Bitcoin Forum

It's been a busy month here at TradeHill.  Here's what's new:

1) Bitcoin.com
Here's the big one: In the coming weeks we're going to roll out a beta of our new wallet and merchant services on Bitcoin.com.  Our goal with Bitcoin.com is to make Bitcoin more accessible to everyone in the world by developing an ultra-simple set of Bitcoin services.  What good is an exchange when currently most people can't use their Bitcoins in a safe and easy fashion?

We know that Bitcoin.com is a big opportunity, and we're not taking it lightly. We really want to get this right. As such we're very keen on not repeating the mistakes of other wallet services and exchanges. In the past two months we've heavily invested into security, talent and infrastructure to make sure we stay the one major Bitcoin site without any security incidents.

As such, we're not quite ready for testing with the public at large, but we're preparing for a staggered roll-out to our core customers in the coming weeks.  During this time, we're also intending to keep an open dialogue with the wider community - we want your input on how we can help Bitcoin succeed. Get in touch with us at future@tradehill.com for anything related to bitcoin.com and the future.

If you want to be among the first to try the new site, sign up for the beta waitlist at http://bitcoin.com/. We'll make sure existing TradeHill customers get the first seats.

2) TradeHill
Of course we're also continuing development on the TradeHill side of things as well. TradeHill will soon receive a full facelift and run on our new architecture, which we're hoping to build out into the most professional trading site you could wish for. Bear with us, first the new site and then later the toolchest for automated and professional trading.

3) Engineering
Having seen the recent disastrous consequences of under-engineering at other bitcoin services, we've focused on security and resilience instead of outward-facing features.

This was a tough call for us because it meant falling behind a bit on visible updates. We think that time will show that this was the right decision, and that you need good infrastructure to earn trust.

As part of our engineering efforts we've hired new engineers and significantly upgraded our tech infrastructure. At all times we are now running on two server clusters at independent datacenters in different countries. One of these clusters acts as a hot spare to which we can immediately switch over in the event there are any problems at the primary data center.  We, of course, religiously back up all data to an additional set of independent data centers.

Only two of our engineers have access to any production servers and we have emergency measures in place to prevent the theft or loss of any large quantity of Bitcoins (beyond what we can cover using reserves) even under the most adverse of circumstances.

4) Investment
Next, we'd like to reiterate that we're extremely committed to making Bitcoin big - we're in this for the long run. To do this, we've just reached agreement with new investors which will allow us to continue growing our team, improving our infrastructure, and helping Bitcoin succeed. TradeHill is here to stay and we're just getting started.

5) Site Feedback
We take all feedback seriously and we are very well aware of a number of improvements we need to make to our services.  Most of our recent technical development has been focused on behind-the-scenes infrastructure that we need to power the new services we're going to launch over the coming weeks.  However, we soon intend to catch up on the needed changes.  We've listened to your input, and we're anxiously awaiting the day when we can launch the features and improvements that you want.

6) Payment Options
We have been hard at work on adding more payment options for our users and we are happy to announce a new partnership with BitInstant. BitInstant allows you to instantly transfer funds between exchanges such as MtGox and TradeHill.  BitInstant is currently in a closed beta right now, but you can learn more at http://bitinstant.com/. This is one of the many payment options we'll be rolling out in the next few weeks.

7) Hiring
We're still hiring. If Bitcoin excites you, please get in touch!  We're especially interested in good designers. Please contact jobs@tradehill.com

8 ) USD Wires
We are again accepting USD wires both domestic and international.  See this blog post for more details: http://tradehillblog.com/2011/08/16/usd-domestic-and-international-wire-transfers-are-available-again/

9) Professional Traders
We have special deals for high volume traders. Please contact us.

10) Bitcoin Conference
We'll be attending the Bitcoin Conference in New York this weekend. See you there!

That's it from us for the week!

http://tradehillblog.com/

How about making a mtgoxlive.com clone for tradehill?

What does it take to qualify as a "high volume" trader?

Awesome stuff Tradehill!
Keep up the good work!

I agree. Don't screw up  8) I just signed up for the beta.

Ever thought about putting some shares up on the GLBSE? I'm sure you would raise enough capital for whatever you need very quickly since there is a shortage of unshady companies on there at the moment and there are alot of people such as myself who are waiting for big timers to come on board.

Currently I only trade at MTgox. I'm a small trader (~500-1000) but these improvements are making me consider opening up a TH account too.

Wow. I, for one, am exited. Having stable, secure and trustworthy merchant services and payment processors is precondition #1 for wide-spread bitcoin adoption, and tradehill certainly seems more resolved to invest in this than most other large players.

Seconded.

Awesome work Tradehill! The future of Bitcoin is here ;)

Jered, good stuff
I'll be getting in touch with you guys soon as I'm in design business and been at it for a long time.

wow! Congratulations for getting hand on the bitcoin.com domain! Did you have that domain all the time or did you buy it for an enormous amount of BTC from someone else? :)

Good luck with the online wallet service, i hope it will lift off and attract some more people to Bitcoin!

Great news!! lovely

Jered, sent you PM, please check.

Great improvements on every front. Keep up the good work!

Out of interest I looked at the data from bitcoincharts.com which gave 70.86 days of data. According to that $2,568,748 was traded on tradehill in USD (There is the liberty reserve data as well which I didn't include). This is $36,251 a day on average. With the 0.56% commissions that is $406 a day extrapolated to $148,190 a year. Considering Tradehill seems pretty good (And compared to mtgox) and bitcoin will likely grow further, that seems pretty good to me. Though when Tradehill started the volumes were higher but have dropped off a bit yet I think bitcoin can grow further.

I've been looking forward to the visual facelift (market graphs, etc.) on Tradehill for some time -- when is that going to happen?

Good stuff guys! I'm looking forward to seeing you guys continue to grow!

This is what I'm looking for. Crashes and hacks due to poor engineering and lacking security make big news; but personally, I'd rather that Bitcoin were making big news because it's doing big things rather than having big things done to it. After all, the story of the market will be more interesting if its character driven rather than a crisis prone plot-driven story.

It's almost as if we're in survivor mode right now, with older exchanges both having the confidence of being around for a while -- but also with many eyes on them wondering if it's the next MtGox or MyBitcoin event going to happen.

Keep the engineering good and I'll be happy. :)

Getting bitcoin.com is an epic win. It shows you guys are committed to the future of bitcoin! That domain is going to be absurdly valuable in a few years.

With all this awesome stuff coming out I feel justified in being a TradeHill booster all this time. Now it's time to go live with some improved US Dollar deposit options!

Jered - I sent you a big long email :)

$148,190 a year seems awfully small to pay the salaries of several employees and all the hosting, security and developmental costs. Some investor(s) must see a very bright future for bitcoin, and be willing to risk a lot in pursuit of their vision.

I'll be honest I have mixed feelings about this.  Bitcoin is an open source project.  I like TradeHill, but I'm no more happy about trade hill controlling bitcoin.com then I would be if RedHad got Linux.com or Apple got w3c.org. I'm looking forward to new well designed bitcoin services, but I think they should all compete in the field with their own corporate identity and without the implied community endorsement of the open source project domain name.

j

1. That was an estimate based on if everyone used the 0.56% commissions and ignoring any income from deposits and withdrawals if they take any (Wont be a lot I'm sure) etc.

2. I don't know what their costs are (Running servers can't be too much? I don't know how many employees they have but I thought it was a small operation and the marketing costs will certainly be small) but mtgox is doing about 10 times more (So roughly $1.5mil in revenue) showing there is potential out there and bitcoin should hopefully grow especially as problems with fiat escalate.

3. They clearly want to grow into different areas which should bring new revenue streams.

Those are pretty crap examples.  Bitcoin already uses bitcoin.org.  Though not unilateral these days, the .com TLD was clearly meant for commercial enterprise, and is overwhelmingly used to that end.

I don't think there will be much confusion over it.  I don't hear anyone complaining about the domain squatter that has bitcointalk.com, after all...

-jp

as long as they are clear to everyone who they are and that they are not the "official" open-source project, i see no problem.

a good set of commercial offerings is the best thing that can happen to bitcoin.com i am looking forward to see some new services for bitcoin coming up.

just make sure you have clear links to bitcoin.org on a "about" page.

I got the OP also as an email message, and my Thunderbird displayed a warning bar at the top "This message may be a scam."  >:(

They don't do that for PayPal messages.  ???

I'm afraid the term "Bitcoin" is pretty much blacklisted everywhere by now.  :-[

That way it will never catch on. What can we do about that?

i'm curious about this too... there was a thread called "should we buy bitcoin.com?" but this forum's search feature isn't letting me find it.

Here is the thread you are looking for:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=9442.0

Linux.com is not controlled or owned by Linus Torvalds.

I'm very excited for this - a company who's established and trusted coming out with these great tools.  Looking forward to it guys, and as always, keep up the great work!

Okay, so everyone's happy with treadmill being THE bitcoin.com company.  Great.  But remember when they do something you don't like on their site you can't say jack shit about it.

I do hope it all works out I'm just bring up the issue.

j

Its only THE bitcoin company when everyone thinks of it that way. But you do have a point. They could start hosting the bitcoin client on their main page imitating the .org website. and thus CONTROLLING TEH BITCOINZ!!

Exciting times. It seems to me that if bitcoin.com is implemented well, this will be one of the major turning points in bitcoin's history. Good luck with it.

Infested999: Stay tuned. We have new apps and services that will be launched shortly.

Epetroel: We don’t offer any discounts below 10k USD/week in volume. For emerging currencies like CLP, INR, etc we have a different structure. Feel free to email us at info@tradehill.com and I can get you more details.

Bitcoin Swami: Good idea. We talked about this but wanted to seal up our angel round first. However, we will revisit this very soon and likely put some shares up for sale.

Serge: We see your email and it looks great! Jered is at wedding (of our best friend for ten years) so give him a little time. Instead, I can put you in contact with our CTO as he will be up at the conference. I am personally staying back to hold down the fort – both missing the wedding (he is my best friend from college) and the conference. Prolly a little TMI there! ;-)

Timmey: We didn’t have it the whole time. It was in the works over the last month and only got sealed up in the last week.

Matthew: That is more or less accurate. All this data is in the public view for everyone to see. Know that we also have made a sizable OTC deal which earned us a fee (we will do more such deals). We also have agreements with new partners that earn us a little revenue. Plus you haven’t summed up our other currencies. Lastly, we make about 1% instead of the .56% you mentioned; remember, we get the .56% from each side of the trade.

AngelusWebdesign: It got delayed due to the issues we faced (and overcame) over the last 2 weeks. Also, as the post explains, we have been focusing on back-end infrastructure and security rather than aesthetics. We will be turning our attention to such items soon as they very important. From your name, it looks like you may be able to help us. Send an email to info and let’s talk.

Kyt Dotson: Yes, precisely. With so many Game Ending Errors (GEEz) being made by other firms it seems the key to success is just not to screwing up big time. Kind of like poker: not over extending yourself too early. BTW – Our CTO was the head of software development at SpaceX before starting his own iPhone apps company 1.5 years ago. He jokes saying that putting rockets into space has been easier than Tradehill!

Dacoinminster: You’re my boy blue! Jered is out at the wedding so give him some time on this.

MrJoshua: There is going to be a community aspect to www.bitcoin.com with an open source feel. However, it will need to be well organized as it will require our time and if we don’t get paid for our time, then we can’t pay back our investors. Please send over any ideas or thoughts to future@tradehill.com .

Payb.tc: Answered above.

Maltaethiron: Thank you! The most important aspect of our business is our principles previously stated here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=19537.0


Some folks have called this ‘sanctimonious’ but I disagree. When times get tough, and things don’t go as planned, all you have is your rules and values to guide you. Plus, having lived in New York for ten years, worked in finance and banking for 5 years, and then experienced the financial crisis first hand, (looking at AIG, Bear Stearns, and more) it is my personal opinion that what (parts of) America needs most is a refresh of its fundamental principles.

With that, if anyone has any problems, issues, concerns, etc then they can email me personally at adam@tradehill.com to get it handled.

Regards,
Adam - Tradehill

Indeed, I included this.

I think you are doing quite well since you have only been around shortly.