Bitcoin Forum

Hey guys!

I know people are pretty sick of the Mt. Gox BTC withdrawal freeze, and are starting to take matters into their own hands...

I saw https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=455243 and got to thinking.. what if somebody just made an actual BTC exchange between "Real" BTC and "Gox" BTC!

So I did!

Since my https://www.bitcoinbuilder.com/ site had fallen into a little bit of disuse (I made it two years ago... back then it was for using dwolla to automatically buy bitcoins on mtgox!), over the last two days I've re-purposed it to exactly this purpose. And now it's ready to launch!

Advantages of this:

1. People who want to sell gox btc, you know any offers in the order book are legit and will execute immediately. No need for constant PMing and hoping the person willing to buy your gox btc is online right now and still willing to honor their post!
2. People who want to buy gox btc, you can now accept any size order without it being extra work for you. Just place your limit order and forget about it.
3. As the exchange, I am a trusted "escrow" service all in one.. no more sending small amounts piece-by-piece/skyping/etc. (I can be considered "trusted" as a long time member of bitcoin talk.. I'm Josh Jones, founder of DreamHost, the Los Angeles Bitcoin Meetup, ChunkHost.com, BitMadness.com, 310-570-COIN, and so on!)

Note: there's a 2% transaction fee for all trades on bitcoinbuilder, and to be safe your withdrawal BTC addresses (one for "Real" BTC and one for your "Gox" BTC... must be a mtgox deposit address!) are permanently set and locked once you put them in. Also, all withdrawals are processed manually by me, once daily at (around) 11pm PST. That's because no coins are kept on the server at all, you know, just to be super safe!

So, go check it out! I hope it makes sense and you find it useful!

Thanks,
josh!

hey just deposited some real bitcoin - not showing yet - even after clicking refresh 1000 times

at 10 conf

Heya!

Sorry about that.. we're using blockchain's "payment API" to receive the btc in, and since Tuesday they've been having intermittent lags on processing deposits! It looks like yours did go through now though.. it took them 27 confirmations to notice. :/

Thanks for using bitcoin builder!!

josh!

Bookmarked!  8) I will likely be utilizing this service in the near future!

Dear Josh,


I tried to write to you again (we talked yesterday) but email returned with an error, which is rather scary :


Mail Delivery System MAILER-DAEMON @homiemail-mx21.g.dreamhost.com
9:37 PM (9 minutes ago)
to me
This is the mail system at host homiemail-mx21.g.dreamhost.com.
Final-Recipient: rfc822; josh cobra.newdream.net
Original-Recipient: rfc822;josh bitcoinbuilder.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.1.1
Remote-MTA: dns; cobra.newdream.net
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550 5.1.1 <josh cobra.newdream.net>: Recipient address
    rejected: User unknown in local recipient table


Do you have trouble with emails ?

I just hope you can confirm there is no problem with your great idea and site.


I m wondering if withdrawals were processed (it seems past 7PM Pst now and account still shows "You also requested 0.00547945 Real BTC and 2.68493151 Gox BTC be withdrawn (to the addresses on your account.)You can cancel them until 5pm (PST). Cancel Now?"


Thanks in advance for your kind feedback, as this delay and your email returning error is worrying me.

has anyone received their withdrawn BTC?

im waiting too for realBTC. yesterday they sent me 0,08BTC, but today they didnt. Instead of that the realBTC go back to balances and also i have more realBTC, and -11goxBTC. What is going on there??? Yosh ? my email: atlon11mb@o2.pl

I had problem also, he did not me sand my ~38 GoxBTC and sand me this email:
Hi there,

I really really apologize for "springing" this on you, but Bitcoin Builder has taken off just today in a way I hadn't really anticipated when I launched it on Tuesday, and as such, I got some legal advice on regulatory compliance and it's recommended that I get identifying information before processing withdrawals over a certain size.

Fortunately, all I need from you in order to process your withdrawal is:

1. Your country of citizenship.
  1A. If the US, your SSN. (or if you have a US. Taxpayer ID #, that)

2. Your birthday.

3. A scan of a government-issued photo ID.

This is a one-time thing and you'll be good to go afterwards! Just email them to me here and you'll be all set.

Again, I really appreciate this and apologize for not having this policy in place before and clear on the website. I'm working right now on adding it to the web interface and adding notices, etc!

Thanks so much,
josh!



Then he agreed to give me fund prior to trade on my real BTC address... so now i should be happy even if he scamed me of 5BTC!! from trade!

Yes, I have. Over 50btc.

I just sent 0.2 XBT to the site. It has 3 confirmations already but it doesn't show up in my account yet (clicked the refresh button multiple times): https://blockchain.info/tx/b156a18dc018db3331a3ad26747b7c50655f96859c481ae84bac15f449a1d61a.

Let's see how this goes. Btw, the ask prices are ridiculously optimistic, right now realxbt is worth more than twice the price of goxxbt, but those people still ask like 80% of the bitstamp price for their goxxbt lol.

Were you required to present any documentation?

Well, I guess it's their gamble.

If Gox really lifts the BTC transfers on Monday, that will -within seconds make these goxcoin into real BTC and a bit more (10%?). So about 30% within a few minutes is not too bad.

At any rate, I'm sure people are either hedging or don't mind taking the risk.

But if bitcointbuilder.com turns out to be an scam... well, everyone looses.
 

He sent my 7 goxcoins to my gox account last night.

Is there anyone who successfully deposited today? I've got 10 confirmations but my bitcoin is still not on the site.

I had the same problem, just gotta be patient, it will show up eventually.

Well I don`t think Josh as a scammer anymore, but I knew nothing of the site and of him, my first thought was site is hacked or owner is a thief and I was really scared

I got my BTC which i had before trade so its fine, I know I made mistake before depositing to find more about the owner and site.. but for me at that time looked as I just lost something I earn a 5+ year where I am

I never expected that for BTC->BTC trade on unknown site some could ask you ID documents, if I know he is to be trusted I would have no problem to sand him my

Alright, I finally got my deposited XBT on the site. Now let's hope the gox guys become a bit more realistic with their prices.

I decided to go with my verification (after I verified the Josh is trustworthy) and sand my photo od ID, and now i am good to go :)
5min job

Is trading open on bitcoinbuilder?  Last trade was at 12:56?  Not sure about the time zone for that timestamp?

0.6 ratio seems quite realistic...

Well, not that realistic, but I ended up paying 0.51 which is fine with me. Bitcoin arrived on my Mt Gox account nicely so everything went well :)

When did you manage to get that rate? I've only been looking at the site for a couple of days, but it looks like I missed my shot. 0.62+ now.

My history graph might help you out.

http://us-east.royalminingco.com/builder/

Use Chrome.

What "API" are you using that the deposits with 21 confirmations, such as mine currently, are not showing up?  Can this be changed to something better?

Well.. Just placed the order, looked again a few hours later and it was hit. When I placed the order, the current rate was 0.72, so I didn't have much confidence it would get hit.

this "exchange" lost all credibility seeing it is hosted @dreamhost
Couldn't be worse choice. While it might workout just fine, to begin with big money on a shared server, with a budget "unlimited" provider ...
Cheapest dedis cost under 10€ a month - couldn't afford one?

Wonder do they still provide SSH access as well to all webhosting customers .... Just saying there is a ton of attack vectors which shouldn't exist with something involving money ...

The guy who runs this was the co-founder of Dreamhost, so it makes sense he'd host it at his own business.

Gox BTC currently is worth 20% of non-gox btc yet people are buying at 50% on this site. I don't get it. Lots of risk buying Gox BTC at this point imo for only a 50% discount.

Yes, that would make a lot of sense.

Yes,  that is indeed interesting. 

Is there any particular reason we should be trusting this person with our personal info and BTC in order to use this service?

Well, he has provided his real name and contact info. And he's a millionaire.
Sue him if he screws you.

Required identity is misinterpretation of FINCEN rules.  No fiat is involved whatsoever.  What's going on here?

That's what I'm wondering, too.

Really... What's going on here Josh!  Your lawyers are misleading you.  Even at conservative CoinBase as a fully certified BtC <> Fiat buyer/seller up to 50 BtC/day: NO PHOTO ID, last 4 digits of SSN#, random identifying questions from a database!  That's ALL.  And that's FULLY FINCEN compliant dealing with US dollars!  Josh, man; I'd love to use your service. 

I agree, this seems like too much info to give when others don't require nearly as much.

FINCEN has specific guidance on cryptocurrency transfers and requires exchanges like this to register as money transmitters. Virtual currency exchanges ("transmitters") follow the same guidelines as fiat money transmitters.

I see people that have 100,000 bitcoins on the exchange. Is that for real? Someone actually trusting this site with that many BTC??

Can people confirm whether my new "unverified" Mt Gox account opened yesterday is able to RECEIVE goxBTC from Bitcoinbuilder.com? I have submitted my scanned passport and utility bill to Mt Gox but I imagine it may stay an unverified status account for a while at the moment.

I see no such orders. Are you forgetting to multiply the # of coins by the price? For example:

90000.00000000    GOX for   0.00011

Is only a cost of 9.9 real BTC to place that bid.

Are people giving up their SSN to bitcoin builder?
I was fine with the rest, but I'm not so comfortable giving my ssn to a webpage like this...

I <3 BitcoinBuilder

I send 1 gox btc to the name wanted10top,and he got it but refuse to pay me back with real btc,take care of this guy.
BTW,@wanted10top,if u need that 1 gox btc,just keep it,but u lose the best thing as a human being--integrity，u lose it and will never get it back in ur whole life,i feel sad for u... ;D ;D u asked for teamviewer again and again?what u want?to control my computer and stolen my coins quickly?hahah....waste my time....

Hi there.

Josh :

I like and used your site, but now i m wondering : what if GOX frauders (the thieves who attacked with malleability and double-withdrew) still had assets in GOX currently and were getting afraid of being caught : they may try to "launder" their remaining coins out instead of risking being seized in retaliation for their stealing.
I therefore would advise that you watch for any very-large abnormal goxbtc offer which could look like such laundering.

FINCEN has no jurisdiction for Cryptocurrency to Cryptocurrency transfers.  Maybe they would like to; but in reality anywhere outside of US it would be absurd.  If FINCEN pursues this then all innovation will move overseas. 

I have no problem with CoinBase's non invasive process.  NO PHOTO ID.  NO Social Security number.  Plus they deal with MY fiat. 

Well of course FINCEN doesn't have jurisdiction out side of the USA, it is a USA regulatory agency. However I assume bitcoinbuilder is based in the USA so I appreciate they fact they take legal compliance seriously.

I use Coinbase also. Maybe the reason they don't need a photo ID is because they validate your identity via a direct transaction to your bank account.

Roy: Thanks for your thoughtful responses. I also feel clarification of regulation is critical to the well being of BtC.  There does seem to be a healthy dialog.

Roy, as a trusted Bitcoin community member do you feel like you would trust Josh with all of your personal data?

I sent in my verification docs for whatever that is worth. Maybe I'm too trusting. :) People need to decide for themselves what they are comfortable doing.

I think this little mini exchange is a good idea, it's something I want to use although in a far smaller volume than it seems some people are, and Josh has been around the forums for over 2 years.

Do you guys really think he would put his real name and linkedin profile on the frontpage of the website if it would be a scam? Nobody who's serious about his career would be so stupid to do that.

Is there a way to be sure that this is really his name?
It'd be easy to grab someone's name and linkedin and do something around it no?

He was interviewed at the tail end of this CNN story:

http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/20/technology/innovation/bitcoin-mtgox/

I like the concept but collecting SSN is going too far.   I don't believe it is necessary.    If it is necessary that I won't be doing business with US based exchanges at this point in time.   That information is too risky to hand out.  

From the CNN article: 
"It took me less than 12 hours of programming to do this, and I didn't have to get approval from anyone," Jones said. "It's an uncertain time, and I think there's money to be made and lost."

This is a private individual.  There probably isn't any security.   Clearly it isn't safe to provide your SSN.   

Coin-transfers between MtGox accounts are still possible. So sellers of GoxBTC can transfer their GoxBTC to the account of BitcoinBuilder and buyers can get their GoxBTC deposited in their Gox account by BitcoinBuilder.

Some more media coverage.

http://www.coindesk.com/has-company-found-workaround-mt-gox-withdrawals/

I have to say I am quite frustrated at the moment. I made a withdrawal of 3 real BTCs from bitcoinbuilder.com to my wallet two days ago and they still haven't arrived. Support emails I've sent were not answered so far.

edit: they finally arrived!

Josh's answer: "I apologize for that, there are some weird bugs in coinbase's send payment API it seems! I've re-sent the payment now, and for tonight's batch we are using a double-verification of the account logs to make sure everything went out that coinbase said did!"

Keep us informed. Check out their FAQ too, it says to click on "recheck balances" or maybe you withdrew between 8pm-11pm PST so you have to wait for the next day.

I tried to withdraw several BTC yesterday (before 5PM PST) and still have not gotten them yet.

Correction: I have the coins now.

No replay - No BTC on a Blockchain - I just feel like I was cheated in a worst possible way and therefore still can't believe myself. Is there any more people affected this morning? If Josh Jones is known person maybe there is a way otherwise to be screwed twice on Mt.Gox and by BitcoinBuilder is double loss.

Just to be clear I made a small transaction two days ago and that went straight after 11PM PST so I sold more and nothing happened so far.  Still refreshing blockchain in hope to see transaction going through... it's a sad feeling. Pls come out if you are in the same boat to see what are our options at this point.

Edit.ps: I see now after one hour first transactin appeared on the blockchain. sorry for all this rant but these days it's like wild west - it's hard to trust anybody especially after what we witnessed in BTC community. so far so good.  

Edit.2 All is good! Josh tweeted and explained everything this morning on Twiter and I got my real BTC some hours later.           

All my withdrawals went through without any problem.
Keep in mind that BTC builder has a daily limit of 20,000 BTC hence why there might be delays, it's true that the website looks sketchy but afterall it seems legit, why would he scam us anyway?
He's charging 2% trading fee, with a volume of 9000 BTC a day he made a shitload of money, I see no reason to rob from us.

I reported a serious bug more than 24 hours ago, still no reply despite tweets going out in the meantime. Neither did I receive my withdraw which has been pending for more than 24 hours as well.

Hopefully Mark Karpeles can now concentrate on getting things figured out.  His ego has definitely gotten the best of him.  A little reassurance with evidence of a nice fat BtC wallet balance is overdue.

We can only pray he's using Bitcoin Builder to buy back any missing BtC at 70% off.  With his OWN lootcakes!

Plenty of evidence Mark knew his wallet implementation was problematic.

Thanks Josh for all your efforts.  Everything going smoothly for me: deposits, trading, withdrawals = smooth.

Now we need Gox to restart in the next few weeks.

Josh, thank you for creating this service.

Josh, with all due respect, there are people waiting for their bitcoins, it would be nice if you were able to clear up the que and also it would be very nice if you could post updates in this thread about the status of your service. I think it would be in your best interest to process withdrawals in a timely manner. If you're swamped, then let the community know so, if not allegations of fraud will inevitably start to surface, unjust or not. I'm sorry if this come forward as harsh, but people tend to become nervous when their money is 'stuck'.

How about now?

I've noticed there's no statement on your site, and trading seems to continue how is this possible when your service involves inter-account transfers on MTGox which has been taken down?

Edit: Should I expect a reply here? just noticed Josh last post 11 days ago although he was logged in 2 hours ago! something a little bit fishy here!

He's active on Twitter (https://twitter.com/BTCBLDR), but mostly discussing an upcoming site maintenance.

Cheers!

Got transferred realbtc out of bitcoinbuilder.com today, for a trade done saturday. Thanks.

The reason it is possible to still trade on bitcoin builder is because now you can trade with virtual gox coins. All this means is that Gox-coins previously transferred to bitcoinbuilder is listed as numbers in bitcoinbuilders database. So let's say they have 20000 goxcoins in their mtgox account. This is currently inaccessible to bitcoinbuilder, but traders at bitcoinbuilders can still sell and buy whatever gox coins they have stored with bitcoinbuilder. But bitcoinbuilder will not be able to send gox coins to any customer before MtGox reopens their system, which might never happen.

Thanks for explanation, interesting the price has rallied nearly 100% since todays low on such a flakey arrangement

Lot of optimism for a takeover.

How long does the verification take at  BTCbuilder??

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/25/bitcoin-mtgox-ceo-idUSL1N0LU12G20140225

took me about 10minutes!
BTC showed up on 3 Verifications.

Ah it is a risk but we'll see.  Could pay off.  Bought 7.5 GoxBTC for the price of 1 real BTC (something like 1.3 ratio).  If those come through and then market shoots up, it'll be definitely worth it.

The chance of that happening now is very close to 0%.

Anyone else stuck at the landing page? It forces you to a FAQ but when you agree to proceed it says page not found.  Way to go Josh.... Lock a bunch of bitcoiners out from their money who have just been traumatized by being locked out from their money.  Stay classy. 

Did you email and let him know? I reported a database problem yesterday and he fixed it very quickly.

No I just figured I'd whine about it in the forum.

Working fine atm.

Yeah its been fixed pretty much since my last post. See, whining works when someone is as good as Josh.

You should rethink your decision to stop GoxBtc trading because of MtGox closure. Many people has GoxBtc stuck on your site, but there may be still people interested in buying or simply trading GoxBtc as a reflect of market sentiment towards MtGox. As an example, thanks to the announcement of the 200,000 Btc wallet recovery, some may give a 25% chance of recovering Gox funds, which is way higher than the latest GoxBtc traded value (below 10%).

We already know GoxBtc aren't backed by real Btc, as most altcoins are also backed by thin air. It's all a matter of expectations.

Please resume trading and let some of us the chance to recover our stuck funds, at least partially. An unilateral decision like the one you did is not any better than Gox decision to halt withdrawals, in my humble opinion.

Yeah, I totally agree.

I purchased GoxBTC the evening before it closed. It doesn't show up in my account on Gox yet. Will it still be transfered to my account when Gox re-opens?

http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/028/cache/bahamas_2836_600x450.jpg

Where Josh is right now.  ;D

More that 1000 BTC were colected in fees, in days!

He posted that all his fees was converted to goxBTC.

I think too trading could resume at bitcoinbuilder, but after all, that's up to the site owner to decide. Closing down trading might be the safe deal - if he lets trading continue, and then eventually Gox does not reopen it's door or do not pay back any btc, some people may as well direct their anger at bitcoinbuilder.

It could also be argued that as long as bitcoins cannot be transferred internally at MtGox, letting trading continue is not a wise move. How can the market trust that GoxBtc does exist, and will be delivered?

I bought some GoxBTC the evening before Gox died, it's still on bitcoinbuilder's account. Will I still get that coins when everyone gets their 20%?

From the BB website:

It can take years for complex bankruptcy proceedings to complete though.

That's no problem. Maybe it will make me an instant millionaire by the time I actually get the bitcoin :P

What? Why would he do this? Can someone link to this post?  ???

*listen*

Perhaps.... he's just a good person....

Is this still the right topic to talk about bitcoinbuilder, or is there another, newer thread somewhere? Now that the site has changed again, i have some comments/questions:

- I want to get verified, but my birthyear is apparently 1900 and can't be changed (grayed out). Is this a problem?

- I don't live in the US, but i still have to choose a US state??  

- A faq on the site would be handy since the front page really doesn't explain that much. Also a link to the relevant bitcointalk topic maybe?

I live in Canada, will I have to get verified to withdraw my Bitcoins when settlement takes place?  I didnt have to verify anything t o send BTC there in the first place.

Filed Amount concerning Deposited BTC: 43768.17697344BTC
Filed Claim Amount Converted to Yen (JPY): 2190952655

Claim Amount Rejected by the Bankruptcy Trustee (JPY): 0
Claim Amount Accepted by the Bankruptcy Trustee (JPY): 2190952655