Bitcoin Forum

OK, so we've fixed some of the issues that were reported.

I've added a few details on installing the client(for windows users, but useful for Linux users too). (https://gitorious.org/black-market/pages/Windows)

A tutorial on how to use the client  (https://gitorious.org/black-market/pages/Tutorial)

Some sample contracts.

Shares (https://gitorious.org/black-market/black-market-client/blobs/master/share-contract.xml)
Bonds (https://gitorious.org/black-market/black-market-client/blobs/master/bond-contract.xml)
Futures contracts (https://gitorious.org/black-market/black-market-client/blobs/master/future-contract.xml)

EDIT:
Now you can also have a look at the assets that are listed on the exchange , go here (http://dev.glbse.com/cgi-bin/list)


The servers up and running, go and register, deposit something small like 0.01btc

All orders and trades are listed on twitter @bitcoinglobal (https://twitter.com/#!/bitcoinglobal)

We we're innitially planning on launching the exchange yesterday but decided against it, to be certain we wanted to run more testing, and we needed to develop some terms and conditions.

Keep an eye out for future announcements, we'll be doing some promotions, that will be able to bag up to 100BTC free.

See here for the related announcement from yesterday. (http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=6472.0;)

Is it possible to run the exchange in -testnet mode, for the duration of testing? That way people could throw money around with wild abandon. It seems like it might be a better testing strategery.

Haven't set it up with testnet, and the amount really doesn't matter, 0.01BTC is plenty to play with.

Not to mention that not everyone has testnet btc.

What was the reasoning for using a command-line client instead of a web interface?  A web interface would be more friendly to the average user.

Edit: I see you are working on a graphical client, so I'll rephrase my question: Why a desktop client instead of a web interface?

There are no passwords, we use public/private keys to verify a user. Ot provides excellent security and requires there to be a desktop client.

We may at some point in the future provide a web-based client for those prefering convienience over security but thats far down the list of things to do(could change if there's demand).

No need for that, what about Google Accounts and other OpenID providers? Mine even calls me to my landline each time I login.

Also, :/, "random.seed(time.time())", I hope it doesn't use that to generate the keypairs.

crypto.py:19-20
    def generate(self):
        self.keypair = RSA.gen_key(2048, 65537)

I haven't used M2Crypto, but I'd hope their RSA implementation doesn't rely on python's built in PRNG.

And this is why it's opensource.

How would you recommend we generate the keypairs?

Having a problem on Windows 7, 64 bit. Ran the setup, everything installed fine. Need any more information?

OK, I've cleaned a machine here and just run through the setup process, now my machine is 32bit XP so it's not comparable to yours. I've found that I've had no problems, the installation went smoothly.

So the issue is either due to it being Windows 7 or it being 64bit.

If we could have someone with a 32bit version of Windows 7 give it a try and report back that would help narrrow things down.

I'm guessing it's the fact that it's 64bit that could be causing issues, see this link (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1662920/python-on-windows7-intel-64bit).

But until someone with plain old 32bit windows 7 gets back to us we won't know.

works fine for me on 64 bit win 7...

Well Tea, the problem is that its 64bit windows you're using, someone else has pm'd me with the same problem.

The m2crypto package that I included is 32bit M2Crypto-0.20.2.win32-py2.7.exe
And it seems that only activestate python business edition (not free) has a 64bit windows build.

Anyone know 64bit m2crypto packages for windows?

Perhaps it needs to be run in 32bit mode (is there a way to do this?)

vuce, do you have your machine configured in a certain way to handle 32bit applications?

no, nothing. Just clicked install and it worked like a dream. There was some openssl warning (i think) but it doesn't seem to affect anything.

Could you check add remove programs in the control panel and see if you have Microsoft Visual C++ redistributable package installed, perhaps you have a newer one that's 64bit?

If that's not the case then I'm stumped.

certainly. (http://i51.tinypic.com/2j5m4qp.png) (I've no idea with what I've got that many though :))

Thanks vuce.

BitterTea (and anyone else with 64bit windows systems) install this(also possibly re-install openssl), it's the 64bit C++ redistributable.
Then give it a try again. let me know the results.

http://glbse.com/downloads/vcredist_x64.exe

Also I've just added a webpage to allow users to view assets that are listed on the exchange.

Right now when you click on an asset, you get a whole face of ugly in return. I'll fix that over the next few days.

http://dev.glbse.com/cgi-bin/list

I'm very new at all of this but I'm looking for the best way to throw a few hundred bucks at bitcoin in the riskiest way possible that gives me potential for the highest upside. I'm no financial expert and basically just want to gamble it up a bit. IIRC there is some sort of stock option where I'm basically buying a few thousand dollars worth of stock (or bitcoin in this example,) but if the price drops to a certain level those few thousand dollars revert back to the client/invester/someone that's not me and I just lose my couple hundred dollars. Can someone explain this to me and tell me if it's possible with this program?

You're talking about limit orders.

It's ot built into the system(yet) but can easily be done with a trading bot.

Asset listing has been done, and now has nice formatting.

http://dev.glbse.com/cgi-bin/list

Content type returned is xml so it should show nicely in the browser (some of the older contracts are still there, and they still have the ugly formatting, all new ones are much more pretty)

Have a look
http://dev.glbse.com/cgi-bin/asset?id=8aba1348a88066189b6ea0753354976f92611aa63b5f4969c59e1c41f6717e1c.xml

These contracts are self verifying.

The contract id is the sha256 hash of the entire document.
The document includes the public keys of both the server and the user, and it includes the signature of the <contract> section of the asset by both the user and the server.

so do these shares have any inherant value? Can I just create over 9000 shares of awesome an sell them even though I have no company or anything?

They have to convince investors that these stocks is worth buying.

I would buy a stock in GLBSE because the company have a real product out there.

so basically I can issue shares of chris200x9 -- that's fucking awesome!

I wouldn't buy any share in you, though.

"yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man."

I suggest you have an awesome business plan first :)

First up nefario deserves kudos for all the work hes doing getting this project out the door.

Secondly, a great use case for a bitcoin share market is an existing business that wants to transition to the bitcoin economy by accessing bitcoins to back their venture with. It builds a bridge between the two economies so both can win.

Sorry if I missed it, but will your site provide tools for paying dividends or would the business have to set up their own payment system? How about voting or managing tools for all the shareholders?

Good question, yes and yes.
I'm working on voting now (should be done in the next few days, kinda swamped right now).

Followed by paying dividends to share owners (or paying back a bond or loan etc.)

You're right, what you would have to do is ensure that your persona online is not attached to your real life persona. Which for you wouldn't work because you've decided to make the two things the same (which is fine).

For someone like me who's online persona(this one) is not connected (too tightly) to my real life identity I wouldn't have anything to worry about.

As long as as you attach or connect these to a real life identity or entity then you would be making yourself a target.

Stay tuned for my IPO of the Bitcoin project itself :)

That would be interesting. Very...recursive.

All stock ticker updates have been moved to @GLBSE on twitter (still viewable on glbse.com), have updated links and a few other little things on glbse.com including a link to where to view contracts/assets details.

Now using @BitcoinGlobal for project status updates.

Was interviewed for Cypherpunkd on AgoristRadio, podcast is available here http://agoristradio.com/

FellowTraveler of OpenTransactions fame has found some problems with how I'm doing the contracts, with regards verifiability(Making it easy for someone to be impersonated).  I'll need to update the sample contracts to reflect this.

if anyone wants to get into it I'm giving away 100 shares of awesome to anyone who wants them, limit 4500 total given out.

Give it a try, transfer to d946ed601f13a46f655b508387afe769f353b3952f7a339a8277e7f19da584d8

is it down, or is my system behaving badly? After I enter my password it doesn't do anything.

same here.

For some reason the application server has frozen, I've just tried to check my balance, and it's not even acknolleging my request, never mind spitting out an error.

Not sure what's causing this, have restarted the server so you can give it another try.

I'll need to have a process that will monitor for this, kill the server and restart if it's frozen.

you have 100 awesome, on't spend it all in one place.

./blackmarket.py withdraw 200000000 1MqoX4QphLAhvAEbGs9omJF1sBZbAC9Pwq
Enter passphrase:
Server error:         <td>rack.version</td>
           <td class="code"><div>[1, 0]</div></td>
         </tr>
         
         <tr>
           <td>sinatra.error</td>
           <td class="code"><div>#&lt;ArgumentError: comparison of Symbol with 200000000 failed&gt;</div></td>
         </tr>
         
      </table>
      <div class="clear"></div>
    </div> <!-- /RACK ENV -->

    <p id="explanation">You're seeing this error because you have
enabled the <code>show_exceptions</code> setting.</p>
  </div> <!-- /WRAP -->
  </body>
</html>

Server is going offline for about the next hour to investigate.

I will update this thread when it's back online.

Nefario.

yrral86 ,Just trying to go over you're error, and I thought it was a strange one, have not seen that before.

It seems you have managed to find/accidentally discover a somewhat obscure bug, congradulatons.

So you have 2 accounts on the system(am I right?).
The bitcoin address you tried to withdraw to is actually a deposit address you we're given for another account.

You had deposited 0.00000002 to your first account with the address 1MqoX4QphLAhvAEbGs9omJF1sBZbAC9Pwq, and then tried to withdraw 0.00000002 from your second account to the same address 1MqoX4QphLAhvAEbGs9omJF1sBZbAC9Pwq.

The withdraw was successfull, however there was a transaction charge which was removed from the general wallet (and not recorded in the database).

Also the address 1MqoX4QphLAhvAEbGs9omJF1sBZbAC9Pwq is only meant to be used once (for the initial deposit), any further payments to that address will not be entered into the db (although they will be put into your wallet account) which will result the balance of your wallet account and your db account being different, which is bad.

So my solution to this issue will be to prevent withdrawing to a deposit address, and setting minimum withdrawal amounts,  I also need to account for transaction fees (from the miners) for withdrawals.

I currently have 2 sets of books for bitcoin, and they do not balance as a result of the above. This is really something that I need to fix before brining the system online again (otherwise the mess to clear up will be much greater).

These are purely issues caused by interaction with the bitcoin daemon (that to be honest I hadn't known about). They are pretty serious but totally fixable.

For everyone who has deposited btc, issued or bought shares don't worry, everything will be just as it should when the system comes back online. But it will be a day or two before this happens(for me to fix the system, and then ensure everyone has their correct balance and shares).

nefario.

Hey Nefario i'm just wondering if the GLBSE is compliant with China or U.S Securities laws?

Here take a look at chinese securities laws: http://www.csrc.gov.cn/pub/csrc_en/laws/rfdm/statelaws/200904/t20090429_102757.htm

Its a very big hurdle to overcome the complex securities laws of both china and US.
If you do not comply with their laws usually they take draconian measures (china more then the US).

I don't think GLBSE cares to comply with these laws.

After all, bitcoin corporation listed there are probably not charted by the state.

What abouUhhhh what about GLBSE's future?

If the corporations listed there are not actually registered i hope you guys understand the implications of that.

SzeChun, GLBSE does in no way (nor will it in the future) attempt to comply with Chinese or U.S Securities laws for the same reason that the German DAX, or British FTSE or Japanese Nikkei does not comply. Being that they are outside the jurisdiction of the above mentioned states(although I am sure we are currrently within the reach of some state should they choose to act).

We will be (in the near future) operating from within cypherspace, beyond the reach of any terrestrial government entity.

With regards all listings on the exchange they do so at their own peril, and we recommend that they too also operate from within cypherspace, and everyone involved with such listing use pseudonyms such that they cannot be traced back to their real world identities, to avoid any government action against themselves.

GLBSE and BitcoinGlobal (nor I) are responsible for any actions by any governments against any group or individual as a result of using or listing on or using this exchange.

Nor are we responsible for any fraud (although we will do our best to mitigate it) also commited on the exchange. In using the exchange you(the user) take full responsibility for you're own actions and the consequences thereoff. It is you're own responsibility to assertain the risk involved in first putting any of your own money on the exchange or buying anything listed on the exchange.

In short if you use this exchange we assume you are an adult, and treat you as so, not some pampered, sheltered child. Buyer beware.

It should also be noted that this is beta software, and as such may at any time be taken offline to deal with any issues that may arrise. We will do our best to ensure that all data on the exchange is properly backed up in the event of a system failure or worse, a raid. But at this point we make no promises, this is a best effort service and will remain so until we get out of beta.

Regards, Nefario.

Perhaps you should choose to close down glbse until you are able to operate in cyber space since you are currently operating within china's jurisdiction.

I think the real risks is the people who are running the exchange,7 the laws are to protect investors and usually the investors and companies listed are not liable with exchange laws in this scenario.

Firstly, my real life I.D. is not nefario that's not what it says on my id card. Secondly only I am based in China, the server is far... far away from this place(along with everyone else involved).

Thirdly, the Chinese government will be the last to hear about it (do you think they monitor English language websites that have nothing to do with politics or "China bashing"? I'm much more worried about the U.S. government seizing the domain, we'll see what we can do about this in the future).

And fourth, if they can't find me, the worst the government can do(actually this is the most likely action) is block the exchange from inside China, meaning Chinese users without vpn will be unable to use it.

The laws in China are to allow the CCP the absolute power to govern and remove anyone they wish for any reason possible. There is not a single person who cannot be found guilty of just one of the many broad and poorly defined, often contradictatory laws. Throw in that the judicairy is not independent and. The fact is everyone in China is living with a sword of Damocles hanging over their head. All it takes is doign or saying the wrong thing for it to be cut. Not to protect investors, this is simply a convienient (and often trotted out) excuse. Who protected the investors in the global financial crisis?

Hey I'm not the judge questioning you, so dont throw all your defenses at me.

If you think you are safe from China's "Big Brother" then that's fine.

The servers maybe located ese where but servers are only a data storage, although it can be taken that whe the servers are is where the exchange is really at. Glbse is a entity that is illegal and the people who own that entity are liable to it's actions .

If you really wanna play the game of black market stock exchange I suggest you
Move to the pacific islands.

Or throw it into a hidden network (tor, i2p, etc). Make the client to connect to the server in the hidden network.

And this is the crux of the argument, the fact that someone (governments) have said person A is not allowed to trade (swap one thing they have for another, voluntarily) with person B without their express consent and payment is crazy.

Yes it's probably illegal, and will probably remain so for the forseable future, but thanks to a whole sleuth of new tools and services this kind of (illegal) activity is growing, and with the help of encryption becoming invulnerable (or at least more resilient) to government activity.

Not meaning to spew at your previous comment but it touched a nerve.

That's cypherspace, inside i2p or Tor

That model is broken, and will soon go the way of the telegraph.  Welcome to the future.

As an actual investor in GLBSE, I want to express my support with this stance, and I will gladly buy out any other investors that don't agree with this viewpoint.

As far as anyone else goes, you are free to avoid the goods and services provided by GLBSE and any companies traded on the exchange.

I confirm BitterTea is one of the initial investors of this project.

This is probably stupid... but I just don't know what to do.

Trying to run the setup and when i run "blackmarket.py" i get an "ImportError: No module named pycurl" 

I did install pycurl, and i can see it in C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages.....  from my little bit of coding experience i wonder if it is because there is no pycurl.h in the include directory... but I did install  pycurl both durring the settup.bat thing and manually after i got the error the first time.... did i miss something?

any ideas?

That is absurd. The point of Glbse is that it wont be centralised on a server anywhere eventually. Most of the investors arent in china either. So you can shove your 'great wall' where the sun doesnt shine.

China doesnt have 'jurisdiction' outside of china. Neither does the us have it outside of the us.

Unless they themselves do something illegal like kidnapping foreign citizens which would cause a whole other issue.

Look i'm not a lawyer so i wasn't going into the technicalities of securities laws.
Lets say NASDAQ's servers were in Canada, NASDAQ would still have to comply with US laws not only because they have US investors and Companies; but the people behind it are living in that country.
If you want to play the international black market game i suggest you find the legal implications of where your not liable.

I know what you mean, and I (and AFAIK everyone else involved) know what we are doing and mean to do. We are aware of the possible consequences of our actions and have decided to do this anyway, we believe the payoff to be greater than the risk involved. It's our own necks that we are risking. Also you should have a read of the terms of GLBSE glbse.com/terms.html

Stock market is launching in about 4 hours (a little later than planned). I'll be around after the launch to help with any issues.

Yikes, are you saying that when the bitcoin daemon's accounts system is used to maintain a number of different accounts, such as accounts for various customer balances to be accounted by, the bitcoin trasaction fees are not accounted to the specific accounts the transactions are done by?

-MarkM-

No, I was unaware at the time that bitcoind automatically charged for transactions smaller than 0.01btc, and I didn't account for it(or take precautions to prevent individual account "overdrafts"). I have now done so.

Beta of glbse is open for trading http://glbse.com

Please see terms http://glbse.com/terms.html

Those 2 lines and then it just sits there... how long should I wait?

<edit>
Now it works.
</edit>

I was wondering, is there going to be support for stock splitting?