New exchanges, trading platforms, software tools, infastructure development, wallets

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Updates on the layer just above the cryptocurrency which actually makes it usable. For example wallets, better exchanges, apps, etc.

This basically facilitates the two main functions that have value (commerce (http://gold-silver.us/forum/showthread.php?68800-News-on-payment-processors-online-store-solutions-merchant-adoption-and-commerce) and wealth preservation (http://gold-silver.us/forum/showthread.php?68801-Use-as-wealth-preservation-avoiding-capital-controls-hedge-against-wreckless-policy)), but things like exchanges and apps have no value in and of themselves.

If it's important just make a dedicated thread for it and post a it in here as well if appropriate.

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Coinsetter Lands $500K From SecondMarket Founder & Others To Help Bring Leverage, Shorting To Bitcoin Trade

Today, Coinsetter (http://www.coinsetter.com/), a New York City-based startup looking to launch a new Forex trading platform for Bitcoin, announced today that it has raised $500,000 in seed capital. The round was led by Tribeca Venture Partners and SecondMarket founder and CEO Barry Silbert (through his Bitcoin Opportunity Fund (https://www.secondmarket.com/company/bitcoin-opportunity-fund)), with participation from angel investors like Jimmy Furland, a London-based technology entrepreneur, Microsoft Head of Corporate Strategy, Charles Songhurst, and Facebook Product Lead, Ben Davenport.

The investment comes at a time when there’s been a flurry of new interest in Bitcoin, given that the crypto-currency just officially became a billion-dollar market at the end of March. Since then, venture capitalists have weighed in on what they love about Bitcoin, including its potential to not only “disrupt multi-billion-dollar markets, but in doing so also create new big markets,” Lightspeed Ventures’ Jeremy Liew wrote in TechCrunch this weekend. (http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/05/why-do-vcs-care-about-bitcoin/)

As is the case with any new concept — let alone a new, unregulated and decentralized virtual currency — there are plenty of conflicting views. Some see Bitcoin as a harbinger of “the end of money,” (http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/07/bitcoin-and-the-end-of-money/) many more see it as some kind of threat, while others shrug it off as a passing fad.

Coinsetter (http://www.coinsetter.com/), on the other hand, is one of many that see opportunity in applying familiar market practices to the wild, wacky and virtual world of Bitcoin. With its new funding in tow, the New York City-based startup plans to launch a Forex trading platform for Bitcoin, specifically one that allows people to make leveraged trades on margin and short the market. While these practices are available in all mature markets, says co-founder Jaron Lukasiewicz, “they’re virtually absent in the Bitcoin space.”

Coinsetter wants to make Bitcoin more accessible to both mainstream and institutional users by focusing on security, transparency and by offering a simple user experience. On top of that, the startup plans to launch an ancillary arm that will offer a “scalable solution for accredited investors and institutions to earn interest on their bitcoins,” Lukasiewicz says.

The co-founder also says that the company plans to go out of its way to offer added layers of security and protection that go beyond what the market currently offers, including “insurance against hacks,” and operate within the legal framework of the U.S., he says. By doing so, the co-founders believe that the trading platform can become an attractive service for Bitcoin traders as well as Forex traders and online gamblers.

To put his money where his mouth is, Lukasiewicz, a former investment banker, has said that he will “put up at least $50,000 of his own money towards the platform’s initial margin reserves,” as reported by The Bitcoin Trader (http://www.thebitcointrader.com/2013/02/the-latest-on-bitcoin-margin-trading.html?showComment=1361581977982#c9039123437 11077405). The article goes on to point out that, while promising, Coinsetter isn’t the only service looking to offer margin trading.

There’s also the steadily-growing, Hong Kong-based Bitfinex (https://www.bitfinex.com/) as well as ICBIT.se (https://icbit.se/), both of which have been around for some time.

This means that not only will Coinsetter have to compete with a growing set of margin trading services, but with the skepticism generated from a series of failures for similarly-positioned, like margin trading platform Bitcoinca, which went down thanks to a security flaw. Kronos.io and Bitdaytrade also went down thanks to hacks and poor site design.

By focusing on security and building a more appealing user experience from the get-go, the co-founders believe that Coinsetter can succeed where others have failed. Lukasiewicz concludes:


We can see the recent growth in bitcoin quickly transforming the market into a more mature space, with growing interest from experienced traders. By introducing a new margin trading platform that enables leverage and the shorting of Bitcoin, we think we can help traders execute new strategies, while adding to the overall efficiency of the market.



Tags: Coinsetter (http://techcrunch.com/tag/coinsetter/), Bitcoin (http://techcrunch.com/tag/bitcoin/)


http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/09/coinsetter-lands-500k-from-secondmarket-founder-others-to-help-bring-leverage-shorting-to-bitcoin-trade/

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Here's an open source trading engine project that's currently being developed as a response to current issues with mtgox:


Buttercoin - Open Source High-Performance Bitcoin Exchange Project (http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1c7v6z/buttercoin_open_source_highperformance_bitcoin/)

Hey guys,
I'm a computer security and distributed systems guy. I've did audits and trainings at many large banks and lotteries and also built complicated stuff like a quantum cryptography engine and a p2p file sync engine. I also worked at TradeHill for 3 months in 2011. You can learn more about me here http://paulbohm.com/about/
You may also know me from a Bitcoin article I wrote two years ago that's popular on Quora: http://www.quora.com/Bitcoin/Is-the-cryptocurrency-Bitcoin-a-good-idea
I'm really annoyed at the exchange software quality and yesterday spontaneously tweeted that I'd start working on an open-source high-performance highly-secure exchange engine and asked if anyone wants to join me in my San Francisco apartment.
Seven people showed up, including a Stanford professor, someone who built an ISP, someone who previously built a payment system and an angel investor. They all were tremendous help in nailing down the core architecture. Later today another friend will come by who is an expert in B-tree filesystem design, which will help with getting the data structures right.
I'm doing some explorative coding at http://github.com/buttercoin/buttercoin and note-taking at http://buttercoin.hackpad.com/ but it's really just a rough outline right now.
Basically I want to build something similar to the LMAX architecture (http://martinfowler.com/articles/lmax.html), in node.js and put it under an MIT license. If this worked it should allow us to process enormous amounts of transaction, or even do things that help distribute exchange more.
Let me know if any of you are interested in joining a hipchat or hackpad and discussing the design, or contributing on github.
I can't promise this will succeed - before yesterday I had no plans or ambition to write an exchange, but I really want Bitcoin to succeed and I don't think it can without a quality opensource exchange package.
You can email me at enki@bbq.io or if you want to motivate me send donations to 1McqPj92jvWfFg5F24dwyDSUptjTosH2EY (i will donate any funds received to the bitcoin foundation should I not succeed at building buttercoin).
Any thoughts? I'd love to hear it!
Ok IRC here: irc.freenode.net #buttercoin subreddit: /r/buttercoin (http://www.reddit.com/r/buttercoin)
leave your email on http://buttercoin.launchrock.com if you want to help out - we might ask for help via email later

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bitcoin.de is a european/german bitcoin company that's working on a cash-to-bitcoin debit card type system.

Basically, you have your own personal account with your own cash in it in your name (with their preferred bank). Then, when you want to buy something with bitcoin, it automatically takes money out of your account and converts it to bitcoins at the current exchange rate on-the-fly. So you get all the benefits of bitcoin while not actually having to hold any bitcoins. It's sort of like bitpay except on the customer side.



https://www.bitcoin.de/en?cr=1

Good news! Today's talks with our preferred partner bank were very successful. As of now it's not about the IF but the HOW regarding a cooperation with that bank. If all works out according to plan we'll sign the contract in appr. three to four weeks. Keep your fingers crossed! Simultaneously we're going to prepare the technical details to get bitcoin.de hooked up with the bank's IT system. We also talked about the possibilities for our european users of bitcoin.de to open an account at this bank. We can't promise anything at the time of this writing but this could be HUGE! We will do our very best to let this dream come true. Now to the less good news: As already reported earlier today one or more crooks gained access to 5 of our more than 50.000 user accounts. The 5 users affected will be contacted by us with information regarding reactivation of their accounts. Our security system did detect this anomaly and did prevent bigger losses. We take the blame for this regrettable but manageable loss because contrary to our earlier statement today we can not completely exclude the possibility that an already reported and fixed vulnerability aided the people responsible for this mess. As a precautionary measure all users will be forced to set a new password upon their next login. It is also advised to de- and reactivate your OTP (two factor authentication). We will launch some new security features within the next few days to make bitcoin.de even safer. The actual time for answering support tickets is appr. 48 hours. Tomorrow and at the beginning of next week we'll get more manpower for our support team. We then hope to answer all support tickets within 24 hours again. Thanks for your support and understanding!

[JohnQPublic]

Why Tradehill? (https://tradehill.com/why) We are the most secure and reliable major virtual currency exchange platform in the world. In a marketplace with a lot of money on the line and constant threats of security breaches, Tradehill is the only major Bitcoin and Ripple exchange that has never been hacked or suffered from significant downtime.
We provide full-service support. Every Tradehill client receives an account manager and a technology architect to set up your system and assist with any integration requirements.
We maintain extreme liquidity. Tradehill regularly processes full payouts, and faster than any other virtual currency exchange.
We support black pool trading. We ensure stability in the market when you and others execute large-scale transactions.
We keep your coins cold. All client Bitcoins are kept in cold storage, meaning stored offline and inaccessible by any individual or computer.
We respect your privacy. Privacy is one of the inherent attractive qualities of virtual currency, we guarantee all of your personal data stays that way.
We are passionate about our reputation. One of Tradehill's most valuable assets is our reputation for integrity, professionalism and fairness. We recognize that our actions are the foundation of our reputation and adhering to a strict code of ethics and applicable law is imperative.
Tradehill maintains a culture of honesty and accountability. Our commitment to the highest level of ethical conduct is reflected in all of the Company’s business activities including, but not limited to, relationships with employees, customers, competitors, the government and the public. All of our employees, officers, and directors conduct themselves according to the language and spirit of this Code and seek to avoid even the appearance of improper behavior.
Tradehill Code of Ethics: Compliance with Laws, Rules and Regulations We are strongly committed to conducting our business affairs with honesty and integrity and in full compliance with all applicable laws, rules and regulations. No employee, officer or director of the Company shall commit an illegal or unethical act, or instruct others to do so, for any reason.
Fair Dealing Each employee, officer and director of the Company should endeavor to deal fairly with customers, suppliers, competitors, the public and one another at all times and in accordance with ethical business practices.
Compliance with Antitrust Laws The antitrust laws prohibit agreements among competitors on such matters as prices, terms of sale to customers and allocating markets or customers.
Political Contributions and Activities Any political contributions made by or on behalf of the Company and any solicitations for political contributions of any kind must be lawful and in compliance with Company policies.

[JohnQPublic]

CampBX (https://campbx.com/faq.php)

CampBX is a platform where you can buy and sell Bitcoins in real-time from other CampBX users. Your buy or sell orders are matched against a parameterized database of other orders. If a perfect match is found, a Bitcoin-to-USD trade is executed instantly. If there are no matching orders at the price you specified, then your order can remain open for up to 31 days. To maintain fairness in trading, we have taken a purely-platform approach and CampBX is never a counter-party to any trade.

Our platform was designed with stability and security as top priorities, and we became the first Bitcoin website to obtain Payment Card Industry (PCI) certification and the McAfee Secure seal of confidence on June 28th, 2011.
When you open an account on CampBX, all of the following features are available to you to ensure that you have a productive experience on our platform: *
*



Daily security scans and certification by McAfee Secure
Quick Buy/Sell and Spend-X trades available for new traders
Advanced trading options with AON/FOK/Incremental Fills
Market Price and Limit Price Orders
STOPLOSS and Short-Selling available soon
Stoploss / Custom Order Expiry Date/Time
Trading API available
Wallet API available
CBX Instant Bitcoin Transfers Feature
SMS (Text Message) Notifications
Two-Factor Authentication
Professional third-party security audits
Frequent & encrypted back-ups
A comprehensive disaster recovery plan