Bitcoin Forum

Thinking about starting up an insta-wallet competitor.  The site would automatically generate a no-login, URL-based wallet, just like instawallet.  A person could optionally assign a username/password to their wallet, to make it both more secure and also accessible from locations where they might not have the URL handy.

The big differentiating factor would be firstbits.  Prior to account creation, many new addresses will be generated, and satoshi's would be sent to said addresses to get them in the blockchain.  So, firstbits for each account would be INSTANTLY available upon account creation.

Also, premium firstbits addresses would be available for rental.  Premium addresses would include short firstbits (three-character addresses, such as 1dtw) and a variety of English-word addresses and names (1btc1, 1girly, 1jeff, etc).  As long as the renter continue to pay for the address, it would be theirs to continue renting (no one else could steal it, sort of like a domain name is always yours as long as you continue to pay for it).

The private keys for these premium addresses would be always kept offline in cold storage (because obviously, once those firstbits are out in the wild, they can never be reused), but as long as the transaction amounts aren't huge, I could make sure that any coins sent to those addresses would be immediately available.

So, a few questions:
1.  Do you think such a service would be viable as a competitor to other existing sites, such as instawallet?
2.  Would you use such a site, or recommend it for use by other people?
3.  What do you think the rental price (assume a monthly rental period) of premium firstbits addresses should be?
4.  Should the price be determined in an "auction" style, so that more desired premium addresses are more sought after?  The auction price would be the price the person pays each renewal period for the premium address as long as they wish to continue owning it.
5.  Is anyone interested in helping out on the project for a cut of the profits?  It is a large project, and I have a full-time job already.  Could probably get it done by myself, but it would be in a longer timeframe than I would really like.  Plus, I could use help on the security side of things.

I'm not sure what you mean by renting the address. I would hate to have my address expire and someone else gets my address and payments. Other than that, the idea sounds super.

I'm not sure I like the idea of address squatting, but this sounds like a good idea.

I personally prefer a service where I have complete control of the private keys, but the convenience of instawallet is nice.

Right, I would definitely want to avoid that as well.  I would think multiple warnings about address expiration would be necessary, including both email notifications and notifications on the account page itself.  An option to auto-pay from the balance of the account if the renewal is missed would be nice as well.  And perhaps I could include a buffer of days (maybe a month) after an address expires where the address will not be rented to anyone else, to make sure that the renter didn't just forget to pay and lose receipt of payments to that address.

The reason I would have to do premium addresses on a rental basis is that I cannot give out the private keys.  If I did, then whoever was using the private key afterward would have to trust me 100% that I would never do anything with that address any time in the future.  With a rental, they only have to trust me as long as they keep coins in the account.  They could just have every payment to the premium address forwarded along to a different address of their choosing, and then the amount that they have to trust me is limited to however many payments might be collected in an hour.

I would consider selling the premium addresses outright (giving the person complete control over it) if there is demand, I guess I just assumed that no one would want to mess with a private key that someone else has touched.

I dont think its really necessary. It was mentioned in the r/gonewild thread but its easy enough to use coinad or a similar service to get the address into the chain. Maybe if you can give a good example of why someone would need to use a firstbit IMMEDIATELY! how much would you charge for premium bits?

Well, just for convenience sake mostly.  A new person starting to use bitcoins might want to use firstbits, then forgets about the whole thing while waiting for their new firstbits address to appear in the chain.  Etc, etc.  I guess I picture it along the lines of "well, why does it matter if it takes 3 months to get a BFL miner instead of 2 months?"  Because you want it ASAP!

So yes, I agree with you, it's easy and mostly painless to get an address into the blockchain to create a firstbits, but it'd be easier and faster to have a firstbits available to use immediately.  That way, there's no waiting when you need it for something real quick like.

I have no idea how much I'd charge for premium addresses.  That's one of the questions I listed in the OP.  ;)

responded before then but here are my answers to those questions

1. as long as it is made well, yes.
2. possible. If it was made I suppose stripcoin.com would recommend it to people. Personally I try get people to download a client. If I have to I normally suggest blockchain.info before instawallet because it at least requires a password. (you making a login/password optional seems like a good idea to be a little different from both site.)
3. no idea. not a lot considering you can make your own vanity address. on the other hand I feel a large majority of the people using webwallets dont have the knowledge. one problem is that you can have duplicate vanity address rendering it useless as a firstbit.
4.
5.

How much do you expect a site like this to make? Id say most of your income would come from advertisements? Depending on how much and how popular the site was more to come from vanity address.

Girl is naked and has a marker in her hand?

edit for elaboration:

compare:

1. go to instantfirstbits.com
2. write your firstbits wherever appropriate

to

1. go to instawallet.org
2. go to coinad.com
3. copy address from instawallet to coinad
4. wait an hour (maybe more, just keep checking)
5. go to firstbits.com copy and paste address again
6. write your firstbits

It isn't even close. The difference for me and probably you is remembering to do whatever we needed it for an hour later. For most people it's the difference between doing it and not.

Well, no you can't have a duplicate vanity address.

If I put 1sgt1rh894vhnuiah428f943hj2z into the blockchain, and no one had an address starting with 1sgt in the blockchain already, then my firstbits would be 1sgt.  If someone else put a new address, 1sgt3u19rjfio3wan5sj4j3fj4 into the blockchain, their firstbits would be 1sgt3.  No duplication.

I have no idea how much the site would make, or even if it would be worth it to make.  That's why I am trying to gauge input from potential customers.

Would 0.05 BTC/month per premium address be reasonable, or 0.5 BTC/month, or 5 BTC/month?  Hard to say... I really have no idea.

so its good for girls who want to get naked but who else? I do understand you point. Having another webwallet cant hurt and it will offer a few different features. There are lots of girls willing to take there clothes off too, if r/gonebits and other similar things become more popular Im sure a lot of girls would be using it. A long with other customers.

Well I know im just saying it will get longer. I guess all you need is a warning or a disclaimer that there can be duplicate vanity address OR you can keep track of all the vanity address you have given out and not let any two people using your service use the same vanity gen. 1springs934859583ndnsjdsd and 1springs20580589384. The second guy would have to use 1springs2 which is getting longer still easy to remember especially being a word but may be annoying. People arent smart Im sure you will have cases where people will get a vanity address and not know they need to include characters after the vanity. where 1springs2 tells people to use 1springs because he doesnt know any better and ignores the warnings.

1BTC/month to 0.05BTC/month sounds like a good range.

BTW I do think the site is a good idea and will offer features that competitors are currently lack.

Ok, so what you're saying is, some people might assume that just because they have an address that starts with a word, that they can use said word as a vanity address?  I can see your point.  To me, it seems so obvious that no one would ever make such a mistake, but to new people who may not be very intelligent, they might get confused.  I'd try to find a way to make it clear...

Thanks for the input.  ;)

Here's a thought. In addition to a warning about typos losing money. You could choose whatever length is 'near impossible' to generate to be the 'secure' firstbits. Probably 11 chars would do, now if there is a typo the space is so large it probably won't map to another address in the chain. Granted 11 is a bit rough to remember, but maybe not if there is a word to start it out it is easier than a phone number. Display like this maybe:

1jamie54jr3hpP5mWdrkQ4BzruSa3wVRT

Or, maybe just note that more chars can be used for more security against typos.