Hello!

I'm a professional software developer with over 20 years of experience using a variety of languages and technologies to develop best-of-breed software. I've worked on both large and small projects and, not, I want to focus as exclusively as possible on working on either Bitcoin related projects or projects where I would be exclusively paid in Bitcoin.

Right now, I'm focused primarily on the iOS mobile space and looking for projects for that platform. But I'm also open to desktop and web development projects if they are the right fit. Whatever vision you have for your idea, I can help you make it come true. I'm responsive, fast, not a jerk, and affordable.

Want more info? Get in touch and let's talk.

Hey Everyone,

It's been a loooong month and a half and I just wanted to send out a quick update on the BitVendor project for those of you who might be interested:

- After one of the sites we were going to support went out of existence, we were forced to rewrite a large section of the code.

- One of our developers took a new full time job and could no longer work on the project.

- The other developer (me) got sick and ended up in the hospital for two weeks.

All this has made a major delay in the delivery of the BitVendor software. But we're chugging along again and working hard to get everything done and ready. We're prepping for a mid-December release and everything looks good there.

So thank you all for your patience with BitVendor. We're getting there!

CryptoFreak

What the actual fuck?
You do realize that you sound like a crazy person, right?

IMHO, the CEO's record is meaningless. By the companies own admission he doesn't have sole control of the checkbook and couldn't run away with all of the money if he wanted to. That's just the typical fear-mongering drama that comes with a lot of the bitcoin community.

What I'm more concerned about is the company claims about their product.  If they've made some kind of discovery that allows them to seriously outpace their competitors, I understand the secrecy. But why not just apply for a patent and be done with it? That way, they could show the world their stuff, dispel all the 'vaporware' rumors, and put peoples minds at ease.

Right now, I'm withholding judgement. BFL isn't a fly by night that's just popped up and never sold products before. They've got a track record. Still, their unverified claims make me nervous.

That's why I believe we need standards, just like the banks have. We'd never deal with banks that were as fly by night as many of the sites in the Bitcoin community seem to be. We need some sort of community agreed on standards that we force businesses to adhere to if they want our business.

For most people, Bitcoin is seen as an investment. They buy a few (or a lot) of them, store them away, and hope to sell them at a profit one day. It's an exciting game for people who like to speculate. But, I think this kind of thinking actually slows Bitcoin adoption because, if everyone is focusing on investing, fewer people are thinking of Bitcoin is a currency.

Look at currencies like the Dollar, Yen, or Euro. While some people do buy and sell the actual currency, most average people 1) try to get more of it to buy and pay for things or 2) try to provide services and products that people are willing to pay for. It's money, not really an 'investment'.

IMHO, the investment mentality is one of the things holding back Bitcoin adoption.  Almost all of the scam headlines (which is mostly what most people see) has to do with scammy investments where people were taken for hundreds or thousands of Bitcoins. That's scary to the average person.

The real value in Bitcoin is trade. Bitcoint for product/service. No fiat exchange, no conversion, whatever. But we're not there yet, right? So here's my question (after a totally fucking long winded journey):

Simply: what services and infrastructure do we need to have to enable greater pure Bitcoin commerce? I get the usual like groceries and stuff but what else?

Personally, I don't think regulations are the answer. For me, one of the attractions of Bitcoin is that there's no government involvement in the currency. It's more than just 'no central bank' but I don't want any government interference with it.

What I do believe is needed are standards. The community (maybe even the Bitcoin Foundation) should come up with a set of security and transaction standards that the community accepts. Users would then simply have to refuse to do business with any person or organization not adhering to those standards. Then, if you want to take a risk on some shady deal, so be it. But you can't blame anyone if you get scammed.

Crypto

First, if you're not familiar with BitVendor, the program I'm developing, you can find out more here.

So today I reached the point in actually processing transactions and I am at a crossroads. There are two ways I could handle this:

1) the vendor could be required to be running bitcoind on their local machine and all transactions are done there or

2) the vendor could use some online wallet service like blockchain.info or InstaWallet.

Since vendors will need to have an network connection anyway, I'm torn as to which option is the best. Assuming most vendors won't be security guru's, would tying the software to an online wallet be better or should there be a choice?

You're right. Like I said in a previous reply, I was trying to overprotect my merchants. No need to do that since most merchants aren't going to be doing $5m sales in Bitcoin. Double spending really wouldn't be worth the effort for small transactions and, by the time Bitcoin is being widely used for large ones, there will be better systems in place for confirmations.

Thanks!

Good points. I suppose I wanted to isolate my merchants as much as possible from being defrauded. I mean, if someone does double spend then it's not only going to hurt the merchant but it's going to hurt my software's reputation.

I spent a good part of today reading up on how Bitcoin works though and I see how difficult double spending really is. I'd doubt someone would was that much time and effort just to buy a hot dog or something under $1K. Your points are well taken.

Thanks for the input!

Is there any way to get much faster confirmations?

I'm developing BitVendor and really need to be able to receive at least 4 confirmations fairly quickly (like before the customer walks away with the vendors merchandise). Would upping the transaction fee accomplish this? How quickly can confirmations come?

It's not an irrational fear. Mt Gox has been compromised in the past IIRC. However, at the moment, they are the most trusted exchange out there so, most likely, your information is safe. Stay paranoid though. It will serve you well as you navigate this community.

A few months ago, I wrote a piece of software that allows users to send email completely anonymously and securely. I've been selling it online for about $3 a copy and am about to move into one of the up and coming app stores. Then I thought "I'm not offering it for Bitcoin! Must fix that!"

So if you're interested, I'm selling it for the equivalent of $3.00 usd in bitcoin (figuring whatever the current Bitcoin price is when you read this). Purchase entitles you to 30 days of email based tech support, one year of bug fixes, and all updates that come along during the year.  You will also get the source code, if you so desire, and are allowed to modify it or compile it yourself. However, the software is NOT open source or free software. The source is provided so that you can audit it and know the program isn't doing anything sneaky.

If interested, send an email to cryptofreak@bitvendor.net and I'll send you an address to send your coins. Once that's done, I'll send you the program. Right now, it's available for Windows and Linux only but will soon be available for Mac as well.

Thanks!
CryptoFreak

Title says it all. Let me know if you're interested.

IMHO, there's nothing financially prohibiting banks from doing so. It would be fairly trivial and cheap (as someone said, around $800k at current hash rates. What I think stops them is that an attack that large would be assumed to come from 1) the intelligence community or 2) the financial community. An attack from either of those automatically lends Bitcoin a good measure of legitimacy in the eyes of the public.  It's much safer to simply pretend it isn't a threat, maybe hack an exchange or site here and there, keep interests low and pump out FUD.

I was following this project a while back and went to the website and it seems to be down. Is this business still in operation?

What happens if I have a vanity address and your site goes down?

I'm creating this thread so I don't spam the forum with BitVendor updates every few days. I'll just update this post.

9/24/2012 - After much soul searching, I've decided that BitVendor will be open source. As someone who makes a living doing independent software development, it was very hard for me to come to this decision as I, like any other developer, need to put food on the table and selling software is how I do that. But, in this case, community is more important than money.

Ultimately, I've decided to take a hybrid approach. The code will be on GitHub for anyone who wants it. If you want a compiled copy for your platform (Windows, Linux, and Mac) then there will be a small charge. I think this is a fair compromise that supports the community and helps recoup the costs of development, upgrades, etc.

9/21/2012 - BitVendor is now functional enough to handle orders. UPC's can be scanned into an order from almost any USB attached barcode reader or can be typed in manually. Also, the system can now support multiple users against a PostgreSQL database or a single user disconnected from the Internet using an SQL Lite database that can be sync'd with a master db upon reconnection to the stores network (or run standalone for small, mobile vendors).

New screenshots are available here: http://imgur.com/a/hkTs7#0

I don't believe Silk Road is going to crash. The people who run it seem to be good techs who are working very hard to make it a success and keep it running while protecting their users. More likely, some government will come after them and shut them down.

Meh

I don't believe SR is large enough to crash Bitcoin. I don't think we'll even see that big of a dip in prices. The biggest threat I see to Bitcoin prices are continued scams, the lack of security standards at exchanges, and public gullibility. That's going to contribute to massive issues with Bitcoin prices long before SR going away would.

So as I move forward in the development of BitVendor I'm really thinking that the solution needs a true Bitcoin based credit/debit card. I'm not talking about something that moves fiat but rather something that actually initiates a Bitcoin transfer from one address to another when scanned at a connected merchant.

Would anyone be interested in something like this? Obviously, it would be a bit before it would be launched as I want to get BitVendor out of the door first (October 20th) but it could be an additional (consumer-centric) service we offer.

Thoughts?