Bitcoin Forum

Wow what a good turn out! in the last 3 days, thank you to all that have paper traded on the new Australian Bitcoin exchange this helped us in a huge way to finalize testing.

We are happy to announce everything passed all tests and we are ready to trade AUD for BTC.

Deposits and Withdraws are FREE (via EFT) to Australian residents.

Our code is Open Source at github/intersango/aud

We Thank You for your support

-Andre

http://australianbitcoinexchange.com.au
(this link directs you to our main secure site, World Bitcoin Exchange.)

Well done Andre. This is a welcome contribution to the bitcoin world and the Australian community. Until Tradehill began trading in AUD I had contemplated setting up an exchange here myself, but it was more involved than I had hoped. I've never tried moving bitcoin in or out of Tradehill, so I don't know if that solved our liqidity concerns. But It's just fantastic news to have a home grown exchange with EFT support, so rest assured, I'll be there with bells on. ;D

intersango.com.au would be prettier

Use that then if you like.  It works just the same.

http://intersango.com.au/ redirects to https://www.worldbitcoinexchange.com/ .

It's great to see more exchanges popping up for different countries.

Great work, look forward to trying it out.

Thanks, I would like to take this opportunity to also thank the Exchanges technical lead Chris More also known as dooglus in the forum, Chris has taken Intersango's basic exchange structure and improved security and user tools ten fold, I am happy to bring this exchange to the Australian Bitcoin Community and hope we can show the Americans we are a force.

Trade well - Andre  

Sounds good, I'll give it a go.  Always useful to have different options.

Tested with a trade (1btc) - now have to build some volume.

Good news, well done :)

If anyone has any problems with the exchange, or suggestions for how it can be improved, please let us know.

You can post about it here, or there's an issue tracker where we can keep track of individual problems, here:
https://github.com/dooglus/intersango/issues (click 'Pricing and Signup' at the top, then 'Create a free account')

People were commenting yesterday that the site was a little slow, so we've upgraded things to make it faster.

Is it better now?

Thanks for trading.

Great to see more exchanges pop up!

I am planning to use this service when I next go to Australia!

Yes, has a better "feel" for the trade flow through the different stages.

Awesome.  This is now a great way for Aussies to get into Bitcoin with minimal fees.

Transferred some funds via Direct Deposit, funds appeared on the exchange within a few hours, had traded for bitcoin shortly after.  Trade commission of only 5c-10c is very reasonable.

My only recommendation is the Intersango trade page is bloody difficult to use, would be good if you could buy using price rather than total.

i just thought of a feature that would be really awesome that so far I've never seen done before..

imagine if you could just click a [TRADE] button next to one of the buy or sell orders to instantly agree to that trade, instead of having to go to the trade page and input all the specifics in detail just to take the other side of someone's offer.

I think we can make this work?

I am glad you like our simple low fee structure, Intersango software is working on the 2.0 version which includes these updates, plus much much more.

If you would like to offer suggestions of improvements to the exchange please do so here.

trade well - andre

That would be pretty easy to add to the site.

Did you see how the 'buy' and 'sell' prices in the header of the site are links?  If you click them, it takes you to the trade page with the 'I have' and 'I want' fields filled in with the values you need to grab the best available buy or sell offer on the site.

I can extend this so that you can click any trade in the marketplace and have it take you to the trade page with the boxes filled in to match that trade plus any better trades.  For instance, if there's 1 BTC for sale at $9 and another 9 BTC for sale at $10 each and you click on the "9 BTC at $10 each" offer, it's unlikely you're clicking it because you would prefer to pay $10 per BTC than $9 per BTC.  You're clicking it because there's not enough volume available at $9.

So it will fill in "have $90, want 9 BTC", but what will end up matching is 1 BTC for $9 and 8.1 BTC for $81 - a combined trade of 9.1 BTC for $90.  Before clicking the 'buy' button, you'll be able to adjust the "have" box and it will recalculate the "want" value using the price you clicked ($10 per BTC) rather than the best available (but lower volume) $9 per BTC.

I think that sounds like a reasonable way to do it, but comments are appreciated.

An alternative would be for clicking the "9 BTC at $10 each" to fill in values that would buy up the 9 BTC at $10 each and all cheaper offers too.  So in this case it would say "have $99, want 9.9 BTC, which will end up with you buying 1 BTC for $9, and 9 BTC for $90, a combined trade of 10 BTC for $99.

Sorry for the verbal diarrhea.  I hope that makes some kind of sense...

I'll report back when the site is updated.  I'll probably end up having both options available via a setting on the 'profile' page.

I've added this.

There's no "trade" button - you just click anywhere on the order in the orderbook and it takes you to the trade page with the details from that order already filled in.

For my next trick I'll look into redesigning the trade page a bit so you can type the price you want.

I can add a one-click link if that really would be useful.  Maybe the first time you click it, you're asked for confirmation, and warned that in future it's a true one-click thing.  Also, the way things currently stand, order matching is only done once per minute, on a first-come first-served basis.  So just because you see an order in the orderbook doesn't mean that it's available for you to match with.  Real-time matching should be coming soon, though.


It's not just to get a confirmation.  The other aspect is that maybe I want the price of the 2nd best offer in the market, but not the whole amount.  I want to be able to click the price, then edit the "I have" down to the amount I want to spend at that price.

I've been playing with the code, trying to get a better way of specifying the order you want to place.  It's kind of awkward having 3 variables ('i have', 'i want', 'price') where changing any one can change either of the other two.  Sometimes maybe I want to buy 5 BTC at a given price, and want the site to calculate how much it costs.  Other times maybe I want to spent $50 at a certain price and have the site calculate how many BTC that gets me.  Probably I never have a fixed amount to spend and a fixed amount I need - which is what the current interface expects me to have.

So we'll have 3 boxes: "have", "want", "price", and:

* editing "have" changes "want" based on "price"
* editing "want" changes "have", based on "price"
* editing "price" changes "want", based on "have"

That's what I'll work on next.  Open to suggestions, as always...

anyway good work thanks.

i like this 'mouse-only' trading :D

I've just added a 'price' box on the 'trade' page. [ https://www.worldbitcoinexchange.com/?page=trade ]

Please have a play with it and tell me what you think.

Editing either 'have' or 'want' sets the other one, and editing 'price' sets 'want'.  It works well for me on google chrome.  I don't have easy access to Internet Explorer but I would hope that it will work there too.

If you use the 'trade' link on the right, it'll use the best available buy/sell price, switching between the two as you switch between having BTC and AUD, but as soon as you edit the price box, it'll stay fixed until you edit it again.

No 'buy-it-now' (tm) links yet.  That'll wait 'til tomorrow.

'Price' box looks good.

Impressive to get requested features implemented and live within 24 hours.  :)  Just please dont rush and Gox things up! Security and Accuracy when dealing with peoples AUD/BTC.

Hope to see some more volume coming in.

Thanks.


Good point.  I'll take a few days off before adding any more features.  :)

Hey All,

We are now listed with Bitcoin Markets ticker symbol: wbxAUD (EFT)
http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/wbxAUD.html

Trade Well - Andre

Hey guys, I emailed you about your listing on the GLBSE, I was wondering what the benifits of investing are. Its hard to understand for me the way you explain it.   Is it worth it to invest if you're not in AUD?  Do you give out dividend?

Hey Bitcoin Swami,

Not currently listed with GLBSE only with Bitcoin Markets, we do think it would be good business to offer dividends and shares in our company but trying to understand the structure of GLBSE is confusing.

If any one would like to explain please be my guest.

Trade well - Andre

Oh I'm sorry I got you confused with another AUD exchange that just listed itself.  I think nefario can explain it better, but basically.  You issue shares and people buy them and you pay out your profits to your shareholders.  There is a voting process too.  People can also trade the shares on the exchange just like people trade bitcoins.  I agree the listing process seems a bit weird but the actual trading and paying your shareholders seems pretty simple.  Its in its infancy right now, but I think once it gets more reputable companies up there it will be very big, IMO.

Hi Slothbag,

All new features are put through a testing phase on our dummy exchange before being released to the market on our live exchange, once we find that our requirements have been meet, launching a new feature to market can happen within 24 - 48 hours depending on the scope and complexity of the feature.

We want you to have the best experience when trading on our exchange, we have found the majority of our users come from mtgox, in order for our users to have the confidence to trade on our exchange we have mirrored some features (e.g 'Price Box') so the transition from mtgox to wbxAUD is easy and less confusing.

We agree not to rush things in the future we do pride ourselves on security and accuracy and we will en-devour to not put our users AUD/BTC at risk.

I hoped to have answered your feedback and appreciate all comments, this is what helps our exchange grow.

trade well - Andre
 

Working on the volume - takes time, but there is some liquidity there :)

+1

Hi All,

You can now follow us on twitter and receive updates every day at 9am on the exchange.

The following would be shown:
1)  24 hour volume: 14.9504 BTC
2)  buy: 9.5    sell: 10.8    last:     high: 10.79    low: 10    avg: 10.2448

Go To:
http://twitter.com/worldbitcoinx

enjoy.


Trade well - Andre

bump

Hi Andre,

Great site, I've been trading on it a lot and make regular withdrawals. I asked a question a few weeks back about an API and you said "coming soon". Can you be any more specific (days/weeks/months)?

Looks like all is going quiet with WBX these days. My withdrawals are taking longer however they do still go through eventually. One question I had was, about the withdrawal reference field. I noticed that whatever I type in the reference field does not appear in my bank statements, instead a 4 digit number starting with 8xxx appears there.

Hi.

I coded up an API for the World Bitcoin Exchange site a while back.

How would you like to be its first user?

I've done a bunch of testing, and it looks good to go, but so far we've not announced it as being available.

If you want to try it out, tell me your WBX userid, or openid, and I'll get you set up.

I prefer email (dooglus@gmail.com) but PM here works for me too.

Chris.

We are back...... sorry for the delay all, we had an extended Christmas and New Year holiday, last year brought us a lot of issues with banking institutions in Australia our accounts closed and frozen and this year has similar problems we had to suspend deposits and withdraws for a few days, we are hopeful this year is better,  also we have started processing deposits and withdraws today.

Happy New year
Andre

I had started using WBX to buy Bitcoin but got caught up with their bank account being "frozen" near the end of November 2011.

I received an email from my own bank today telling me that ANZ (which was their bank) has stated that it will not return my money (not sure if that means the bank just decided to keep all the funds from the frozen account?).

With the very real chance of seeing your money just disappear like this I would be very wary to use any exchange that won't *guarantee* to return your funds in case of their issues with their banks.


Cheers,

Ian.

Does that mean a complaint to the banking ombdusman is now required?

Would love to buddy! Email sent.

Perhaps so - but unfortunately I don't reside in Australia so it's not really something I am going to really be able to pursue (especially over a sum of $50).

It is certainly a worry though when money just "disappears" and such events do not inspire confidence in using banks in order to purchase BTC.


Cheers,

Ian.

I deposited 50$ last thursday that still hasn't showed up in my account, would this have something to do with it? I can't get wbx to answer my email.

i'm sad to say these guys are quite a bit slower than they used to be.

withdrawal requests used to get verified by the next business day at the latest, but i'm still waiting on one from Friday morning:


i think i'll only put quite small amounts through there until the situation improves again.

Agree.

I emailed them about a withdrawal and got this reply this morning.

Hi all,

We have an announcement, we apologise to our members that are experiencing delays in the services we provide, over the past weeks we have had a series of charge backs to our account which has forced our banking institution to hold our funds on several occasions this year. we wanted to carry out an investigation on these criminals before we release it to the public, the good news is that we are making progress in catching these criminals.

In order to protect your money we have had to increase the security around our accounts and systems, the following is the new process.

1. We now have series of accounts with minimal funds
2. We now hold a small amount of funds outside our banking institution.(in the event our account is frozen again)
3. A large portion of our transaction are manually processed.

What these new security measures mean? The processing of deposits stays the same with no change how ever withdraw requests will be slightly affected, next day processing will now be delayed.

We do want your feed back on this matter.

Happy Australia Day
Andre

an estimate of how long withdrawals *should* take would be nice.

happy bbq day.

Hi all,

Maximum 3 days

Andre

okay cool, well... looking forward to the above-mentioned withdrawal that was requested 7 days ago.

thanks.

Hi there Andre, are you still experiencing these delays? I recently sent you an email about getting my limits raised and have been waiting on a couple of withdrawals, is everything ok?

At this stage we are holding off raising the withdraw limits as this protects both you and other users of WBX of fraud, we hope to revisit this matter by the 2nd or 3rd quarter of this year. Withdraws are delayed due to banking issues.

Andre

Hey Andre, is everything ok down at WBX? I noticed that you've frozen all trading at the moment.

oh boy... haven't used this exchange for a while and only just today sold btc there and requested $ withdrawal.

hope everything's okay... otherwise extremely poor timing on my part!

News item from the WBX site:


I also received a reply this morning to an email I sent two days ago enquiring about the status of my withdrawal request from over a week ago.

Hopefully for your sakes it is not another frozen bank account issue.

This happened to me (a case of bad timing) and ANZ (their bank at that time) never returned my funds.

Will send you a PM shortly.

I can do a manual order for this as well if you still need it, payb.

This update just posted (though not on February 22). I hope you get through your banking issues quickly and come back with a more solid offering than ever. Australian bitcoiners need you.

Just in case anyone doesn't know about us, I just wanted to let you know that there is an alternative for buying bitcoins in Australia, which is http://au.spendbitcoins.com. There is a bit of a premium to cover our costs and a bit of profit, but it we do offer a quick, nearly anonymous way to buy bitcoins without doing any wire transfers, etc, just a cash deposit at any NAB in the country.

Head over to http://au.spendbitcoins.com to have a look now.

BitPiggy is also available for instant buy/sell of Bitcoin in Australia: https://bitpiggy.heroku.com/

No deposit/withdraw fees.

Looks like their current rate is about 4.88aud which is not too shabby.

Any updates?

The impatient or skittish might be interested in my offer here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=66569.0

Received by email:


No timeframe is given, and there are no updates on the WBX site.