku 13y ago
        Free software != GPL. One could argue that the Affero GPL represents a continuation of the ideals which gave birth to the GPL, now that more and more applications have moved to being network services (something less common in 80's).
- codys 13y ago
  Which is the reason for the AGPL license. Those people contributed their code under the MIT license. This is absolutely allowed.
  - makomk 13y ago
    It's legal, but that certainly doesn't mean it's ethical or that it inspires trust.
- marcbarbosa 13y ago
  I don't think it's a scam. According to kevin-buttercoin comment a month ago, they are working on Scala based version, and it will be opensourced. Source: https://github.com/buttercoin/buttercoin/issues/65 https://github.com/buttercoin/buttercoin/issues/65
  - 1qaz2wsx3edc 13y ago
    I've actually talked with Kevin before, they do seem to care about open-source & security & scalability. I mean, from what we talked about, I got the sense they do. But for them, I think things are moving fast, and it's hard to please everyone, all the time, especially when you need to prioritize the business. It seems they care about open-source as a reassurance to security. And I think they do want to give back to the community.
- MrBlue 13y ago
  They also took a lot of donations in BTC which they never returned after pivoting their project to a private closed source solution. Shame on them for sure.
  - Raphael 13y ago
    Starting off on the wrong foot.
    - psykovsky 13y ago
      With all the money they already have on the bank I suspect they don't agree with you.
- gfarley 13y ago
  I remember when this project was in hyper-drive on freenode. They were working 18 hour days the first week and made a lot of grand promises. I had doubts as to whether it could last considering how they rebuffed any and everyone who criticized the project's choice of programming language. Time will tell how legit this is
danbruc 13y ago
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. And then they build their system using CoffeeScript, a dynamically typed language? They are kidding me? EDIT: Another comment implies they rebuild the engine using Scala.
- tg3 13y ago
  Excuse my ignorance, but what about a dynamically-typed language makes an application inherently less secure?
  - recursive 13y ago
    It's harder to reason about the behavior of a program running in an environment that allows monkey patching and eval().
    - oh_sigh 13y ago
      You can just have a style guide that disallows those constructs.
      - meddlepal 13y ago
        Which unlike a compiler has a higher chance of being improperly applied or ignored.
  - danbruc 13y ago
    Assuming your design is correct and secure - and that is already really hard to do - you still have to ensure that you implementation matches your design, i.e. contains no defects, and this is harder in a dynamically typed language, because there are classes of defects that the compiler of a statically typed language will catch while they go unnoticed using a dynamically typed language. So dynamically typed languages are not less correct or secure on their own, they just do not prevent you from writing incorrect or insecure code in the same way statically typed languages do. One example I once read about are control systems for rockets and missiles - they use different data types for x, y and z coordinates. They are all just numbers but you really want to make sure that you do not accidentally swap two variables and the missile turns left while it should ascend. And you just can not enforce such constraints in dynamically typed languages.

tzz 13y ago

Here are the frontend and backend designs: https://docs.google.com/a/coinharvest.com/document/d/1w0JPnGVX5IXzuFWPyJOnLA0jRIbqVKJO4n-CcNBmnkg/edit?pli=1# https://docs.google.com/a/coinharvest.com/document/d/1w0JPnG... https://docs.google.com/a/coinharvest.com/document/d/1qfEnnV3ZfThPbBT9gPJ_0Cp1WxsCf_Lq5LJ5X56pNw4/edit?pli=1 https://docs.google.com/a/coinharvest.com/document/d/1qfEnnV...

danbruc 13y ago
Seven pages for the design of a complete exchange system, and most of them - four to be precise - for the web frontend. What could possibly go wrong? (Don't take this comment to serious, they will probably have done a lot of work beyond that. I just want to point out that these documents say nothing at all. This is what you come up with during the first day of brainstorming.)

hft_throwaway 13y ago

The matching engine described in these documents is not anywhere close to state of the art. The big exchanges can get you fills wire-to-wire sub 100 micros now with binary protocols that you can just cast into a struct without parsing. Open sourcing it wouldn't be a big deal. Heck the original ISLAND would probably give them a run for their money: http://josh.com/notes/island-ecn-10th-birthday/ http://josh.com/notes/island-ecn-10th-birthday/ Besides, exchanges are a network effect problem primarily. People will continue to trade where there's liquidity unless a new market offers something substantially better. Look how many people still used Mt Gox with its constant freezes and rumored insolvency.

gamblor956 13y ago

Signs that Buttercoin is probably a scam: 1) Buttercoin does not appear to be a registered money transmitter. They've known about this requirement for months, they've had the financial capabilities to do this for months...and yet they haven't bothered so far. See http://www.fincen.gov/financial_institutions/msb/msbstateselector.html http://www.fincen.gov/financial_institutions/msb/msbstatesel.... 2) They started off as open source, took a bunch of free code, and then ended the open source aspects of the project. 3) They took a substantial amount of BTC donations (even more substantial now with the higher F/X rate) and never returned those donations when the project pivoted from an open source software project to a V/C funded business. One of these red flags is bad enough, but 3 together is a big, red, flashing "STAY AWAY". They clearly don't have the professionalism or the wherewithal to handle the basic foundational aspects of their professed industry. I recommend staying away from them before they become the next MtGox.

DanielRibeiro 13y ago
On the other hand, they are a YC company: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/buttercoin http://www.crunchbase.com/company/buttercoin
- joering2 13y ago
  So is AirBnb with one of the coowners listed on top 100 FBI cyberscammers list. Im sorry but having a rubberstamp of PG is not the same as having blessing of Elon Musk, for example. PG seems to be drifting into the dark side. What worked for Airbnb (scamming people on craiglist to solicit airbnb) worked as charm on SocialCam when the idea was to scam as many of your Facebook friends as possible.
  - sheetjs 13y ago
    Similar questions were raised when discussing InstallMonetizer (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711), a company that makes drive-by installers > I think people will be wondering if this resembles the founders' ideas when they were funded by [PG], and if this represents the kind of company you wish to be funding.

cedricdahl 13y ago

Hey jyu, Benentt (Buttercoin's CTO / co-founder) has been talking to our approach and plan wrt the open source trade execution engine on reddit, I'll add his latest thread below as it does a nice job of adding context to the conversation. === Copied from http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1z86t7/reddit_cofounder_here_heres_early_access_to_my/cfrg63i http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1z86t7/reddit_cofou... By Rev. C. Bennett Hoffman Buttercoin CTO === The project started off as a bit of announce-first development in response to the MtGox issues during the run-up in price last April. We had a lot of really enthusiastic people all trying to figure out what it was we were actually trying to do. Many people wanted to build a completely distributed exchange, others wanted to go other directions. That's the beauty of open projects, even if it can be a bit overwhelming. Cedric and I already had an interview with Y Combinator scheduled to pitch a different bitcoin idea. A few of us decided to focus on building something we could use to launch a real platform and pitch that instead. We started from scratch and kept it closed to focus on that, always with the intention of opening it back up once it was at least somewhat usable. It's taken way to long to get there. Why are we waiting for launch? Mostly because we're too busy. There's still a good amount of code specific to our deployment mixed into the stuff that's actually usable by anyone else. I'm embarrassed to admit we even have a couple of test passwords and API keys floating around in the repos. In short, we're humans of limited capacity. If I were to do it again, I'd go about things differently, but if we can put up a technically solid trading platform that helps make bitcoin (and other digital currencies) more widely adopted, then I'll have no regrets. === Hope this helps add context to where we are and why. If you have more questions, please ask, we'll do our best to answer quickly.