Hi SebastianJu, thanks for your question and apologies for the delay in replying.

I understand you preference to posting here rather than on the Nubits forum but I feel the need to point out that even though it is monitored, questions and discussion are welcomed.

Your question is a valid one and is one that has been asked in various forms on the forum. I'll add some links of interest to the end of this post.
The backing for NuBits is the value of the Nu network itself. In this early phase of Nu, this value comes mainly from the value of NuShares held. There are motions underway to create a feedback loop between NSR and NBT to allow for the transfer of value from one to the other.
It is hoped that as Nu matures, the network will start turing a profit which can then, in turn, be used to back NuBits. The upcoming B&C decntralised exchange is a step towards this. There are other ideas being explored too.
The danger to the $1 peg through the creation of too many NuBits is well known and understood. A coming update to the Nu platform will allow for custodial grants to be paid in NuShares instead of just NuBits. I fully expect liquidity pools such as NuPool to start paying out in NuShares once that ability is available.

https://discuss.nubits.com/t/regarding-reserves-and-fractional-reserve/1126
https://discuss.nubits.com/t/finalized-evolution-of-liquidity-operations/618
https://discuss.nubits.com/t/intro-to-economics-behind-nubits-system/795
https://discuss.nubits.com/t/100-nbt-reserve-and-elastic-nsr-supply/713
https://discuss.nubits.com/t/proposal-solution-to-the-problems-of-asymmetrical-control-in-nubits/335

Good morning everyone.

The 30 days of the advertised NuPool operation is coming to an end. The pool has been consistently providing between 30 and 40 thousand NuBits of liquidity so thank you for your support.
While that is great it is a fair bit short of the targetted liquidity of 70,000 NBT. This means that there is a decent amount of funds left over to compensate pool participants in the next 30 day operation, which we intend to start almost straight away.

Voting for the next grant has started on the NuBits forum. The pool operational parameters will remain largely the same apart from the target liquidity which will be reduced to 50,000 NBT.

This means that there will be another 30 days in which to earn an up to 9% return on your funds. To participate, follow the instructions in the OP.

There will be a short outage of service later today (16th June 2015 UTC) while the pool server is stopped, updated and restarted. No action is required on your part, the client should reconnect once the server is receiving connections.

If you're looking to actively achieve a rate of return on your investment, you could consider providing Liquidity for the Nu network.
You put your funds on an exchange and run some software which places orders on your behalf. Our server then rewards you for those orders.
The current rate of return is 9% per month and is paid in NuBits. 

You stay in total control of your funds at all times.
It could be a nice way to earn some profit while you decide which coin to invest in.

There's more information on the discussion thread here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1065799
or on the NuBits forum

As has previously been mentioned by Nagalim, I would like to draw attention to the possibilities offered for growing your funds by providing Liquidity for the Nu network.
I've made a post detailing what is involved here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1065799 and it has received some very positive feedback.

The idea is simple. You put BTC (or other funds) on an exchange and allow our software to place orders on your behalf. These orders will be placed on a NuBit pair with the aim of creating large walls just above and below the $1 value to help maintain the NuBit $1 peg. The software you run sends confirmation of the placed order to our server which then compensates you accordingly, depending on the amount you rhave provided.

The current rate of return on NuPool is 0.3% per day, 9% per month. This compensation comes without you having to provide your funds to us at all. Your funds remain under your control on your exchange account and are accessible at any time. 

There are some risks involved in providing liquidity to Nu in this way:
1) The exchange the orders are being placed on could default.
2) As the funds are being used to make the market, there is a risk that other traders could successfully hedge againt your funds. The rate of return is, in my experience, more than adequate to cover this loss and still return a healthy profit.

When Nagalim posted about this before, a reply stated that it was too complicated. In reality it is very very straightforward. No knowledge of the system behind the operation is required, simply run a script (it's Python so pretty easy to set up - instructions) and watch the funds arrive in your NuBit wallet.
If even the thought of running a Python script puts you off, I have created a nice Graphical UI client which can help get you set up. It has a nice installer for Windows so all the headache is taken away.

I like to think that liquidity pools such as NuPool, and the other pools that are emerging from Nu, nicely fill the gap between gambling sites and faucets.
They offer much lower risk than gambling and much higher rates of return than faucets.

I hope I've inspired some of you to investigate what we are doing with Liquidity Pools and to give it a go.
If you have any questions please contact me here or on the NuBits forum (I post as woolly_sammoth)

It should be mentioned now that things aren't expected to stay the same. The aim of the Trustless Liquidity Pools is to lower the cost of providing liquditiy to the Nu network. This is to be done by increasing the level of competition between pools. There is currently a rough feeling  that the cost to Nu of providing liquidity should be ~10% of the amount of liquidity brought to market. As NuPool is the main active pool currently we are able to offer the current rate of 9% for this month. Every 30 days we, as pool operators, need to re-apply to Nu for a grant to fund the compensation for the next 30 days. As more pools come online and the competition increases, the share of this 10% that each pool can command will be reduced.

Pools such as LiquidBits and NuPond have been testing for a while and are now coming online. As the targets of liquidity aimed for by these pools increreases so will the competition between pools. It would be beneficial for pool users to keep an eye on which pools are offering the best rates of return, on which exchanges and pairs and which have gaps in the liquidity targets (allowing for maximum raturns to be gained). Efforts are underway to display this information for ease of digest. The raw data can be seen here https://raw.nupool.net/?pairs=true&json=true. It will eventually be used to display data on the nubits.com site.

I don't know what compensation levels will be on offer from NuPool in the coming months, only that it is likely to change from now.    

You are absolutely correct, my Maths is out by a factor of ten. I'll blame 'trying to do too many things at once' but colour me embarrased none the less.
For an investment of 1 BTC, you would receive 0.705 Nubits in 24 hours not 7.05 as previously stated.
Apologies for my misleading statement before, it really wasn't intentional.

Good morning everyone. Apologies for the delay in replying.

The Bitfinex ticker is used to calculate the price of $1 in Bitcoin, in order to set the buy and sell walls. This message would indicate some sort of communication issue between your client and Bitfinex.   
If it only apears every once in a while, I wouldn't worry too much.   
If it appears lots and lots, I would restart the client. If that doesn't fix it, it may be worth checking to see if you can reach Bitfinex through a normal web browser in a decent amount of time. 
Either way, it shouldn't affect your clients performance as if the connection to Bitfinex fails, the client will roll back to Coinbase and then Bitstamp for the price feed. 

 This means that some of your order validations aren't making it to the server. In response your client is upping the number of requests it sends each minute to compensate.   
As with the error above, this could be caused by a number of reasons. Slow network between your client and the server could mean that samples don't make it in time (each sampling round lasts 60 seconds).   
A slow response from the Poloniex API could cause the same. 
As with the above, it shouldn't be a large cause for concern unless you see it repeated lots over a prolonged period. If that is the case, restart the client and see if the issue persists. 

The daily return rate currently set on the pool is 0.3%. Thus, your return for providiong 1 BTC of liquidity for 24 hours would be 0.03 BTC = 7.05 NBT

locohammerhead earned 0.1 NBT for an hours liquidity provision so in a day he would earn 0.24 NBT.
0.24 NBT is 0.3% of 8 NBT or 0.0340 BTC

Currently the buy and sell walls are fairly dumb. They are based on a price feed and shifted to $1+exchange fee on the sell side and $1-exchange fee on the buy. All the funds from the pool are put into these large walls so no thought is given to market shaping. 
The target is to have the walls completely equal on each side. The balance of the walls will of course depend on the liquidity that is provided by the pool users.
As you mentioned, NuBits are a good hedge in a bear market so we tend to find that in a downtrend of Bitcoin price, the majority of the available liquidity ends up in the buy wall and vice versa in a bull market. This is what was referred to a the 'hedging risk' in my list of risks. As a user, it would be beneficial to you to monitor the balance of liquidity in the pool and supply funds to which ever wall isn't at target as this will ensure that you get the maximum available compensation.

There are plans to integrate the pool software with the official NuBits trading bot called NuBot. An anticipated update to NuBot will allow for more intellegent walls top be placed, which shift depth and change shape depending on market pressures.

Thank you.

I wasn't expecting such swift or positive feedback. I hope the idea is as well received by others.

Hello.  
  
My name is Sam, I post as woolly_sammoth on the NuBits forum. I'd like to make you aware of the possibility to make some profit from Liquidity Provision in the Nu network.  
This opportunity exists through liquidity pools that pay compensation for funds provided by you. The pools operate in a totally trust-less manner meaning that you stay in total control of your funds 100% of the time and can dip in and out as you see fit.

To explain how this works it's probably useful to give some insight into Nu and what we are trying to achieve there.  
Nu is a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organisation) whose aim is to provide a stable crypto currency in the form of NuBits. NuBits are pegged to the US Dollar such that 1 NBT = $1.  
Nu and NuBits were launched in September 2014 as a vision of Jordan Lee and the Nu team (most recently active with the proposal to develop the Blocks and Chains Decentralized Exchange). Since that time, NuBits have done a remarkable job at keeping their stable value.  
There are several mechanisms by which the stable value is secured but perhaps the most important is the provision of liquidity to the market through the crypto exchanges that support NuBits. The provided liquidity is used to set up large buy and sell walls that ensure that NuBits are always bought and sold at $1 (in reality there is a small spread (~0.2%) to take exchange fees into account).  
The provision of liquidity is handled by 'Custodians' who are elected by Nu to erect the buy and sell walls. Until recently, becoming a Custodian was fairly hard. It requires the trust of the Nu community to become elected and access to a fairly large amount of funds to provide as liquidity. Custodians are rewarded for all this through grants of NuBits.  
  
Recent software developments mean that it is now much easier for anyone to become a Liquidity Providing Custodian (LPC) without having to become elected and with any amount of funds they see fit. This is possible through liquidity pools.  
These pools allow anyone to share in the compensation available for providing liquidity for Nu by simply running an open source application on their computer and allowing it to place orders on Nu supporting exchanges on their behalf. The software uses the exchange trade API to place orders and then sends a cryptographically signed confirmation of the order to a central server which validates the order on the exchange and rewards the user accordingly.  
The beauty of this design is that the user remains in complete control of their funds at all times. It is available on their exchange account for trade or withdrawal whenever they choose. The central server has absolutely no access to the user funds in any way whatsoever.  
  
To add to the gamification of the process, users who provide liquidity are in competition with each other. The pool server sets a target of the liquidity it aims to provide on each exchange and a maximum daily rate of return. Users connecting to the server are able to specify a minimum rate of return that they are willing to accept for their liquidity provision. If the target isn't filled, everyone is rewarded at the maximum rate as specified by the server. Once the target is reached however, those users who have specified a lower acceptable rate will be rewarded with the servers maximum rate first. Those users who have a higher acceptable rate set will be rewarded by the server at a lower rate or not at all depending on the number of active users and the amount of liquidity that is being provided over the target.  
More information on the maths involved in this process are available in the discussion thread here.

There is currently one liquidity pool in full operation. It is run by me and Willy on nupool.net. There are other pools being lined up but for those who want to get involved now, NuPool is the pool to choose.


NuPool is currently operating on Bittrex and Poloniex with a liquidity target of 35,000 NBT on each exchange, split equally between buy and sell walls on the NBT/BTC pair.  
The compensation available through NuPool is 0.3% per day, a total return of 9% for the 30 days of the operation.  
  
If you want to get involved and start benefiting, you will need to download the pool software from github (available as a zip release here).  
The setup is straightforward and is detailed on the NuPool site under the 'Getting Started' menu on the left. The basic procedure is to create API keys for the exchange(s) you choose to provide liquidity to and fund your exchange account with NuBits and/or Bitcoin. Provide the details required in the pool.conf file, set your minimum acceptable rates and start the client. The orders will be placed on the exchange and your account will start accruing credits.  
The server pays out every 24 hours as long as you have at least 1 NBT balance. All payouts are in NBT so an NBT wallet is a must.  
The pool software itself doesn't need any specialised hardware and will run quite happily on a Raspberry Pi or similar small board computer.  
  
To make things easier and to help keep an eye on your pool account, I have created a desktop application called Plunge. This interacts with the central server to display your pool statistics. You can even configure and run the pool client from Plunge to avoid having to use config files and the command line.  
Plunge is available on github and comes provided with a Windows installer but will also run from the code on Linux or Mac (Plunge requires the latest version of Kivy).  
There is also an Android version of Plunge that just allows for monitoring of pool statistics, available here.  
More information on installing, running and configuring Plunge can be found on the forum thread
  
  
It needs to be mentioned that although the pool software is trust-less and the user remains in total control of their funds at all times, there are risks involved in liquidity provision.  

* All the software is considered Beta and is under active development. We have already had a successful run of liquidity provision using this software, where it was providing ~20,000 NBT of liquidity to market, with no issues. The Beta flag needs to be mentioned and considered by anyone thinking about joining a pool.
* Although funds are under the control of the user, they are held on an exchange. This introduces the risk of an Exchange default which cannot be mitigated by the pool software.
* Operating on the NBT/BTC pairs means that users are subject to a hedging risk as traders move their funds into and out of NuBits to avoid volatile Bitcoin prices.
* PLEASE BE AWARE THAT AUTOMATED TRADING WITH THIS SOFTWARE MAY BE RISKY, ADDICTIVE, UNETHICAL OR ILLEGAL. ITS MISUSE MAY ALSO CAUSE FINANCIAL LOSS. NONE OF THE AUTHORS, CONTRIBUTORS, ADMINISTRATORS, OR ANYONE ELSE CONNECTED WITH NUBITS, IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER, CAN BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE USE YOU MAKE OF THIS SOFTWARE

These risks are fairly small but need to be mentioned. The return rate offered by NuPool is enough to cover these and more.  
  
I hope that this post has interested you enough to find out more about the possibilities offered by NuPool and the other Trust-less Liquidity Pool soon to be available through Nu.  
  
See you all in the pool (the water's lovely!)

Hi
I'm Sam, the creator of Bippy.

First off, thanks for the interest and kind words. It's always very nice to hear compliments of work that I've done.
Bippy had a bit of an update since this original post. I added some functionality and prettified the UI a bit to make the flow easier. It also now has Windows installers available on the Bippy website here: http://bippy.org

The encryption method followed by Bippy is the exact one laid out in the BIP0038 specification. That does make use of AES as jonald_fyookball mentioned as well as using scrypt for key derivation. Bippy uses a pre-compiled binary version of scyrpt as the pure python implementation meant waiting ~10 minutes for encryption rather than ~10 seconds. If that's a cause for concern you an always compile your own scrypt binary as there is nothing special about the one bundled with Bippy.
I tweaked the BIP0038 specification slightly to allow for some other inputs other than private keys, but the underlying method remains the same.

The Private keys generated by Bippy use three entropy sources. There are the Operating system urandom pool, the clock based entropy and user entered entropy (the bot where you draw the dots over the UI). All told, it's as secure as the browser based tools such as BitAddress.org but doesn't rely on a browser with its associated cache. I know that browser tools recommend going offline to generate and to clear the cache after generating keys but, browsers contain thousands of lines of code. I myself haven;t been through that code to check what happens when I clear the cache to ensure that every last trace is cleared.
I'd recommend generating keys and addresses offline with Bippy too but the big difference is that there is no cache in Bippy. (I'm in no way trying to imply that browser based tools are unsafe, I'm just clinging to the one unique selling point I have )

Happy to answer any other questions that may come. I hope to update Bippy one day, perhaps to support BIP0032 and HD wallets but I must admit that this is no longer my primary concern.

Sam

Hi Jabulon,

Thanks for taking the time to report back and thank you too for the kind words. I'm really glad you found playing with Bippy a pleasant experience. If you have any suggestions for future improvements I'd be happy to take them on board.

Sam
 

Morning Jabulon.
Thanks for taking the time to post. You're concern is a valid one and is something that it's really hard to overcome from my point of view. Apologies in advance for rambling, I had a few thoughts that I needed to put down.

Producing private keys for Bitcoin and other alt-coins is something that should be done with great care and suspicion should rightly fall on anyone who claims to handle that process for you.

As someone who has produced software which handles the creation of private keys, this has been a bit of a tricky point. People in the Bitcoin and other Alt-coin communities are very nervous and ready to label a project as a scam. Understandably so as there have been a lot of scams.
My way around this has been to be as open and truthful as I can.
I have considered paying for code reviews or holding bug bounties but haven't for two reasons.
1) I don't have the capitol to pay for them (the tools I produce are free and I got to the Bitcoin party a little later than I should have),
2) I'm not sure that having a different internet persona say that the code is OK would actually make anyone believe it more than they already do.

As for Bippy, the code is based very closely on my other tool inuit which in turn is based on several other open source tools (see the thanks page on the linked website for a full list).
Bippy has been used a fair amount while just being used from source. Feedback from users indicated that the biggest hurdle to using Bippy was the difficulty in running it from code. That is the reason that a Windows installer was developed.

As for the executable. The installer itself is built using AutoHotKey as it produces quick and easy GUIs for windows. An Executable built with AHK isn't a true exe. If you open the Bippy_Installer.exe file in notepad and scroll to the bottom you will see the raw code, viewable as AHK, that makes up the installer. (the code above that that isn't humanly readable is a copy of the AHK interpreter used to run the code. exactly the same as installing AHK on your PC and then running the installer script). If you like, you can read that AHK code to see exactly what the installer is doing on your machine (copying the Bippy code to the Program files/Bippy directory, setting up shortcuts on desktop and start menu and that's about it)

To build the Bippy Executable I used pyinstaller. The settings I used mean that the full code is viewable in the Program files directory rather than coming as a single, compiled executable. There is still some compiled code in there but it is the minimum I could get away with and still have a functioning installer and executable Bippy.


Really there is only so much I can do. The fact remains that Bippy is a load of code which, without diving into yourself and understanding fully, could do anything. You have my assurances that it doesn't do anything other than the advertised features. There's no hidden database, it doesn't request or need any internet connection, it doesn't store anything in any sort of cache for later use (something possible in browsers). Once Bippy is shutdown it is shutdown.
I have worked closely with Nico from Woodwallets both during the creation of Bippy and since and he will, I'm sure, lend his assurance that Bippy is safe.

The end decision is yours though. The Windows installer makes the process nice and easy but could contain something malicious where as running from source is safer but requires more work (the amount of work isn't huge if that's any help). If you are really worried about the security of the Installer, you could always run it in a Single Use Virtual Machine, in something like VirtualBox or Docker. There's a bit of work to get those working too though. (I have considered creating Docker Images to make things easier but, as it's me doing it, the same uncertainty would remain for any end user).

I hope that my continued presence here and on other forums and my reachability as well as my understanding of the quandary you find yourself in counts somewhat in my favour. I put a large amount of time and effort into both inuit and Bippy and the best compliment for me is to hear that people are using them and finding them useful.

(Just to cloud the argument even more, Nico is offering every WoodWallet product at 50% off today for Bitcoin Black Friday. sorry, I just had to put that out there)     



TL;DR - As I'm the creator of Bippy, there's not much I can say to assure you that the software is safe. I have done what I can but the final decision remains with you.
In my opinion. the safest way to use Bippy if you are worried would be to run up a Docker container using Ubuntu. Install Python, Kivy and the Bippy source code and run it from there with your internet connection turned off (you will need to forward X from Docker to view the UI). After that, destroy the Docker container.

'I want to link my Bitcointalk name with BTCJam's. Verification code: 9ded478e-99bc-457b-a600-fc27ce6adb9c'

Edit
I've just seen your updates on your post bitcoininformation. Would it be good if bippy could AES-256-CBC decrypt an Electrum encrypted seed? I could certainly look into that as a feature.
/Edit
 
I'd be interested to hear your experience with this. I only started to investigate Electrum when the possible need for a wood-wallet was raised. I could see that the seed was available in the wallet file but the instructions to get it were, I felt, a little unfriendly to a newcomer. It's worth pointing out too that the way Electrum handles seeds seems to be changing in version 2 (see rdymac's reply to AussieHash on reddit)
That said, bippy isn't particularly newbie friendly in its current form (ensure you have Python installed, download and run kivy, clone a git repo and run a program etc.). We are working on that though and should soon be able to offer single file executables so that it becomes very easy to run.

The reason we haven't done this so far is to try and counter the argument put forward by AussieHash. He quite rightly points out that trusting a third party with your private key or electrum seed details is risky. Both bippy and my other project inuit are fairly new and not as mature as say Electrum or Armory. They and I don't have the level of trust that these older projects have and rightly so. I hope, however that by being open, accountable and known, we can start to earn trust and gain acceptance and use in the community. Once we have that trust we can deliver an easier experience through compiled code.
Bippy isn't particularly complex and I have tried to comment the code as best I can. I would ask that, if you are interested, you give it a read and see what you think. I'm happy to answer any questions and will take all comments and criticisms on board.

To my mind, bippy wins over similar tools such as bitaddress.org in a few ways. First, it can generate keys and addresses for multiple (45+) currencies, it can now handle Elecrtum seeds and encrypt them and I'm working on the intermediate code version of BIP0038. Most importantly though, although bitaddress.org is open source and is very very good (I've read it lots), it still relies on a third party web browser to display your keys, do the encryption and receive input. I know you can 'clear' a browsers cache but I know that I have never delved into a browsers code to see what it is actually doing. It seems like a weak point to my mind. Bippy doesn't need a browser so there isn't that reliance on a massively complicated bit of code written over a long time by multiple people.

Bippy will run fully offline and I totally recommend that you do just that. Boot up a Linux Live CD or USB, install bippy, encrypt your seed, write the encrypted code down and then reboot. Bippy never gets to see the internet and your seed is never exposed in a form that isn't password protected.

I do hope that Bippy becomes useful. It is a fun project and I will continue to work on it. Nico is a great guy too and it's a real pleasure being involved with something as aesthetically pleasing as wood-wallets
In answer to kuverty; A wood-wallet really is a thing of beauty. I took delivery of my first several weeks ago and I have been showing everyone since. It is wonderfully tactile and smells great. Everyone who has seen it has wanted one and 90% of them know very little about Bitcoin so it is a great conversation starter.

Hi Everyone.

I'm Sam, the developer of Bippy. I'm happy to answer any question about the code or implementations of encryption that anyone may have

I've added the ability to encrypt Electrum Mnemonic seeds using a customised encryption method based on BIP0038. Bippy will recognise an Electrum seed based on the fact that it is twelve separate words. You add a password and the encryption takes place. Bippy can also decrypt the encrypted string back to the 12 word seed but only with the correct passphrase.

The code is available on github here:
http://github.com/inuitwallet/bippy
The Electrum specific code is in this file:
https://github.com/inuitwallet/bippy/blob/master/encrypt/electrum.py

As Nico has said, we are adding functionality to bippy as requests come in so the UI is in need of a bit of work.
I'll be working on making it easier to use over the next few days as well as attempting to get some compiled binaries up and working too.

If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to get in contact or post here.

A quick overview of the method for those who are interested (sorry for anyone who isn't interested. I'm quite pleased with this and want to talk about it ):

• Use the Electrum method to convert the mnemonic into the seed number
• Take a hash of the last 4 digits to act as a checksum
• Use that hash and the passphrase to generate an encryption key using scrypt
• Use that key to AES 256 encrypt the original seed in two halves (as in BIP0038)
• The encrypted string is a Base58_Check encoded concatenation of some magic bytes (to make the start of the string 'SeedE'), the checksum hash and the two encrypted halves

The decryption is the reverse of this but using the various checksums to ensure that the string is correct and the password works. 

Announcing a collaboration between the creators of inuit (http://inuit-wallet.co.uk) and Wood Wallets (http://woodwallets.io).
We are proud to present bippy, a multi-currency private key protection tool (http://bippy.org)

bippy can:

• Generate a new private key and passphrase protect it using BIP0038 encryption.
• Passphrase protect and existing private key using BIP0038 encryption
• Decrypt an existing BIP0038 encrypted private key

bippy works fully offline so you can ensure the safety of your private keys. For added security, user generated randomness is collected when a new private key is created.

bippy is fully open source and cross platform. Check out the code on github here: https://github.com/inuitwallet/bippy

For more information have a look at the bippy website (http://bippy.org) or github
or contact Sam (contact@inuit-wallet.co.uk) or Nico (hi@adva.io)

I've just added Globe to the default currency list of inuit (http://inuit-wallet.co.uk).
inuit is a cold-storage address generator for most crypto-currencies. Globe address generation has been tested by importing a generated private key into the official wallet.
BIP38 encryption is also available.

Here's my inuit generated address: 1FTTiQnDtRsmxWhLgqWvMBuZNQttUUZgDS