We've been watching MintPal and will probably be looking to add it in the round 2 alpha stage, most likely.  Thanks for the suggestion!

Re: coin volumes -- definitely!  We're still working on the UI for the charting components, but once that's good to show, I'll throw up a screencap for feedback.

Totally agree -- this platform looks very cool -- the deposit approach is pretty elegant.

Thanks!  

Simply put, that's correct.  Issues like the one you've stated largely comes down to what your individual strategy for arbitrage will be.  In your scenario it makes sense (and on the broader scale also) to keep funds available at various exchanges so that you can take advantage of arbitrage possibilities -- of which our platform would watch for and capture.

In the early stages we're focused on creating a unified and simple way to watch for and conduct arbitrage against various exchanges.  As things get spun up, we have a number of possible ways to develop out additional functionality that can potentially better address concerns like yours, but to start, we've got a laser focus on making a simple, unified arbitrage platform -- early feedback from the community will be crucial as to what functionality we focus on developing after that point -- all the more reason to jump in on the indiegogo campaign and be part of the Round 1 Alpha

We're going to be open sourcing the entirety of the platform, but we've been hesitant to do so yet because of the communication overhead of doing so (we're very strapped on time and really want to focus on development) ahead of the fundamental structure of the nodes themselves being sufficiently mature to open it for community review + discussion -- thus waiting until we finish up the first release itself.

We've got a fairly fleshed out incentivization model in place in the whitepaper that we think will incentivize all points of contact in a transaction that utilizes the exchange node network.

Last note -- we had and still have no plans to directly monetize the exchange structure itself (thus the challenge to raising funds), we had plans for ancillary monetization that would allow us to make money without compromising the integrity of an anonymous and decentralized network.

Totally right, but the general legal advice getting handed out is that if things go to court, it's probably going to be easier to get your pennies back than your bitcoins.

The basic gist is that most investors believe Gox is going to go bankrupt and it's better to have a claim against them in fiat than in btc -- so people are dumping all they can, and at this point, at whatever price they can get.

And that's correct -- can't withdraw in either fiat or BTC, thus further driving the panic.

It's almost to the point of 'why not' just drop a Benjamin and see what happens.

Not quite yet -- but the Round 1 Alpha will be available soon.

We've been heavily focusing our development time into back-end integration with exchange APIs thus far and are now this week shifting over to getting the UI of the dashboard ready for the alpha.

As soon as it's ready, we'll be directly emailing backers with instructions and also doing a public announcement.

Stephen

I'm curious how you're hosting this -- incredibly slow for me.

We plug directly into the various APIs of the exchanges we integrate with and based on the triggers + strategies you've defined, we execute the arbitrage actions accordingly either automatically or we let you know via alert so you can do it manually if you so desire.

We've also done a recent Q+A where we answer where exactly the points of automation + manual intervention are with the current structure of the platform --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwvDqkOrXLw

You do need an account with each respective exchange that you'd like to execute arbitrage with -- this allows us to focus on providing the best unified arbitrage platform possible without having to be concerned with many of the regulatory issues that come into play when you start handling the movement + holding of funds for users -- our platform simply orchestrates movements that occur directly between your existing accounts -- this doesn't mean this won't be something we might handle down the line, but to get off the ground we're keeping things as elegant as possible on our end.

Love the idea -- once I work through the entire whitepaper I'll get back with some feedback.

Update!

It's been a little while so I figured I'd make this an actual reply instead of just an edit to the original post.

We're now integrated with 7 different exchanges (list below)!  If you have any specific ones that you'd like to see in the platform, let us know!

• CampBX
• Cryptsy
• Kraken
• Crypto-Trade
• Bitfinex
• Vircurex
• Mt.Gox

In addition to the above, we've also added in support for trading in EUR.  

Lastly, we put out a short Q+A video set for some common questions people have been having around the platform.  That can be found here --> http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXq7bBf8bhxjYjOej5oeFdZ1i4tJWFEg0

I also want to encourage anyone who hasn't to checkout our crowdfunding campaign on indiegogo!

Follow our dev twitter account to get live updates as we deploy features.

Stephen

This specific project is currently on hold on our end --

A summary update of the past few months:

We reached the point of proof-of-concept w/ the decentralized nodes, meaning we had them successfully connecting w/ each other and communicating -- we used this version to pitch investors.

On the android side of things, 'the clients', it was also fairly progressed in development, but just short of successfully connecting up with the nodes due to some additional implementation necessary for them to find the nodes.

We ultimately had to put things on hold due to funding --

We'd been discussing the project with a number of investors, though none of these conversations moved past initial meetings specifically for the decentralized exchange platform, though they did progress in some other directions (that I'll mention towards the end of the post).
This was due to three things:
> Revenue Model (It's essentially impossible to directly monetize a truly decentralized network.  We did have a revenue model defined that wouldn't compromise the integrity of the decentralized network, but the runway for this model was just too long)
> Legality - It's a gray area and most investors won't go near it.
> Understanding - Even if you simplify down the fundamentals of what we're doing, it's still hard for most VCs or even angels to understand the value of a fully decentralized network.

We had truly hoped to get sufficient donations from the community to keep this running up until the point of v1, but that just didn't happen.

This all leads into what we're working on currently --

We're now building a fully featured, yet easy to use Cryptocurrency arbitrage platform called Elqnt | Arbitrage.  This will hopefully help fund continued development on the Elqnt Exchange.

The bitcointalk discussion for Elqnt | Arbitrage can be found here --> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=459528.0

We've also launched an indiegogo campaign to help fund the development of the arbitrage platform --> http://igg.me/at/elqnt

We truly do hope to get back to developing on the exchange node infrastructure, but paramount at this point is making sure we have personal funding solidified.  Once that is in place, we'll be carving out time again to work on the exchange node infrastructure. 

Updates Archive

2/23

We've added support for a bunch or exchanges (8 in total) since the last update on 2/19!

New supported exchanges:

• Bit2C
• bitme
• BTC China
• mcxNOW
• BTC38
• OkCoin
• Vault of Satoshi
• Crypto Rush

We've also added support for a number of alt-coins in addition to Bitcoin --

• Litecoin
• Dogecoin
• Freicoin
• Megacoin
• Peercoin
• ProtoShares
• Primecoin

We're also continuing work on the dashboard UI.  We expect for this item to carry over into the actual alpha rounds as we further refine the workflows based on feedback.

2/19

We've integrated three more exchanges today:

• BTC-e
• Bitstamp
• Bter

The first batch of perk t-shirts came in today!  Check them out here --> http://blog.elqnt.com/elqnt-arbitrage-t-shirts/

Lastly, we've added Vaughn Murphy (coinking) to the project!  
He'll be helping us out with promotion for the platform + campaign -- say hi!

2/18

We're now integrated with 7 different exchanges (list below)!  If you have any specific ones that you'd like to see in the platform, let us know!

CampBX
Cryptsy
Kraken
Crypto-Trade
Bitfinex
Vircurex
Mt.Gox

In addition to the above, we've also added in support for trading in EUR.  

2/12

We're now accepting ALL cryptocurrencies via Cryptsy Trade Key for donations -- 208823d92c583a35ad391fa97c10d4f59e6fd6ff!

We've added a dev twitter account that shows commit messages as they are pushed to our repository -- @elqntdev

We've just added support for Cryptsy.

Added support for Dogecoin, such progress.

A blog is coming, which we'll post longer form updates to.  I'll update with a link once that's all ready to go.

2/11

We just added the ability to donate w/ Bitcoin via either a coinbase checkout page (makes it easier to claim perks) or anonymously via a Bitcoin address.  

Coinbase donation page -- https://coinbase.com/checkouts/9039597f9b6fb6474345eeb279f71a4a

Direct Bitcoin Address -- 1xPuX9j31DvTo3re9PpeTKJUTj9H9qP5r

We're actively in development currently on the project and are expecting to get round 1 alpha access (only available to backers) ready sometime during the campaign.

Round 2 alpha (also available only to backers) should be ready shortly after the campaign finishes up.

The timeline for the next phases of deployment + ultimate full production release heavily depends on feedback during the early alpha stages and subsequent feature inclusions/improvements from that feedback.

We're excited to announce Elqnt | Arbitrage!

My partner + I have been in development on an advanced trading platform to allow those who hold cryptocurrency to automatically execute inter-exchange trades to capitalize on arbitrage opportunities.

We've just launched our Indiegogo campaign today and would love to have anyone interested ask us questions below and become backers to help get this platform off the ground.

Both myself, Stephen Sprinkle (sprinkle), and Brandon Andrews (lodlock) will be around to answer any questions.

Vaughn Murphy (coinking) is also working with us on promotion for the platform -- say hi

A bit about our experience + past projects:

Stephen Sprinkle -- Linkedin
Brandon Andrews -- Linkedin

Donation Addresses:
Bitcoin: 1xPuX9j31DvTo3re9PpeTKJUTj9H9qP5r
All Other Cryptocurrencies Via Cryptsy Trade Key: 208823d92c583a35ad391fa97c10d4f59e6fd6ff

Social Outlets:

Twitter - Main
Twitter - Dev
Youtube
Facebook

Contact:

IRC Freenode: #elqnt
stephen@elqnt.com

Lastly,

We've put out a short Q+A video set for some common questions people have been having around the platform.  That can be found here --> http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXq7bBf8bhxjYjOej5oeFdZ1i4tJWFEg0

Follow our dev twitter account to get live updates as we deploy features.

Updates

Archive

2/25

We've locked functionality and are now in the testing + hardening phase ahead of going live with round 1 alpha -- this is an absolutely crucial step, as we will be allowing live transactions.

This phase is the last major segment of development ahead of going live with the alpha.

We're also removing support for Mt.Gox in light of the developments yesterday -- we truly extend our regrets to those who held their coins with Mt.Gox -- may the community of companies building in the crypto space become more resilient, open, secure, and professional.

Lastly, we're going to be beginning to do a series of short demo videos in the coming days to demo some of the functionality of the platform ahead of the alpha going live.  We're just waiting to produce these videos until the UI is up to a presentable stage, which should be fairly soon.

Feel free to send over any questions you might have via private message or appended to the thread and don't forget to share the word about the campaign!

Love this concept -- how do you handle the idea of the tyranny of the majority in this model?

Could be awesome -- all this really is is a time linked donation button (many services for that (donation) already).  

You could just use some js like http://popcornjs.org/ and tie the donation button display to a point in the song.

This could be really well suited for an indie site like http://www.thesixtyone.com/.

I've used it, was super smooth -- bought a kindle charger from Amazon.

I was really impressed how well the bookmarklet worked.

The back-end (dashboard) does leave something to be desired in the way of UX, but it's a great stop-gap solution.

Paid for two