I've been working on this for quite some time now, over a year in fact. It's only in the last few months have I gone from ideas, thinking and making notes to actual work and system development.

So what is it? Crypto Sense (current project name, may change later) is a Bitcoin payment platform, wallet service, hardware payment system and CTM/ATM network.

It provides a hosted wallet with web interface and mobile apps, nothing new there. Use an app or webpage to send, request and keep track of Bitcoin payments. What is also offered is instant transaction verification before any confirmations on the blockchain, providing both the sender and recipient both use the Crypto Sense hosted wallet. Given that the users do not hold private keys, a replay style attack is not possible, and the network will be able to guarentee the coins have not been previously spent, before waiting for a blockchain confirmation. I am aware of other services offering this, but this also ties in with other offerings.

The hardware payment system is, as the name suggests, a physical way of spending Bitcoin. Using smart card technology, payment terminals will handle card communication, security and cryptography. Once a PIN code has been entered and the user confirms the ammount to pay, the terminal sends the requests to the same back-end that handles the internal instant payment verification. Both the merchant and the customer need to use the hosted wallet service, however confirmation of payment can be received in seconds, even for high value transactions. There is much less risk than accepting un-confirmed transactions. Again, I know this is not a totally new service, however I aim to keep the price of the payment terminals to a sensible level, no minimum order quantity, and potentially offer a pay as you go type service (essentially a free terminal with slightly higher usage fees). The terminals will be built to comply with the same standards expected of "traditional" payment terminals. Tamper and intrusion detection, SRAM stored keys and a limited command set implemented on a serial connection to a host for POS integration. This would be a future addition to the system, depending on demand and costs.

The CTM network, which is already progressing well, is a back-end account server and CTM clients. I have chose CTM (Coin Transaction Machine) over ATM, as they transact coins, rather than tell automatically. They are essentially like existing Bitcoin ATM/CTM's. Insert cash, get Bitcoin. The current progress is Bitcoin purchase with coins sent to a scanned address, transaction information display by scanning a QR code with the prefix "txid:" followed by the transaction ID, paper wallet generation and printing, receipt printing, Bitcoin purchase directly to a paper wallet (paper wallet generated and printed, then Bitcoin sent to new address) and account creation (enter some details, just enough for AML and KYC, no ID required unless forced to by law).

The CTM is my main focus currently as on it's own, it is a complete product with no need for any other hardware or services, so it could be released standalone with more advanced functions automatically enabled once the backend network is running.
Current features in progress are:
        )Once the basic account creation (and data encryption/back end server) is complete, the machine can issue RFID "CTM Cards" for storage of bitcoin addresses, and in the future, access to the account management services.
        )Selling of Bitcoin to the machines. Given the high cost of bank note recyclers, and not being willing to develop my own hardware to do it, this may involve manual intervention and the use of a printed receipt to confirm the machine has received the Bitcoin.
        )Machine management. I am working on a user interface for accessing user-configurable options and viewing machine balance, Bitcoin in and out, quantity of bank notes in the machine, buy/sell rates, errors etc.

At some stage I will start to impliment the facility for the machine to take advantage of running a full node by adding the facility to install mining hardware. The intent is the machines are bought outright, the owner keeps all profits from buying and selling, and by acting as an interface the to Crypto Sense network, could potentially gain business from it's users.

What I hope to provide is a conveniant and familiar interface to Bitcoin and crypto-currency in general, but still keeping the technical and more advanced features of Bitcoin there to use. I know there are concerns with hosted wallets and not having control of private keys, loosing anonynimity when signing up to services etc, and at the moment this is just me working on the project on my own, so I probably won't have answers to every question, or have even thought of them, but I welcome input, criticism, advice and ideas from the community.

That's pretty much it. It's a separate service that accepts bitcoin as the currency that can be transferred in and out, just as with PayPal. The intention however is to use the "off-chain" nature to allow the use of cards, RFID tags, physical keys etc to allow purchase with an instant payment verification. Instant meaning within a few seconds.

I had briefly seen information about the inputs.io cock up. I would use a 1-way connection to a backend server. Simply sending batch information to the server, and if all data decrypts OK, the server send back an ACK. Same the other way. After a batch, the server will send all updates back, and upon decryption the front-end would send an ACK to the server. Nothing happening in real time, and no way to break into the back-end from the front-end, as the only response that can be sent is either ACK or NAK, and that is just upon decryption of the days transactions ready to be processed by the bitcoin network.

I do understand the anonymity aspect of bitcoin, however ATM's seem to be popping up everywhere, and from what I have seen, they seem to be the most convoluted, and frankly invasive ways of dealing with bitcoin. Government ID, biometrics, payments using bank cards. I'm not wanting to try and change the way everyone uses bitcoin, rather providing an interface for those that see it more as a stable currency, accepted world wide, and not at risk from world financial collapse than an anonymous method of buying things.

I suppose the biggest use case is, supposing this idea works, is well implemented and is adopted by retailers world wide, that you can go anywhere in the world, take your "bitcard" with you and have no exchange rates, no fees for using a card abroad, no trying to work out how much a hotdog is, and having 4096 bit RSA covering your transaction. There is also the security in the bitcoin side of the transaction having a delay, so here is time for disputes to be resolved (or not), before the bitcoin is sent.

The hardware side would remain closed (mostly) and security keys stored on volatile memory along with intrusion detection and self-erasure of crypto keys.

As a system for most of the current bitcoin users, it's utter crap, but I think it may be a help for those that want to be able to accept payments quickly such as retail or fast food, and those that are hungry and can't wait 15 minutes for a double cheeseburger!

Hi all, my first post and an idea I have been thinking about on and off for about a year.

I have been thinking about how a bitcoin payment could be made instantly, just as a "regular" visa/mastercard type transaction. A normal EMV/mag stripe card transaction isn’t actually instant, there is only an authorization made to take the funds at a later date. This amount is taken from an available balance, so although the funds are still there, they are unavailable for use.

Would a similar system work with the bitcoin network? If 2 wallets are held on the same system, and all bitcoins in them are verified, there would be very little risk in the system saying "ok, you want to spend 0.00021btc, and you have 0.00329 verified, yes, you can make this payment" and then subtracting from an available balance. At the receiving wallet, 0.00021btc would be added to the "unconfirmed balance" and the actual bitcoin transaction can happen in the background during a batch. This could potentially open up the possibility of paying using bitcoin as you do with any visa card, having a secure terminal and an RFID/smart card. As with traditional systems, the vendor accepting payments would pay a small fee for the service and the hardware, and the service provider (assuming it isn't run just for profit), would have the responsibility to investigate any fraud or disputes.

I'm thinking more of providing an easy to use method of using bitcoin that may help with general acceptance and provide a bit of safety for the general population. People like the safety net that a bank provides regarding fraud and disputes over goods/services. The ability to, quite frankly, be a careless asshat, knowing that someone else will fix it for them, seems to be all too common in people.

I've not really started this project beyond the idea itself, writing a bitmap handler to take a word-array and display it on an LCD and putting my horridly crap artistic skills to use to draw a concept for a terminal. I have a bad drawing and the bitcoin logo on a small LCD, that's about it.

I honestly know very little about the inner workings of the bitcoin network, how the the mining process actually works etc. I am an engineer however, specifically electronics, and also a strong believer in bitcoin. This idea has been floating around in my head for about a year, and if actually viable, I would like to pursue it, at least in the hardware/software/electronics aspect.