A little more feedback:

- default values make it easier for customers
- It should be more clear what the customer has to do if he/she wants to profit from the price going up or down. I'm pretty sure that the average chap just wants to gamble on the price movements, he doesn't care about technical details how it works.
- Overall the software/process looks like some enterpricey internal app from some 100-year old organisation (bank?)...

Why would a rational merchant accept such a volatile currency as bitcoin? Merchants want a stable currency. And the best way to make make bitcoin more stable is to attract more speculators, and I mean short-term speculators - those who want to make money with price movements.

Also add the number of confirmations you are using for bitcoin transfers in the deposit site. I just sent small amount of bitcoins to test the service, now 3 confirmations and no any info about that showing up...

Here is some feedback:

- Lots of info on the front page, still it is unclear what the site is for. More clear "Call to action" needed, big button "Register now"
- Just remove the double authentication, it confuses people.
- Less text, more action. People don't like to read, they like to gamble.
- Streamline the process. Imagine a scenario where dumb guy like me comes to your site with pockets full of money, and wants to make more money using your site. You don't want to keep a lecture to me about your great sitee and its features, you just want to offer the best tool for me to destroy my life savings using your great service

So the process should be like "Register" -> few fields -> add funds -> gamble with as few clicks and text as possible.

I'm pretty sure that mtgox isn't going to offer leverage at least in years, they make enough dough with their current business model, and their software seems to be pretty crappy (they can't add new features very easily since it is badly designed).

However if a new service would come, perhaps you could risk a few btc to try the service out? Eg. Test the functionality and that withdrawals are working, then maybe try risking it with higher sums?

Just trying it out. The UI really sucks ass, using the site seems pretty painful. I just registered an account logged in, and now I want to trade, and now it is asking for my login details again when I want to trade.

Skilled short-term speculators buy low and sell high, making the price more stable in the longer term. Stability makes the currency more useful.

Also speculators need leverage so that they can benefit from their skills. So a bitcoinica clone is needed. Anyone working on this, or are there already tools for these?

LOL, what are you bitching about? If pirate was honest, you should receive lots of of money for your investment. Why would you care about some doubters here?

I think the thread starter is unhappy because he is afraid that he won't get his money back...

LOL, I posted this to facebook and soon my Indian friend told me that the guy was recently arrested for rape, money laundering and some other crimes!

I had maybe 5 contacts when I lived in Berlin, there was some traffic there. Now I'm in a small village in northern Finland, no contacts

I plan to soon move to a bigger city, and try doing the cash exchange thing at a permanent place, eg. some small office where people can just come and bring cash/get cash. I also try to research at same time how to make the process as easy and efficient as possible, and also what are the best ways to market for a local exchanger. However I can start doing that on next month.

Couple of new features:

- optional auto-fund setting, which allows professional traders to fund their transactions automatically
- "fund from wallet" button funds instantly from your wallet
- RSS feeds: these allow professional traders to spot new ads instantly in their local area. You can specify location and search distance. A little work in progress. Example in Finland: view-source:https://localbitcoins.com/rss/FI/90460/100/

I'm still not very confident starting to translate the page, sorry for those waiting for translations. I try to look at the translations this weekend.

Yep, it is possible to use the service also in a way where only one participant has laptop or smartphone, and releases the transaction online. This is also a good way to do the transaction without the other party having any kind of device at all.

Yeah, we are working on this. Sorry that the button isn't already there. We will also have "auto-fund" feature for those wo want to use it.

Now we have changed the name of the escrow feature to "LocalBitcoins Transaction" or just "Transaction" where the connection is obvious. We changed the name because it is not actually escrow service by the traditional definition, no disputes or resolution services.

Other definitions:

"Transaction verify code": this is generated for the buyer. When the seller shows this code to the buyer, buyer can be 100% that funds have been released. The buyer should check that the code shown by the seller matches the code shown by localbitcoins.com
"Transaction release code": the seller can release the escrow by sending this code to the number +16466994674 . This releases the funds to the buyer, and the seller should receive the verify code promptly, which he/she can show to the buyer.

The benefits of the service are:

- No internet connection needed - only one SMS-enabled phone required to make the transaction on the spot
- Quick process - the buyer does neet any devices, just memorize/write down the transaction verify code
- Allows the users to gain reputation via confirmed trades. If users use this service, we have a way to confirm that trade actually happened.

The LocalBitcoins Transaction service is not enforced in any way. You are free to create any kind of deal with the customer, use smartphone clients, laptops, whatever. We just recommend to use the transaction feature when the customer requests it - it should make the process much easier for the buyer.

Edit: and sorry about the confusion/hassle caused by the name.

Thanks for the tip. We will try to fix these issues soon.

Not everyone has a smartphone or laptop, and there is not always wifi cafes closeby. We are especially targeting 3rd world countries with our service, where transaction with SMS could prove useful.

If you don't want to use "escrow" service, that is fine to us. We are not forcing anyone to use our escrow. However if the paying customer wants to use it, I see it as a good behaviour from the seller to accept it. It means that we might in the future force some kind of fee on those who especially want to prohibit escrow. However that won't be the case at least in the near future - the site will remain free to use for at least for the time I have funds to run it.

Edit: and we will soon be branding the service differently, it is not really an escrow service. It is a tool to make offline (no internet) transactions via SMS.

Additionally it should be noted that the our "escrow" or SMS transaction service is really designed for on-the-spot cash transactions. With the SMS service, exchangin bitcoins is as easy as exchanging the cash - if not even easier.

However, for any other type of trade the service is pretty unsuitable. It doesn't offer much benefit when you want to do something like paypal trades or anything, because we don't offer dispute/resolution service. So it is not really an escrow service. Sorry for the hassle

We have marketed the escrow in a wrong way - both participants can cancel the "escrow" any time, and bitcoins will be returned to sellers in full - no fees.

So your worries are mistaken - there is no chance that the money will be given to us if the trade fails for any reason. And we will collect the fee only in the case that the trade succeeds. So our incentive is to generate successful trades, because we will only make money that way.

We will soon brand the "escrow" differently since it is not really an escrow. It is just a tool to make the transaction easier/hassle-free for both participants.

Meanwhile, we made a nice statistics page: https://localbitcoins.com/statistics - already cash exchangers in 62 countries!

Not in the very near future. It is very hard for an average Joe to start believing in bitcoin, while gold is physical and something that is easy to understand. Bitcoin is too difficult concept.

And even then, there will probably be many competing cryptocurrencies/virtual currencies in the future.

Now you can advertise your cash exchange (and bitcoins) locally easily by printing a flyer, which is generated from your ad automatically.

To print the flyer go to your ad edit page -> marketing help -> Local bulletin boards

For example, flyer from my ad: https://localbitcoins.com/print_flyer/594 (sorry for the finnish...)

We are working on the desing current one is just a quick & dirty... You can also modify it yourself in inkscape, the output is svg format.