Bitcoin Forum

As bitcoiners are calling for a true p2p exchange, I figure out another direction: if an exchange is 100 percent public owned, it's in essence another form of p2p.

http://peatio.com

• The team was assembled, and are now working.
• The project is funded and supported by https://bitfund.pe. (..., which is the 11th project in the portfolio of https://bitfund.pe)
• The first market will be China, one of the biggest markets in the world. (The next market will be nominated by share holders.)
• The exchange will have a client, with desktop and mobile edition. (more details will be updated)
• The exchange will sell all of its shares to the public.
• Every country or area will have it's own subdomain, cn.peatio.com, kr.peatio.com, jp.peatio.com, us.peatio.com, etc. and should have its own 100% IPO, since local traders should own local exchange.
• Once launched, the exchange will pay out dividend on a daily base.
• The shares will also be exchanged on its own site.
• The funding process will be open within two weeks, which will be parallel to the development. And the shares selling will be escrowed by John. K, or using
• a mechanism of the distributed contract ( https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts )

@GGGGG is responsible to give more on announcements of peatio.com and https://bitfund.pe

-------------------

UPDATE 2013.06.24

A new domain acquired: peat.io [thanks to the advice from @coinage and @davout, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=239416.msg2541072#msg2541072]

UPDATE 2013.07.27

Public Alpha test will start from 00:00 (GTM+8), July, 28.

http://peat.io

No real transactions, amounts given in the account are just numbers.

look forward to it  :)
really need a client edition,it make it looks professional

bitfund.pe looks interesting however it wants me to kick in 1btc to become a revolutionary!lol

OH, that's not a fee, it's only used for activate your account, and after activation, the 1BTC still belongs to you.

Sounds great. Good Luck!
Seems like ripple is kicked out?
Will the client be opensource?
If there happened to be a bug in the client, will the developers have the ability to fix it before it hurts?

should be.

 ;D ;D ;D ;D

Yes, the client will be open source.

We have a very competent team of developers working on this project. Being open source, the code will be open to outside audits.

Looks cool, but how do you ensure the shareholders will get to decide all things that are "important enough"? Thanks.

Most important decisions will be left to the team behind Peatio, much in the same fashion as ASICMINER is run. There may be some issues which are put to a shareholder vote, but for most things it will simply be decided by the operating team.

Could you explain me, what a QQ ID and a QQ Nickname is?
Is this related with imqq.com? And why are those required?

QQ is the standard instant messaging client in China. I assume you're talking about Bitfund.pe, not Peatio.com, as peatio doesn't have registration up yet. We ask for them as a way to keep in touch with our investors (most of our investors are located in China).

On an unrelated note, are you the guy who made Crypto.Cat? If so, great work. Do you accept bitcoin donations yet?

For those curious about the name "Peatio", see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixiu

I'll let lixiaolai explain why he chose that name  :)

Well ok, i signed up on bitfund.pe. Looking forward to "have a look" at the Techno tour de force ;)
But i saw that i have to invest at least 131.29172315BTC.. So.. i'm out :/ Don't got enough cash to invest.
And sadly no, i'm not the creator of crypto.cat. I just like crypto.. and cats :D

It's reasonable and how things are run usually, but there should be something unique that makes it deserving the "P2P" tag(I don't think I will call ASICMiner a P2P mining operation), right? Like if the shareholders are unhappy with the performance of the operating team what can they do about it?

I like your idea whether it's really P2P or not, I just want some clarifications.

If the shareholders are unhappy with the way the exchange is being run, they will be free to sell their shares on the open market. Much in the same way if a minority shareholder of Google doesn't like the way things are being run, what recourse do they really have to change things?

I suppose it is not P2P in the same sense that Bittorrent or Bitcoin are, although (as far as I know) there has not yet been a 100% publicly owned bitcoin exchange.

I must say that I am sceptical,

I would definitely need to hear a lot more information about

- the developers of the system - who are you, what is your business plan
- the program language in which it will be written
- how do you propose to make money
- how will you make money as creators of the exchange - you sell the shares for bitcoins on IPO?

anyway I will be monitoring the thread but my gut feeling tells me something about scam.

So, it's 100% publicly owned ?
Because the shareholder own it ?
So how is it any different than any other exchange owned by its shareholders ?

-I am not a developer, I am an employee of Bitfund.pe, responsible for answering questions here. The business plan will be released soon.
-The front end of the exchange will be coded in Ruby on Rails, the back end will be done in Python and C++. We will also have mobile and desktop clients.
-We propose to make money like any exchange - through transaction fees.
-The creators of the exchange will buy shares on the market like everybody else.

Quoted for later.

Are there any existing bitcoin exchanges which have issued shares? I'm not aware of any myself, but please let me know if there are.

I think what @GGGGG said might a little bit misleading. :) sorry for that.

When the business plan releases, the IPO structure will be made clear.

100% public owned, doesn't have to mean 100% shares are available on IPO. The initial investor has to get some shares, and the rest shares will be sold through two stages, details of which will be release soon.

and where will the money go to? I mean who will get the money for the shares? When you buy something from someone there always has to be a paying and receiving party. At least in my book...

i think they have to pay the developers, servers, girls and stuff.

There are, increase your awareness.

I'd be tempted to say it's the other way around, "when the IPO structure is released your business plan will be clear". That'd be assuming dishonesty though, let's not go down this road now.

Well then, it's not 100% public owned. Appears more and more misleading the more we start scratching the surface.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_capital and no, it's not a good question.

Just to pop in and say that I'm one of the investors here in the bitfund.pe fund, and have faith in lixiaolai.  ;)
He's somewhat a bitcoin leader in China.

Thank you for support, John.

And criticisms from @davout is very interesting and helpful for me to rectify our business plan. I'm struggling to make it better. I sincerely invite davout contact me on gtalk: lixiaolai@gmail.com, I would be very grateful if davout offers more advices.

You're welcome. :)

And yes, Daveout is someone really experienced and almost unparalleled with creating exchanges. I'm sure his criticisms will advance the project a lot, and help iron out the kinks in the overall implementation.

You drove me to figure out a way, and I promise you that shares will be 100% available when IPO. Sincerely THANK YOU.

Please do not rely on .com or any domain likely to be seized by a government outside of the jurisdiction in which an exchange actually operates.  For instance, if you use peatio.com, you should expect to needlessly be part of a bulk domain seizure by the US government.  All of your subexchanges are likely to be pulled offline at some point.  The USG does not typically respect other countries' sovereignty where doing so would diminish its own.

Just as importantly, many of your prospective customers will worry that your exchange may go offline, which may send them elsewhere.

If you still prefer the marketability of .com, there is a workaround you may favor:  for anyone going to xy.peatio.com, immediately redirect them to a true .xy domain or to an offshore top-level domain you can trust ("xy.peatio.ok"), where .xy represents each country.

The redirections must be visible so that your customers will always know the true URL, so that when your .com is pulled, they know what to do.

The redirections should properly support https:// or they will encourage man-in-the-middle attacks.  (For that matter, anyone going to the http:// version of any of your sites should simply be told to try again with https://.  It is always insecure to passively redirect non-SSL to SSL connections.  Most sites violate this critical rule.)

That's pretty much the definition of sovereignty.

It's the first time I hear such a concern...

That would look dodgy as fuck and be counterproductive as hell.

Actually, a convenient centralized domain being redirected to the country most appropriate to the customer is a common practice (when done transparently upon the first visit) for large multinationals.

The problem is really just that it seems unfamiliar because small companies start out the other way instead of planning to be international.

For an exchange planning to cover a number of countries in a "personalized" way as this one is, it doesn't need to seem dodgy.  The destination sites can prominently identify themselves with the .com name if so desired.

But it seems you may have been calling the warning about navigating to a non-SSL site dodgy.  What would you suggest?  Novices can easily be tricked into revealing passwords when they rely on an insecure http: site to redirect them to a secure one.

Also, sovereignty refers to a country's perceived right to exert control over its own territory.  Whereas .com was envisioned as a global domain.

Let me be slightly more specific :

 - jp.peatio.com -> jp.peatio.ok = DODGY
 - jp.peatio.com -> peatio.jp = PERFECTLY FINE, but it's usually the other way around

I just hate that .io domains are much too expensive...

If 100$/year is too expensive for you, I strongly suggest you rethink your whole project.

Great news.

not too expensive for me, too expensive relatively. :)

watch you

:( I found this on nic.io:
...which means I'm not qualified...

I'm sure you can register a .io domain without being in there.

Will Mr Li or John help to clarify the state of the fake fund raising incident - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=181336.0 before going on to raise more money from the public?

I don't think Mr Li is a trustworthy person and have the right credential to carry out any IPO.

Before accusing me of "fake fund raising incident", you should check out links below, since you can read Chinese:

http://lixiaolai.com/first-public-charity-donation-in-china-for-lushan
http://lixiaolai.com/first-public-charity-donation-in-china-for-lushan-2nd-phase
http://lixiaolai.com/first-public-charity-donation-in-china-for-lushan-3rd-phase
http://lixiaolai.com/first-public-charity-donation-in-china-for-lushan-final

Here's a a brief explanation of the fund (I'll update a detailed explanation in the original post in English, within next week, when everything is settled.):

As of the fund raised (https://blockchain.info/address/15EhGBC8JBBVDKQ9yp1AqCb1xnzQLk6QHX, 32.54618228 BTC), as promised, I "exchanged" (that is, I used my own fiat money) the amount to RMB with the highest rate during the donation period, $169/BTC, equivalent to RMB 33,000. One of my friend later added RMB 20,000. The final amount of donation is equivalent to RMB 53,000. And as promised, I spent no money on traveling, hoteling, dining, etc. All the donation fund (53,000) will be sent to the students we'll support.

Now, RMB 15,000 was sent to 30 students from poor families in LuShan, as a student aid. Each of them only needs RMB 500 per year to pay for their tuitions. And we'll find more poor students to support next year, using the rest amount of RMB 38,000. (or perhaps we could find more students qualified in the near future, which needs volunteers work continuously.)

I'm building a website with one of my friend, named bitstudentaid.org (not launched yet, in development), planning raise more fund to support poor students in China in the future.

I hope I've given you a very clear explanation. However, I'll post a much more detailed update of the fund, and of the ongoing suite: bitstudentaid.org.

Totally agree.


Is AsicMiner a p2p mining team?
Is Google a p2p search engine?
Is BMW a p2p car company?

WTF.

sounds great! what´s the schedule ?

OP is a trust-worthy person in China. A lot of Chinese bitcoiners gained their first knowledge about bitcoin through OP's blog in 2011. For me I've read his blog and books since 2006 and I've gained many skills such as programming, critical thinking from his writings.

OP told us this project in a QQ online instant-chatting group and many ppl in the group are willing to become a shareholder, even before knowing the details of his project.

Mark

Mark

mark，，great becoming

If I have only 50 btc, Can I invest your project?
Thanks so  much!

:) you should think harder. And "WTF." is a nice indicator.

AsicMiner and Google has a distinction, and peatio.com will be pretty different from both of them.

Mr. Li, we owe you a lot of thanks for your many efforts in China, so I hope you understand that I am not attacking your business when I say the following...

But no one wants another Exchange! We've got too many exchanges right now, and the problem with every last one of them is that if a government wanted to, it can land helicopters nearby and shut it down. Washington, Beijing, it really doesn't matter which... Some state will eventually be made by the banking cartel to do so.

So I don't see any point in "public ownership" and especially no point in an exchange being hosted on a website.

To make an exchange that cannot be shut down, you simply must follow BitTorrent's design of a SOFTWARE APP to host the exchange within.

Otherwise, what's the point?

The updates that you've linked does not mentioned anything about the student aid.   If wasn't for this post, will you even bother posting an update and the original fund raising post, nor update your blog.  How can you raise fund publicly and not provide an update on how you intend to use the fund?   

How were the 30 students selected to receive the student aid?   Have the 30 students already received the aid?  Would you provide any evidence for the action?

In your fund raising post, you have committed to "promise that all funds will be spent on rehabilitation of lushan."   Do you think student aid is an appropriate way to use this fund?

Anyway, it is getting off-topic.  Please post your updates (and evidence if any) in your original fund raising thread to close the loop.  I have done my whistle blowing, and will not post any more on this matter.

The problem here is that even a sound p2p solution emerges, it will still have to depend on some sort of "gateway" (a term used by ripple).

Yes, gateways do become the next CPoF (Central Point of Failure) if you move your exchange to software, I understand.

The challenge then would be to find a way to create gateways that simply cannot be shut down, such as being too numerous or completely anonymous.

I've said enough on the original post on how do I intend to use the fund. I don't quite understand your point that my blog is not "publicly" seen?
You can read Chinese, and you've read all the post, how could you conclude "The updates that you've linked does not mentioned anything about the student aid." -- please read again: http://lixiaolai.com/first-public-charity-donation-in-china-for-lushan-final

They've already received. YES, I'll provide adequate evidences.

YES, I think it's appropriate. I'll elaborate in the final update in the original donation post.


Please keep watching the original donation post.

:) I think we're moving along to that direction.

Awesome! I look forward to news then.

Expecting  :D

In my time knowing Mr. Li, I have found him to be one of the most trustworthy and passionate individuals I have ever met. His commitment to the Bitcoin community seems endless and he supports many small projects.  We are very lucky to have him here.

As for your assertion that he somehow lacks the skills to carry out an IPO, it is baseless and offensive. China isn't the most Bitcoin friendly environment, yet he publicly embraces it regardless of the personal risks. He has decades of business experience and a very committed network of associates to carry out a wide range of operations throughout all of China. Li is also my friend and I'll always support his efforts to bring Bitcoin to a society in desperate need of the economic freedom we take for granted.

ok

uhm...clueless noob here cause I have no idea what a "gateway" is, but what yer describing is called a smartphone. Well...as in too numerous to all be shut down at once and anonymous as in beer. I mean bitcoin anonymous. Oh nevermind. (grin)

Being used in the same sense as ripple's vocabulary: http://vimeo.com/63784865#at=0

That's cool for own the share, looking forward to it.

A tiny update, a new domain name acquired: peat.io (thanks to the advice from @coinage, and @davout. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=239416.msg2541072#msg2541072)

oh,nice!At least we've known the real meaning of the domain name!good luck peat! ;D ;D ;D

i'm sorry isn't that the purpose of bitcoin software to do this?..lol

Interested, watching.

Sounds great. looking forward to it.

I just signed up.  When will the shares be available for purchase?  I live in the U.S. so I couldn't fill out all of the fields (identification, qq, etc.)

 I highly believe Mr.Li and expect the schedule!

shares of what?..thanks

any update?

Still working. Let's be patient. :)

Yes,we have to be patient! :)

We'd have to keep replying this post so OP would feel pressured to make it online asap. :-))

you got me.  >:(

 ;D

I know of two off hand.

Vircurex ( https://cryptostocks.com/securities/34 ) and Crypto-Trade ( https://btct.co/security/CRYPTO-TRADE ).   A little surprised you did not find them doing your market/competitor analysis, especially Vircurex as it has been around for awhile.

Keep working OP and the team! We are waiting patiently~ :D

Thank you for answering my question. :) I did not realize that Vircurex was publicly traded.

 :D ;D

Can't wait

Vircurex's marketshare is incredibly low:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=220412.msg2355726#msg2355726

Not exactly an endearing business model to investors. Peatio is going to be a revolution in exchanges.

 :-\ any updates?

patient,patient and patient ;D ;D ;D

Irrelevant to them being public trade already though.  In addition vircurex mostly specializing in coin2coin trades,  what is being measured in the link you posted?  btc to fiat only?

BTC to fiat transactions are and always will be the most important in the ecosystem. The primary value of any exchange is how well it can facilitate these transactions and manage the legal, regulatory, technological and social aspects of fiat exchange. It's simply a monstrously difficult task, which is why so many exchanges have failed or haven't meet community expectations.

Also the other challenge is the nature of all the required partnerships a successful exchange must have. These include banks, law firms, regulatory agencies, other exchanges and businesses requiring liquidity in their business models. If a partner fails, it can cascade to the customers of an exchange causing delays or loss of funds. Then there is the issue of bad actors who use DDOS attacks alongside other tools to manipulate the markets to their own ends.

In short, entering this business isn't easy and it requires a thick skin as well as a tolerance for failure. Vircurex hasn't developed as nor is prepared to be a legitimate player in the crypto-currency to fiat market.

If enough places accept digital currencies directly this statement will be false.  It is a pretty bold statement. and probably myopic  to speak of 'always' as an absolute.   The primary value of a fiat to digital currency exchange is as you say.  You are of course by definition wrong for other types or other focused  exchanges.  In fact, it is partially due to this being a monstrous task that other types of exchanges are desirable when the overhead of those tasks is not desired.  Especially the absurd kyc requirements that have every tom dick and harry business keeping copies of IDs, and asking the same stupid verification questions.  So a break in to any of these leaks enough information to use your identfy elsewhere.    Think it is a coincidence we have a rise in identity theft with the rise in kyc laws?


You are making my points for me.   The high overhead and additional risks create a demand for other types of exchanges when you do not need to take on these risks.


I actually hope it stays that way.  I would prefer to see more exchanges that do not offer fiat as an option.

As long as nations require their citizens to pay taxes in fiat, then my statement will always be true. It doesn't matter how many goods or services can be purchased in Bitcoins, Litecoin, Feathercoin or other Crypto-currencies. If income is taxed and taxes are paid in fiat, then you will need to exchange your CC for fiat.


Again my discussion and the crux of my statement involved fiat to CC exchanges. CC to CC exchange doesn't even require a central entity. In just a few years, all of these transactions can be done through a p2p network without the need for trust or escrow. In short, the business model you are advocating is obsolete and thus irrelevant to this conversation.


This statement only serves to support my OP. I assert that exchanges have unique information security challenges and require enormous amounts of trust. Your point only serves to validate the core premise of Peatio that seeks to handle these issues in a more transparent and collaborative manner than they have been addressed by the incumbents.


Does your government accept taxes in CC? If not, then you are simply wrong. If you receive payment for goods or services in a CC, then you must convert a percentage into fiat to pay your taxes unless your intention is to be a criminal. Even if you as an individual decide to embrace this lifestyle, businesses cannot.



Again, you clearly do not understand that one does not require a centralized exchange for CC to CC transactions. The technology exists to accomplish these transactions in a completely trust and escrow free environment without any middleman. You are advocating a business model that would lead to financial ruin.

Any update?

our dev's are woking now. it'll be very simple version of alpha soon.

expecting ;D ;D ;D

I have noticed that the more we ask for 'any update' the more exciting news we will get ;D ;D ;D

So, any update today? :) ;)

good！！！ :o

zhe,,,,,, ;D ;D ;D

watching

Keep moving.....

Keep moving, OP! We're holding our 1 BTC~

Mr.Li, we can't wait~~~~~~~~~ :)

Any updates? Any updates?

Patient plz ;D

Still at 18% status?

Keep us posted plz, OP

You seem going to sell 100% to public. Nice

However what will be your earning and motivation later? Specially with all actual problems an administrator of exchange is meting daily?

So you sell all your company and then ? You wil manage for free for life? Sorry I'm a bit confused and septical on this part.

I wish you good luck anyway, nice to see more competitors coming

I saw xiaolai said peat.io's alpha had begun , any update here?

If it is "Alpha" in China, it will be shut down VERY quickly or blocked.......
One thing they are very fastidious about is  complete and total currency control...

oh,not exectly!Since It's truely the goverment of China is more fastidious than some countries,but there are still a number of exchange running normally.And on the other side,BTC exchange is not absolutely safe in any places of the world.
Otherwise,China's network is not perfect truely,but the server of peat.io can be anywhere. ;D ;D ;D

------Daily post------
Dear OP:

Any updates?

Daily post too

Any updates?
 ;D

we're in alpha stage, working hard...

;D

UPDATE 2013.07.27

Public Alpha test will start from 00:00 (GTM+8), July, 28.

http://peat.io

No real transactions, amounts given in the account are just numbers.

Awesome.

May we know when the IPO would be launched, please?

We're working very hard, thank you and your support!

on movement soon。。。

involve for the testing...

Sweet! Any ideas if they'll be an English translation of the site?

are you still working on it, keeping it open source ?

Just discovered the project trying to contribute soon.

good to hear some interesting project.

Hello.

I'm setting up a Bitcoin Exchange in Finland powered by Peat.io

Help in internationalisation is appreciated.

In the future, we might spread to other countries through our own network.

We are a team of dedicated Bitcoin developers.

Partnership with Peat.io is welcomed.

Thank you

--Starwalker

Is it still functional ? peatio.com seems down to me.

Try http://www.peat.io/ (http://www.peat.io/)

Docs are highly outdated.

This website is under construction.

No updates in a while to the repo, really needed updated documentation.

Oh well...

This have been proven to be good for sometimes now, please anybody that can install this on my website should contact me via PM.

Well,

I tried to build the exchange following the instructions on ubuntu.

After running peatio on localhost, I can see the website, but I can't do anything as client such as

- email verification...
- funding...
etc.,

I think my problem must come from configurations below, but there is no reference.
-------------------------------------

vim ~/.bitcoin/bitcoin.conf

[Prepare configure files]

bin/init_config
vim config/application.yml
vim config/currencies.yml
vim config/database.yml
---------------------------------------
Could anyone please give me advice & reference on the configuration settings?

When I was stuck in 'database' a programmer's one advice solved my problem very easily which was

vim config/database.yml

mysql password must be what was set, which was easy but very important to me.

Please give me some help... for the last three months, i spent 10hours a day but no progress.

my email is juneleekr@gmail

i am looking forward to you prefessional's help...

thanks in advance... 
 

Anyone have any luck with this?  ??? or know of an alternative?

If you are having trouble with setup contact me. 0.1 BTC / hour.

Typical set up if you have everything < 1 hour.