Bitcoin Forum

https://Vibanko.com - FREE New Wallet Service by Bitcoin Consultancy

The Bitcoin Consultancy is proud to present a new wallet service called Vibanko.com
We know that the bitcoin market is lacking real developers and that even the biggest merchant sites often offer very poor service and security. Britcoin.co.uk has been in operation since March and has never been hacked or suffered any major error. We had a couple of problems due to human error, but nothing that was not fixable. Slapping on a McAfee logo and two factor authentication can be akin to putting more locks on the doors when the walls are paper thin.

Our new wallet service has been built and is being operated by us. We have been running as long as britcoin.co.uk and our security and service have been unmatched. The wallet service is also for now and for the foreseeable future completely free. Just like our exchange sites Britcoin.co.uk (GBP), Intersango.com (EUR) and Intersango.us (USD), we take absolutely no commission.


Wallet features include:

* Passwords are properly hashed
* Proper db permissions
* Simple Interface
* Support Via Email: support@britcoin.co.uk
* Who we are: www.bitcoinconsultancy.com


We plan on building an FAQ page and a good start is by answering the questions in this thread.

Contact us privately for any questions you may have which you wish to keep private at support@britcoin.co.uk

Source code is here, https://gitorious.org/vibanko/vibanko

Great news. A quality option.

Any plans for an android app?

Like this https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=24452.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=24452.0) does for Instawallet?

In before everyone loses BTC to another online wallet.

FAQ, Help, and Contact links at the bottom of the page did not work - using Chrome in Windows 7.

I am not quite sure how you even managed to see them. Black on brown?
They do not work in opera either.

When people launch BTC sites.. do they even ask for a single opinion before hitting up this forum?
When you splash it here one would hope the most trivial of issues and design considerations would
be worked out.

Scammers don't have time to ask for opinions.

No wonder they don't work — there are no links to click on:


Cheers,

Maybe read the OP,


We were waiting to see what type of worries/difficulties people have using the service, before writing a help text or FAQ that's irrelevant to most people.

This is more than likely a scam.  Be careful people.

Excellent plan

Are we going to get any explanation as to WHY respected community members would be scammers according to you, or is this going to turn into some unfounded FUD thread? If you were looking for the Troll forum, try next door...

You do realise I'm on the front page of bitcoin.org and a long time contributor to the community?

i.e

I'm admin on the wiki and wrote a lot of it
Developed lots of bitcoin code
Created Spesmilo (the GUI)
Own and operate Britcoin.co.uk which is the only UK exchange and one of the largest
Created libbitcoin (on gitorious)
Made the stock exchange client for nefario
Created the Bitcoin poker site
Co-founded Bitcoin Consultancy which pays several members of this community
Represented bitcoin several times in mainstream press (see front page of bitcoinconsultancy.com) both on TV and in print.

The other developers are also well respected. phantomcircuit made the Python version of bitcoin and has several commits in the mainline. Mizerydearia is the owner of witcoin.com

Oh yeah and we release the sourcecode to all of our projects. So it's a bit unfair to call us scammers when we're very public and open about what we do. You can find our IRC channel on Freenode under #bitcoinconsultancy

We're a registered company. More details: https://britcoin.co.uk/?page=help

Newbies can only understand mybitcoin ATM

Pretty Standard

Read: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=35600.msg440655#msg440655 (post #4)

Not everyone starting a bitcoin business is a scam....

give the guy a break.

Bitcoin communtiy: Trust NO ONE to hold onto your BTC....unless they say you can really really trust them.

We should be focusing more on getting people to secure their BTC personally than going down the same road over and over.  Even if the operators of an online wallet are 100% honest good-guys haven't we seen that setting yourself up as a singluar target is asking to be hacked and possibly losing everyone's BTC.

Countdown to lulz-a-caust begins now.

No i really did not know who you are but, With all this talk about wallet theft. Sorry no disrespect. Only wanting people to be careful so we may get passed all this wallet theft.

Genjix, Phantomcurcit  and the rest of that crew are some of the most serious people in the entire BTC scene. They have done more for bitcoin than most other people will ever do.

I use Britcoin and Intersango and will definitely be looking into this particularly if it gets linked to their exchanges so you can do superfast forex leveraging. This looks like it's going to be a fantastic tool for the community.

Oh and as far as I know they're the only ones working on getting government recognition as a commodity, so their exchanges can be covered by insurers etc. I suspect and hope that a service like this would also come under such coverage in the future particularly if it's linked to exchanges.


Great project guys and thanks for contributing.

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

The only thing that is worse than trusting someone without due diligence, is calling someone a scammer without due diligence.

The beautiful thing about Bitcoin is that you have a choice. If you don't like government involvement, then use another service.

Now, for fucks sake, go troll elsewhere.

Ok, so you join a community who values it's commodity for having no government regulation and claims it as one of its virtues and then you work real real hard to do the exact opposite.  Do you think once the government gets involved in regulating just a few exchanges they'll be just pleased with themselves and leave BTC as a whole alone?

Keep up the good work on undoing the whole point of BTC!

Also: pointing out logical inconsistencies is now trolling!

I think you don't really understand the idea of Bitcoin.

Oh. Guess BTC is supposed to be government-regulated then.

I already gave away the clue in pretty much my first response to you. Learn to read.



Tip: BTC is not supposed to be government-regulated. It's also not supposed to be exclusively non-regulated. It's supposed to give you the choice.

Keyword: choice.

K. You didn't actually read my post prior to last. You may reply when you actually do.

Hi,

with the recent events, I am glad to see people are being skeptical. However, yes we have been around for quite a while and our faces are out there. Our group has done many projects and we're all full time working on bitcoin.

I agree.  It is encouraging to hear someone is undertaking such efforts.  Good luck and keep us updated on the progress of your endeavor.

Is your corporation registered in the UK?  To me, that alone inspires more confidence than one based in Nevis.  While I still prefer to keep the bulk of my coins offline, I may consider your service for small day-to-day transactions. 

This is our contact info:

support@britcoin.co.uk

Intersango Ltd
3rd Floor 14 Hanover Street
London
England
W1S 1YH

Potential questions for the FAQ; these are all questions I wish I had insisted on getting answered before trusting MyBitcoin with some of my coins:

Are the bitcoins on deposit bonded or insured against theft or loss?

Are the bitcoins on deposit backed up off-site? How often?

How many people have access to the wallet? How do you know you can trust them, or how are they audited?

What happens if you decide Vibanko is not a viable business and has to be shut down?

and why does Amir and Don keep saying on the air they want bitcoin to be "regulated"?

malbritten has a point, what the heck does that mean?  i think its sounds stupid if thats really what they want.

if you guys really mean "recognized" then i'll agree with you.  but if the UK gov't gets to make the rules and change bitcoin to what it wants, then forget it.  whats to stop them from coercing Amir and Don once they get their hands into the market?

Hi BigPiggy,

Thanks for the support. For a long time we've been working on a Version 2 software for Intersango/Britcoin. It will come out hopefully in the next week or so and when it does it will be much more intuitive and have way more features.

By all means if you think you think it's better to store your BTC with yourself then do so.  I would love it if everybody know enough to do so safely, but realistically they don't.  Some people gain a lot by trusting someone else with their BTC.

Getting insurance for bitcoin holdings is practically impossible, mostly due to the potential for massive swings in value.


An encrypted copy of the live wallet is stored in multiple physical locations.  Both online storage and offline.
Additionally we will only be keeping enough funds in the live wallet to handle predicted daily turn over.

These are the same steps we take with britcoin and the intersango sites. (note that we do not run the brazilian exchange using the intersango software).


Currently I alone have immediate access, however both genjix and donald have access to backups of the live wallet and offline wallets should something happen to me.


We would disable deposits and maintain the site at our expense until all funds had been withdrawn.

I would like to clarify what we mean by regulation.

What we are looking for is regulation in the sense of recognition as someone pointed out. We are pretty sickened by the lack of consequences for fraud, criminal negligence and a slew of other offenses.

We are not looking to have bitcoin itself regulated, but rather those who are providing services which would otherwise be regulated. Especially services which hold other people's funds.

Services which negligently lose other's funds or simply steal them should be held responsible for their actions. The current wild-west free-for-all will continue to see bitcoin scandal after bitcoin scandal and widespread adoption of bitcoin will take forever. The day a merchant site can no longer say "Sorry we're not paying you back your bitcoins" without repercussion will be the start of widespread adoption. Merchants will start respecting their clients.

What is your business model?

Asking for commissions could help trust the service.
For example, Mtgox now earns more in a few years of commissions than they would in a one time theft.
They are thus unlikely to runaway with the bitcoins.

Merchant services which will be added in the future will have a small commission.

Citing MtGox as an example of how to properly run a bitcoin service has got to be a joke.

Hum...I took them as example of service that makes a lot of money.

We put up an about us page and the FAQ questions that were asked here. As per our business model, Intersango's UK branch britcoin if/when monetized will cover our operational costs. However, we are trying to provide a free service for as long as possible.

When it comes to exchanges I am for the most part not worried about them running away with the money, more them allowing other people to run away with the money. Phantomcircuit (Patrick Strateman) our security specialist was trying to contact Mark Karaples (owner of MtGox) for days before the crash happened to warn about security leaks.

When we warned him about a previous exploit the site wasn't even taken down to fix it.

At Britcoin we have taken the site down many times to address things which are not even security concerns.

Are you sure about that considering the losses that they have already had to cover?

You guys have my support for all you've done .

Mybitcoin was shown to be a hobby project. Equating them with bitcoin consultancy is immature and trollish.

Agree. Still, questions raised in this thread are important to discuss, specially Gavins.

So factor out the swings in value by insuring in a more stable currency.

Obtaining insurance for "up to £X worth of bitcoins per account" seems like it aught to be possible. If X is a small number, then that's a strong indication that people shouldn't be using Vibanko for secure storage of coins.

If you can't find an insurance company that will cheaply sell you (say) £1,000 of coverage for (say) 10,000 accounts then that is an indication that maybe you're riskier than you think.  Can you afford to self-insure, and put up a £10,000,000 bond to cover potential losses?  Or work backwards: how large a bond can you afford to put up?  Divide that by the expected number of users and that's a good indication of how much wealth users should trust you with.

£10,000,000 bond when they are running a free service?

Obtaining insurance for nascent markets comes with a significant premium. Even assuming the security standards at Vibanko were at the highest level, insurance would still be prohibitively expensive. Consumers, at least under current market conditions, will not pay the necessary fees to support such a level of insurance.

Gavin, with all due respect, I totally disagree with your statement that the level of trust that Vibanko deserves is directly proportional to the size of the bond that they can afford. That is not to say that a heavy dose of skepticism is warranted with any new e-wallet. However, the reality is that almost no bitcoin business, with the possible exception of MtGox, is sufficiently capitalized to post any bond of significant value. Therefore, using that as a metric to judge the trustworthiness of a new e-wallet is is akin to saying that all e-wallets are equally "untrustable". Bitcoin Consultancy has established a track record and a level of reputation. Now one may say that they don't trust bitcoin consultancy, or any third party for that matter to hold their coins. But to say that Bitcoin Consultancy, with the track record that they have built is equally untrustable as a random newbie, just because both entities are not able to post bond, is IMO unfair.

Any losses that MtGox incurred is a sunk cost. What matters is that MtGox generates roughly $5K-$10K USD in trading fees with relatively a small amount overhead and this revenue stream has a tremendous amount of present day value. Even with conservative estimates and a P/E ratio valuation of 5, MtGox's present day value is still worth millions of dollars. So hypothetically speaking, let's assume this is truly the wild west with zero regulation and if MtGox were to walk away and steal all users coins, they could be assured of no repercussions. It would still be an economically rational decision for MtGox to remain honest and collect their steady stream of fees rather than steal even $5 million USD worth of coins.

As for the technical end and the argument that they can lose their coins not through malice but through incompetence, that is a valid claim. I know this doesn't always correlate perfectly but generally speaking, the more there is at stake, the more resources and incentive there is for a bitcoin business to secure their wallets. I know the recent MtGox debacle disproves that theory but I see it as an isolated incident that was largely due to Mark being unprepared for the sudden growth of bitcoin. If we are to believe that Mark is rational and somewhat competent, he will be investing heavily in security and protecting that fat cash cow that he has under his control. That cash cow gives him the resources to invest in security and also a strong incentive to protect it.

I'm curious to hear what other people think.  I shut down ClearCoin when the value of its wallet threatened to get so large I was no longer comfortable self-insuring it with my own personal bitcoins.  It is still shut down because I haven't found a group that I would trust to run it securely (and I don't want to take the time to raise the money and hire experts to run it properly).

We are starting to see well-capitalized, experienced companies creating bitcoin businesses; at this point, I think if you are holding other people's bitcoins then having insurance or posting a bond to self-insure up-to-some-value for each account is reasonable.

In my view, if your business model for your free service doesn't cover the cost of insurance or a bond, then you're just pushing a lot of hidden risk onto your users.

Hidden risk might be accurate for the complete newbie. As for the overwhelming majority of the bitcoin community, I would go as far to say the risk is absolutely not hidden and in full view. Just a quick read through this thread would prove my point.

There is no way a free service can cover the cost of insurance or a bond. There is no way consumers would pay for a service that covers the cost of insurance or a bond, at least not at this stage of the game.

Gavin, I admire your accountability in shutting down Clearcoin when you felt it grew too big for you to be personally responsible for it. However, the other side of the coin (pun intended) is that users were left with no other alternative. Worse yet, malicious and/or incompetent alternatives may pop up and unsuspecting users may decide to use them for a lack of a better alternative. As a consumer, if I fully understood the risks and you chose to operate Clearcoin with the caveat that you cannot be personally responsible, I would still use your service. The risk isn't hidden, but rather it is the least riskiest option out there.

The world is full of risks and even more so in the nascent bitcoin world. In the real world, US credit ratings were downgraded and grandmas/grandpas all across the country who invested in treasuries for their retirement thinking there was no risk there awoke to a new reality. The reality in the bitcoin world is that risks abound at every turn. Does that mean we should shut everything down until we can eliminate all risks? Should no e-wallet or escrow service exist until they can fully insure every coin? These are critical services that are needed now to grow the bitcoin economy and I believe the objective of the community is to do the best we can and improve at every step along the way rather than waiting to get it perfect in one shot. Is Vibanko a perfect solution? It obviously isn't and there are significant risks involved but it's still the best, least riskiest option out there in terms of pure e-wallets. As for clearcoin, even if you were unable to self-insure, I would have trusted it 100x more than any of these other new alternatives that have popped up. Clearcoin, even in a reduced, non self-insured capacity was still the best option out there and it served a critical role in the bitcoin economy. I understand your reasons for taking it down but the entire bitcoin community suffered a big loss when that happened.

The statement "Your funds are safe with Bitcoin Consultancy" on your website might be considered misleading and it could be argued that it is an explicit guarantee. It seems to me that a good lawyer would ask you to take that statement down. Additionally, it might be wise to have a TOS page that outlines and discloses the risks of storing funds with an online wallet service. If anything, these suggestions can only help to reduce your liability in the event your system is compromised in any way. "Full Disclosure" as they say...

Vibanko.com is down. http://www.isup.me/vibanko.com

What happenedz?

Congratulations on the launch!!!!

They launched a long time ago, lol.

Working perfect on this end :)

There was temporary downtime while updating apache.

Good luck on the new website. I've been a britcoin user for months now and had no issues. Amir and his colleagues are very responsive to emails and communication and I would personally always trust an open source platform that can be independently reviewed over a closed source one.

Will