Bitcoin Forum

I'm excited to announce Elqnt! - An anonymous, P2P, Bitcoin Exchange -- https://secure.elqnt.org/

Keep an eye on this post, as we use this for the most up-to-date info, with subsequent posts being used to answer question/discuss, highlight certain info, and to house an archive of content.

== Overview ==

Elqnt is a decentralized + anonymous + peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange.

White Paper -- https://git.thebody.io/elqnt/whitepaper/blob/master/whitepaper.md (https://git.thebody.io/elqnt/whitepaper/blob/master/whitepaper.md)

== Updates ==
12/8/13
We've recently taken a completely new tact with the technologies that have been developed thus far -- resulting in a massively different service, but with the result of providing a substantially more beneficial platform to all those involved.

We've written up a white paper to detail how the new incarnation of the exchange will function -- https://git.thebody.io/elqnt/whitepaper/blob/master/whitepaper.md

== Donate ==
We are intentially not actively seeking institutional investment due to the conflict of interest around user data collection.  We believe this data is yours and yours along; thus, we want to place ourselves in a position of only having 'useless' data such that even if compelled, we hold nothing of value re: identifiable user data.
Because of this, the project has thus far been funded primarily by the individuals involved, but we will need donations or revenue to continue meaningful development going forward.

Please donate if you like this idea and want to see it happen!

https://git.thebody.io/elqnt/whitepaper/raw/master/donate-qr.png
17ost3nMZoGHYmNud4Qer7fybb782UCwDH

== Contact Info ==

Twitter: @elqntdotorg (https://twitter.com/elqntdotorg)
E-mail: stephen@elqnt.org

We would love thoughts, feedback, insight, and anything constructive to continually grow + improve the project!

Technically very interesting!

The site doesn't load for me.

How is this different from Napster?  They have a centralized server that connected peers to each other...I think.

Well shoot...could be a couple things:

We've been doing some pretty heavy server modification over the past couple of days with our new in-house server, so you might have caught the site in one of those periods.  I try to keep our twitter -- @elqntdotorg -- updated regularly with a heads up to downtime.

Also, if you're using anything other than Chrome or Chromium, we've blocked the exchange due to compatibility.  WebRTC is implemented in the stable release of Chrome currently making it much easier to maintain on our end.  FF has it implemented in the nightly release, but some stuff is still not quite stable, so we're holding on support until things have stabilized.  Doubt support for anything else (besides maybe Opera) is coming anytime soon.  Most of this support hinges on which browser has implemented WebRTC and to what degree of effort we have to apply to make it work in our system w/ browser quirks.

Lastly, give it another shot.  Should be back up, if not, could be a bigger issue.

It's basically identical in regards to networking typography.

The way in which we're different is that our servers only do two things:

1) Maintain a list of active peers (ie - peers currently with browser windows open) by client generated ID ONLY.  
All of the rest of the data (price, rate, location, chat, etc.) is directly transmitted between peers and never touches our servers.  It's also all encrypted peer-to-peer to help against surveillance.  We also have checks in place to prevent ID spoofing.  

2) Serve the necessary static HTML + JS files.  We've built the exchange in Ember.js so structurally it's basically a self-contained browser based app that only communicates between the mapping server (soon to be in-house as well, today possibly...), peer server, and other peers -- all encrypted.

Lastly, we've open sourced both the peer server and Elqnt itself to give everyone a chance to dig into the code and audit it for security vulnerabilities and also contribute back.

Thanks! 

Any thoughts on functionality improvements or feature requests?

Will you be building any mobile apps (Android, iOS)?

Our core consideration with the entirety of this suite of services is on anonymity and sadly all of the major current mobile OSs are a bit dubious when it comes to anonymity + privacy (in large part due to impositions by the carriers, and following that chain up, by the respective governments that have jurisdiction over them).  

That being said, we're sticking with web based at this point.  We may do an Android app, but more likely would be a custom Android build which strips all 'phoning home', along with all user data collection and is purpose built for privacy surrounding communication, financial transactions, and user data.

We're also eyeing Ubuntu One, but it's still too early to make any conclusions.

= Version Changelog Archive =
*This is linked to in the first post*

v1.1 - minor release (7.27.13)

- Substantial Back-End Refactoring In Preparation for Major Functionality Inclusions
- Analytics Opt-Out
- Mobile UI Improvements (Will come into play more as mobile Chrome supports WebRTC)

v1 (7.19.13) --
- As a buyer, find local sellers of Bitcoin
- As a seller, list either an exchange area or a specific location for which you would like to sell Bitcoins within
- early currency I18n (still needs work)
- All data + communication is conducted directly p2p utilizing WebRTC -- the only data our server collects is peer Id's (volatile - i.e. once you leave we remove the ID from memory)
- Mobile compatibility w/ Chrome (still mostly broken, but working to clean this up very soon)

https://i.imgur.com/vwMin.gif

Finally! A P2P exchange!

It loads now - guess it was just down temporarily and I got unlucky.

I think this is a really interesting approach and your UI is great, so congratulations there. You might want to avoid using the custom E symbol outside of the logo though. Seeing it show up in the currency list is a bit jarring.

Using WebRTC as a way to do P2P traffic in a browser is a really neat hack, even if it's basically using Chrome as an app platform for now. How does it work with NAT? Do we end up bouncing connections off reflector servers, or does it use UPnP?

That said, whilst I think there's great potential for WebRTC for p2p bitcoin browser apps, I'm not sure a localbitcoins competitor is the right place to start. The fact that my ad disappears if I close my browser window is rather questionable. Also, presumably if I leave it open all the time (e.g. at work) then at weekends I have no way to see messages that get sent to me, etc. This sort of thing really needs persistent storage and asynchronous messaging, like email.

Many other apps that are more real time in nature could benefit from your approach though.

Update in follow-up post.


Great!

Makes sense, we'll work to clean things up re: typography.  Thanks for the feedback!  

NAT traversal shouldn't be a problem, barring a blocked port.  Basically what happens is there is what's called a STUN server that helps each individual peer know their public IP and port.  The ID that the user assigns itself (done automatically), becomes the route to communicate with that user.  All communication is done directly peer-to-peer via JSON calls.  We have our own schema for how those JSON calls are structured.

We're working on a method to handle persistence, but haven't yet implemented this.  We already have the functionality basically spec'd, but aren't yet sure with what release it makes the most sense for.  

Just ran through some tests this evening w/ Tor and everything still works great, albeit a little slow (to be expected when using Tor).  

Let me know if there are any issues on your end when traversing w/ Tor.  

The site doesn't load.

OSX 10.8.4
Chrome 28

Thanks for the heads up, and sorry about that -- caught us right at the wrong moment :)

We just had some downtime (~30 minutes) as we were migrating the main production server temporarily to backup storage as we installed new hardware for the mapping server.

We're configuring a new RAID setup this afternoon, so once that's ready, we'll probably have just a couple minutes of downtime as we switch back over to that.

We try to keep things up to date on our twitter so everyone can have a heads up as to to any potential downtime -- @elqntdotorg (https://twitter.com/elqntdotorg)

Even if you announce downtime on twitter, still best to have a static page (S3 works well for this) to let everyone know you are doing maintenance. 

Good point, we'll put that in the backlog for implementation ahead of the brief downtime tonight.

v1.1 deployed - minor release

Here is a summary of the items included in this release --
note: this ended up mostly being a minor release in preparation for the subsequent major release next week

- Substantial Back-End Refactoring In Preparation for Major Functionality Inclusions
- Analytics Opt-Out
- Mobile UI Improvements (Will come into play more as mobile Chrome supports WebRTC)

Would love feedback to help make this thing what everybody really wants and would use in an anonymous p2p exchange.  
Lists, written critique, or snapshots are all appreciated!  Anything you can provide in the way of feedback will help shape this platform and make it more awesome.

Best,
Stephen

Please, keep up the good work!

You should add a link to your "too cool for school" page to an alternative page that works on all browsers.

This would give access to things like your faq and a description of what your service actually does.  You could have screenshots of the page in action.

Many people aren't going to download Chrome just to see what your service is about.

In fact, how does your service work?  You should give a description of how a trade proceeds.

Thanks!  

Pushing hard to get this next group of functionality deployed.  There is some tricky back-end work w/ the peer-to-peer encryption that is holding things up (along with the mapping server).  

That's for the feedback -- The landing page will be cross-browser in the upcoming deploy, so the 'too cool for school' page will be going away -- It was actually a really quick late-night capability test until we got the next round of functionality out.  

With the new landing page in place, users should have a solid idea of what the service is all about and how it works.

Love your site and idea. Even includes Malaysian ringgit. Any offline messaging feature in the works (that would be awesome)?

Indeed, partially what's taking a while -- it's been a unique challenge to maintain anonymity while affording persistent messaging.

Wow, this looks extremely promising.

keep up, good work and good luck! :D

Thanks!  We've set the go-live date for Oct 29th on this new version.

This version is essentially a complete re-write from the beta with some serious refactoring to much of the back-end due to continued thought around security + efficiency. 

With all that re-working, it's taken quite a bit longer than expected -- we apologize for that -- but we felt we couldn't go live with this next version without a solid base set of functionality from which we could build. 

As the date gets closer, I'll update this post with an outline of the full set of functionality (some items are still in the works and might not quite make it in before we lock in). 

Best,
Stephen

Hey all,

A quick update on things:

It's not looking like I'm going to be able to push the service live today.  I'm super bummed, but it's honestly for the best.  You'd hate the experience if I pushed it live today.

Reasons:

• I want the experience to be very good when it goes live -- it's not there yet.
• P2P Messaging + Listings are working great, but getting persistence of both of those is taking a lot of time to get right -- but it is very close.
• The in-house mapping server didn't pan out.  I simply don't have the optimal hardware for it and I couldn't reach parity w/ other open street map options such as Mapquest.  This didn't delay things persay, but I'm bummed.  In order to do this, it would require another server specifically designed for high IO -- which costs quite a lot.

I also have one other major feature (sort-of) that I've not yet announced (and had hoped to today!), but it will have to wait until Elqnt goes live   ;)

Best,
Stephen

Hey all,

Quick update on my end --

Elqnt is now going to be hosted out of a data center here in SF -- still on our own hardware.  I was able to find space (and the proper bandwidth) to accommodate the loads I'm hoping to be able to handle. 

I'd been capitulating to the idea of cloud hosting over this past week due to the in-house setup not measuring up to what I'd hoped -- not to mention the provider was not reliable enough -- but finding this space keeps things solid in the track of managing and hosting everything on our own hardware for additional control/access.

I'm really pushing to wrap up development in the next few days -- the timestamp on this should be an indication of the long hours :)  Getting all of the hardware setup in the data center this week set me back a couple days, but is a huge step up in stability + bandwidth. 

Anyways, I'll keep everyone posted as I get ready to push it live!

Stephen

Hey all,

I wanted to share a quick video I made walking through the state of development on the exchange.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlrvJfiWZOk

I'd love feedback and I'm pushing hard to get this last set of functionality wrapped up so you can get your hands on it.  

I'm also looking to find some folk interested in jumping in on the project as well.  I'm thinking of structuring it as a rev share between whomever joins in.  If you'd be interested, shoot me a message.

Best,
Stephen

Very cool I can't wait to use this! I am also a dev, my skill set is on the side of this, but I will for sure be playing with this when it open sources as well.

@elqntdotorg

Just watched the youtube video. Looks good.
What are your thoughts regarding anti DOS measures? Can the attacker DDOS other users with lots of encrypted meaningless data which the user will then have to decrypt and thus consuming the CPU.
When a user creates a sell offer, does this offer get broadcasted to the whole network? What's preventing attackers from creating fake offers and spamming the system?

The video is not working for me on the iPad YouTube app.

Playback error tap to try again.

The simple answer, as the network stands now, is yes - it's vulnerable.  

Three ways that I'm addressing integrity around listing + messaging data right now --

1. I've built in mechanisms to handle user spoofing + spoofed edits of existing listings.
2. I'm going to be limiting the amount of listings a user can post to 1 at launch.
3. I've made the decision (since posting the video) to limit listing posts to 7 days of visibility + messages for those listings to 14 days of accessibility (purged from the network by all peers after that).

Those three measures prevent the majority of attacks in the form of corruption / manipulation and, to an extent, flooding / spamming.

Going forward --

Reputation is the next big functionality that I'm going to be building in after launch.
This will allow us to much more effectively address DDOS + spamming potential in that:
1. Peers can automatically reject messages from peers deemed to be spamming even before any decryption is necessary
2. The peer server can auto-kick users from the network who are spamming

This is an ongoing thought process for me as I continue to engineer the network.  Would love any feedback on the above and/or other thoughts.

Best,
Stephen

Very weird, I was able to duplicate this on my ipad.  In the immediate, watch on your laptop.  I'm digging into it. Could possibly be an issue w/ it having been recorded via hangout, as I've got the settings set for 'all platforms'. 

Thanks!  I'm super excited to get it out and it keeps me pumped hearing about others being excited. 

Awesome, can't wait to get your feedback on the codebase when it's out.

Elqnt Exchange Update -- 11/16/13

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeB2PqI9FDY

Hey,

I recorded another update to show everybody the progress around authenticated listing propagation + synchronization.  

I want to also seriously apologize for how LONG this development cycle has been taking me.  It's honestly been requiring much more work to get it functioning the way I want than I had originally anticipated.  I'm not publicaly setting a specific date (though I have one set in my head) for the go-live, but I'm forging forward daily.  
I'll be calling this an alpha release and I explain a bit more why @ the end of the video.

Please give me any feedback if you have it and I really look forward to getting this live, open sourced, and kicking with real users!

Best,
Stephen

Hey everyone!

A short update on the progress of Elqnt development --

Please give me any feedback, questions, thoughts if you have any!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwgnUbU2-fw

Some of the big things I mention in the video:

1. The entirety of the exchange is going to be open source
2. I'm going to be separately open sourcing the p2p framework I've built for propagation + synchronization (not immediatly, but soon) so that others can build their own p2p + decentralized web + mobile services.  
3. The entirety of the Elqnt exchange will be free!  Individual exchangers might charge a fee/percent, but elqnt itself will be ad supported (at least for now -- exploring other revenue options that might supplement as well).
4. I still have bugs, but I'm hoping the community will help me trace and fix ones that I've not yet been able to squash.  

Again, give me any feedback, thoughts, opinions, etc. you might have!  

It kind of seems folk have grown weary of interest in the length of time it's taken to get this out there, but know that it's coming and close!  

I'm wrapping up persistent messaging and then finishing up the UI and then I'll be going live w/ the alpha!

Best,
Stephen

Very interesting project. I see this as one of the few solutions for a truly decentralized Bitcoin exchange.

If it's peer to peer, who is collecting the money?

Thus far the model has essentially been 'an anonymous + peer-to-peer localbitcoins'.  The biggest differentiator between the two of us was that our back-end was completely p2p + anonymous -- the mechanics of actually executing a localbitcoins exchange are challenging if you truly want to maintain anonymity, not to mention the price lag, and the current workflow of Elqnt wasn't going to completely solve the mechanics aspect, but did solve the anonymity aspect.  

However, just in the past few days I've been developing a new idea around mesh exchange utilizing the Elqnt p2p framework.  This is 'The Holy Grail' of Bitcoin exchange and I may have figured out how to do it.

This new track is going to pause the deploy of the exchange because it may substantially change the infrastructure, but with the result of a much better exchange.

I'll post some updates in the coming days.  

In the mean time, if anyone is a solid Android dev, I'd love to talk -- stephen@elqnt.org

Stephen

Indeed -- up until this point, it's been operating under the idea of an anonymous + p2p localbitcoins alternative.

Just in the past few days though, I've been working through a model that would utilize the exising Elqnt p2p framework to provide true mesh exchange.

I'm excited to present the Elqnt White Paper (https://git.thebody.io/elqnt/whitepaper/blob/master/whitepaper.md)!

In the past two weeks, myself and another developer have conducted a number of lengthy discussions around how we might be able to leverage the existing p2p technologies I'd been developing over the past few months to actually bring about a fully decentralized + anonymous + peer-to-peer exchange for Bitcoin -- we think we've developed a way to do it and are actively developing towards the first proof-of-concept version.  

The above white paper gives a high-level overview of how the platform will function.

One of the most exciting pieces to this method of exchange is the incentivization model which rewards all peers involved in an exchange route (detailed in the white paper (https://git.thebody.io/elqnt/whitepaper/blob/master/whitepaper.md)).  

Please give us feedback!  
We really want to hear what others are thinking, where you think things might break down, and what concerns you might have -- all feedback is welcome.

If you're interested in joining us in development, let me know -- stephen@elqnt.org -- and I'll setup a time to get you spun up on things and plugged into our git repo.

All code will be released under GPL-3.0 license and will be completely modular -- meaning, we're shooting to structure the platform in such a way that you can run it without having to setup any servers -- just run the exchange node in a browser window (or extension) from file and run the peer client on an android device and you've got yourself a mesh network for exchange.

Best,
Stephen

Is there any update about this project?

This specific project is currently on hold on our end --

A summary update of the past few months:

We reached the point of proof-of-concept w/ the decentralized nodes, meaning we had them successfully connecting w/ each other and communicating -- we used this version to pitch investors.

On the android side of things, 'the clients', it was also fairly progressed in development, but just short of successfully connecting up with the nodes due to some additional implementation necessary for them to find the nodes.

We ultimately had to put things on hold due to funding --

We'd been discussing the project with a number of investors, though none of these conversations moved past initial meetings specifically for the decentralized exchange platform, though they did progress in some other directions (that I'll mention towards the end of the post).
This was due to three things:
> Revenue Model (It's essentially impossible to directly monetize a truly decentralized network.  We did have a revenue model defined that wouldn't compromise the integrity of the decentralized network, but the runway for this model was just too long)
> Legality - It's a gray area and most investors won't go near it.
> Understanding - Even if you simplify down the fundamentals of what we're doing, it's still hard for most VCs or even angels to understand the value of a fully decentralized network.

We had truly hoped to get sufficient donations from the community to keep this running up until the point of v1, but that just didn't happen.

This all leads into what we're working on currently --

We're now building a fully featured, yet easy to use Cryptocurrency arbitrage platform called Elqnt | Arbitrage (http://arbitrage.elqnt.com/).  This will hopefully help fund continued development on the Elqnt Exchange.

The bitcointalk discussion for Elqnt | Arbitrage can be found here --> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=459528.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=459528.0)

We've also launched an indiegogo campaign to help fund the development of the arbitrage platform --> http://igg.me/at/elqnt (http://igg.me/at/elqnt)

We truly do hope to get back to developing on the exchange node infrastructure, but paramount at this point is making sure we have personal funding solidified.  Once that is in place, we'll be carving out time again to work on the exchange node infrastructure. 

What about posting this as an open source project? I guess there will be people willing to contribute. I think it is more important to have this implemented than the profit.
Here is what I was thinking about recently: Implement this only as a platform to get in/out FIAT money. eg: 1 USD=0.99 virtual USD, people who do the physical exchange of the money get 0.01USD commission. This way there will be many people participating in the system. once you have virtualUSDs you can use them on a distributed exchange easily.

We're going to be open sourcing the entirety of the platform, but we've been hesitant to do so yet because of the communication overhead of doing so (we're very strapped on time and really want to focus on development) ahead of the fundamental structure of the nodes themselves being sufficiently mature to open it for community review + discussion -- thus waiting until we finish up the first release itself.

We've got a fairly fleshed out incentivization model in place in the whitepaper that we think will incentivize all points of contact in a transaction that utilizes the exchange node network.

Last note -- we had and still have no plans to directly monetize the exchange structure itself (thus the challenge to raising funds), we had plans for ancillary monetization that would allow us to make money without compromising the integrity of an anonymous and decentralized network.