But wouldn't that be a centralized system? Like one huge single mining-pool controlled by one person (or a very few)?

My idea is the following: (maybe it has been there before and maybe it's horribly stupid, I don't know, I just want to get some thoughts on this)
(I'm using bitcoin in this context, but you can use pretty much any other alt-coin as well here)

Current state: One big issue with bitcoin is volatility and the fact, that people who enter later will allways have a disadvantage.
-> It's not stable enough right now.

Possible solution: A new coin is created tied to the value of big fiats (probably €, $, CNY, ect...), [strong]but[/strong] this coin would not be mined in a traditional sense, but by confirming the distruction of some other alt-coins.
How are coins destroyed: By sending them to addresses generated by the network -> noone has the private key. The tx can also be verified by the network. The value has to be calculated from the data of all major exchanges (that's probably one downside)

Example (for simplicity here the new coin is only tied to $): The user requests a blackwhole-address from the network, sends in 1BTC and publishes the transaction -> now he is rewarded 700$-coin by the network.

Issues:
1) What if all bitcoins are gone/destroyed? (this might be a stopper)
A: I don't know, maybe there's a solution, but in theory in order to get coins one would have to prove that he burned a 10$-bill to get 10 $-coin. Another possible solution of this might be to trust in 3rd-party services(governments?) - but noone would want that!

2) What about lost $-coins?
A: There still has to be SOME regular mining, but on a steady bases, like xxMio coins/year steady in order to prevent deflation.

As I said, maybe it's a horribly stupid idea.
Cheers

In line 167 you have a timeout of 100milliseconds, the API states though that you should limit your queries to once every 10 seconds,
you should change the timeout from '100' to '10000' (10000milliseconds -> 10 seconds)

Just to be on the save side, I'd change it to 11000 or 12000

Not sure if that was all, but that's what cought my attention at the first glance - hope this helps!

Just seen this: http://www.coindesk.com/can-now-pay-cash-bitcoin-28000-uk-stores/

This guy has been spamming the forums for quite a while now looking for developers(take a look at the recent posts).
After contacting him/her via Email, I was offered:


Just as a heads up for anyone interested.

I just stumbled upon this: http://bitfreak.info/?page=tools&t=bitsci
They utilize the blockchain.info APIs, however from what I could see, this seems to query the payment status once every x seconds from the client-side, which ... works ... but is not ideal, since there can go stuff wrong, for example if the client closes the browser, for whatever reason, but paid...

Cost-wise: If you have your own hosted solution, you're not really looking at more server-cost than you already have, however you'd have to pay once for the development and the integration. If you only have one domain and do not process more than 300k$/Month in BTC-Sales, you are probably way better of with Bitpay, which is 30$ / Month. Plus with Bitpay you have the option to get the payout in FIAT. (I'm in NO way affiliated with Bitpay, this is my honest opinion)
-> I cannot really give any advice without knowing any numbers(which you shouldn't share here ) but it mostly depends on your monthly BTC volume, if the 30$ account works for you, I'd say stick with BitPay for now.

I do work like that and I could build such a solution for you, or integrate an available solution like the one mentioned above.
So if you are still interested or just look for further advice, feel free to contact me via PM.

UK is part of the SEPA region. So I don't know about exchange-rates when you deposit to Bitstamp for example, but have you checked that out?
Another possibility would be bitcoin.de(within the SEPA region) - but it works manually like you described it, people are charged 0.5% per buy or sale there, but aren't those competible rates for UK citizens to get bitcoins?
You could invest in an bitcoin ATM if you want to sell BTC to a broad audience in the UK

I'm on your side with this, there should be a solution without bitpay ect...

BUT...there are some issues:
- As a merchant you are very unlikely to run your own bitcoind on an additional server, but that'd be exchactly what you'd have to do to automate those payment processes.
A solution to this without hosting your own bitcoind, would be to utilize some other open bitcoind, possibly from blockchain.info.
But then again: Many eCommerce-Sites are PHP based on managed systems -> no websockets on pretty much all php webhosting-systems, but I'd say you need to be able to run a websocket to make transactions smooth and get notified when a transaction is done ect... it could be done with a php-script that is called once every second or so... but for a programmer's heart, that is pain!!

Making transactions for a user is easy, but automate the payment system on the other side is not so trivial, technically it is no big challenge, but for most php-hosted shops it'd probably be too much overhead.
Just my two cents on this, but I'm sure there are many smarter guys running around that can also give some insight why this hasn't been done before (or maybe it has?)

Depending on where you are located, I would take down that site immediately and run. Ponzi-schemes are illegal in most countries (even if disguised as a 'social experiment') and people DO go to jail for stuff like you are doing right now. You will have a hard time trying to defend yourself in front of a court by stating "but it was just an experiment".

So is this paid or not?

I am a web-developer and could do this for you.

But I have to say, I will probably be NOT the perfect guy for your project.
My work would be based completely on the technical side, I have never used such a site, and I don't know too much about (american) football, since I'm from germany (I know soccer though ;P )
It could work, if you provide all the technical details and requirements.
So, if you are still interested or just want another quote or estimate on this project, feel free to contact me via PM.

You know Google, right? http://andarazoroflove.org/how-to-create-alt-coin-scrypt-clones-for-fun-and-profit-bitcoin-litecoin-secrets-exposed/
First thing that popped up, alon with several other tutorials, but just changing the basic parameters, won't make your coin uniqe.

If you really want your coin to establish, I'd say, you give at least an announcment several weeks ahead, where you already state your uniq features in a whitepaper. Nothing should be premined and as many people as possible should start with the same conditions. The coins should not all be mined within a timeframe of less than 3-4years, even that seems pretty fast. Don't expect your coin to "make it" (overtake bitcoin) in less than 5 years, it took btc 5 years to be where it is now.
Even IF your coin is superior, this is still the crypto market...it's unpredictable.

But a successful visionary, we all know, once said: “The People Who Are Crazy Enough to Think They Can Change the World, Are the Ones Who Do.”

Exchanges don't (usually) involve people to manually transfer bitcoins
MAYBE some exchanges process HUGE withdrawals manually, but most transactions are automated.

You would do that by setting up a bitcoind or use some other existing, open bitcoind and then use the bitcoin JSON-RPC API(https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Original_Bitcoin_client/API_Calls_list) to initiate transactions ect...

How about if you start telling WHAT you would need that investment for?

It all depends what you have in mind.
I wouldn't use paypal if I was you, simply because of the fees.

But you could utilize your bank-account for that kind of service(or probably create a business-banking account for that)
Take a look at the OFX-standard, you can find follow-up links here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3469628/banking-api-protocol
But it depends on the bank and probably the country you live in, here in germany, there's a standard called FinTS(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FinTS)

And then there's several commercial APIs for those kind of purposes, but I cannot tell you anything about that, haven't used those yet. https://plaid.io/ for example is a newer service, but they only support 4 or 5 banks currently, I've heard that intuit.com offer similar API-services.

If you reside in europe, you might want to take a look at https://www.sofort.com/

Not another coin!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOdZhhV0AyA

Answer this one question HONESTLY: WHY do you want to start another coin? Are you REALLY trying to contribute to crypto by bringing yet another currency to a market of 100 other currencies and therefor mixing up that landscape even more, making a solid adoption for the broad masses more and more difficult? Or are you in it to try and get some quick money out of it by stating a bunch of fake benefits and having 90% of the coin premined for yourself?
Based on the fact that you are not able to setup a new coin yourself, chances are low that you are actually contributing to crypto by trying to bring in a new coin to the game, if you really want the community to benefit, write a white-paper, and if it kicks ass, be happy if someone adopts it.

Just to state my point of view, I don't want to accuse you of anything, only you know your true intentions until you share them. But I hope you can see why I am concerned about your idea/project by looking at the whole crypto-coin landscape.

Oh man... this app looks so awesome.
Unfortunately I have just switched to Android (2 days ago ) - but I still have my old phone (WP7.8 though) maybe I can download the app and give you a good rating on it!

All the best with the app! I wish that it existed sooner

It depends on your targeted platform:

iOS: XCode (requires a MacOSX)
(https://developer.apple.com/)

Android: IntelliJ Android Studio (free)
(http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/studio.html)

Windows Phone:
Visual Studio: http://www.visualstudio.com/

And then there are quite a few hybrid solutions: One Code-base -> multiple MobileOS
- Phonegap: You develop in HTML/JS and submit to http://build.phonegap.com
- QT Mobile: http://qt-project.org/
- Unity Mobile: http://unity3d.com/ (only for games)
- CocoonJS: https://www.ludei.com/cocoonjs/ (primarily for games)

And then there is the fees:
iOS: 100$ / year developer license to upload it to the iOS app-store
Android: once 25$ merchant fee to confirm your Google-Play-Developer Account

But those are just the tools you will need to get started, you will (very likely) need additional software.
But for each of those tools you will find hunderets of tutorials and help-sites on how to create apps, however be aware, that you won't be able to make your dream-app in a week if you don't know anything about the matter right now(expect the time to be at least half a year, unless you are full-time at it). While I encourage you to learn programming, you will have to expect a hard time if you weren't able to find help for your question on google. But I do encourage you to go that way.

Mail sent.