MetaExchange's Interesting New Approach

[StanLarimer]

What do you guys think of this?  (Relevant for BTC, NXT, ETH etc.)

Hi everyone,

Metaexchange is the original bitshares gateway, so far we have processed 2720 BTC across 5 markets and we are the first and only instant exchange to offer limit orders, and the only instant exchange with integrated market makers to offer you the best prices.

We are now offering a chance to share in our success: METAFEES UIA!

The METAFEES asset represents the fees we generate from running metaexchange. Each share is worth 0.005% of the fees we generate. There are 12000 in total, 2000 are held by monsterer and shentist and backed with the already existing liquidity of 40 BTC. We hope to raise 200 BTC in total, pricing each share at 0.02 BTC.

We will buy back the METAFEES asset monthly with 50% of our collected fees, thereby raising the value of asset.

The fundraiser will run for 60 days, starting today!
 
Fees
To date we have processed 2720 BTC of transactions, resulting in fees of 8.16 BTC and we expect this to increase dramatically as we add extra liquidity, more markets, Bitshares UIA coin tokens and margin trading.

With only 40 BTC of bootstrapped liquidity we made trading fees of 8.16 BTC, so we're very excited about what we can do with 200 BTC!

Buyback
Every month we will publish the earned fees and we will announce in advance how many METAFEES we will buy back in BTC, NXT, ETH etc. This will lead to a constant buy pressure for the METAFEES asset, raising its value.

Our plans
We will use the funds raised only to increase the liquidity in the markets that we offer and to add new Bitshares UIAs representing each of the coin types we support, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Nxt, to give you a chance to trade these tokens on the Bitshares DEX with full redeemability to the real thing. So each investment that you make is investing in Bitshares itself as well as metaexchange. Further, we will add Bitshares DEX market markers (using our propitiatory technology) to these new UIA token markets adding the liquidity that traders demand. For example we will create (BTC, NXT, ETH and any new coin we provide as an UIA) along with a market maker in the primary BTS market for each one.

We aim to become the number one instant exchange. We will achieve this by offering the best available liquidity in the markets we serve, combined with ground breaking features. We are already the only instant exchange in the world to offer limit orders and relative limit orders without requiring an account or registration.

In the future we plan to offer leveraged margin trading, which will allow anyone posting collateral to go long or short on their favourite coin with leverage without requiring an account. The funds we raise will allow us to achieve this by lending out our liquidity to margin traders, for a small lending fee (which will be paid, in part to holders of METAFEES) and our standard trading fee.

We will also share 50% of the fees we generate through UIA trading, any withdrawal fees, and Bitshares referrals.

Competition
Our main competition is shapeshift.io who recently raised £1.2M in funding for 30% of their business, valuing them at £4M. They work using the reseller model, buying their inventories from major exchanges after each trade. This model relies on the liquidity of the exchanges they use and also has the associated counterparty risk of having a float in the exchange's wallet. Metaexchange works by making markets - we are a liquidity provider and as such, have the potential to offer far superior spreads without the associated counterparty risk.

Risk
As with any investment, there is associated risk. Particularly with digital currency services, the risk of being hacked is the primary concern. We use best practices in security, particularly with site/wallet separation and server hardening and have a running $500 bounty available for any discovered exploit. Even so, this risk is still present. Also, the regulatory environment could change unfavourably towards crypto-currency only exchanges. There is also market making risk; if our losses from market making exceed the amount we charge in fees, there will be a gap in fee payments.
If for any reason, metaexchange shuts down, we will use our liquidity pool to buy outstanding METAFEES back.

How to invest
You can purchase the METAFEES asset which represents our shares, initially on the Bitshares DEX (priced in BTS) and later on metaexchange itself priced in ETH, BTC and NXT, once we finish out Bitshares 2.0 integration.

The price of METAFEES in each market is calculated to have the same value as if you purchased from the BTC market. We have multiple markets to buy from because we have multiple market makers in metaexchange - for example, if you buy METAFEES using BTS, you will contribute toward ours BTS/BTC market.

METAFEES are listed on the Bitshares DEX, market: METAFEES/BTS

https://bitshares.openledger.info/#/exchange/trade/METAFEES_BTS

Any questions, please post them here, thanks for reading!

monsterer/shentist

[jza]

Any tutorial, youtube video? Or more resourceful FAQ on how to use MetaExchange, I know the question is silly but introducing something 'new' without a propper getting started seems a bad approach product wise.

I found the process not that intuitive and althought it might make perfect sense to you guys, a sequential 1-2-3 guide wouldn't hurt.

[monsterer]

Any tutorial, youtube video? Or more resourceful FAQ on how to use MetaExchange, I know the question is silly but introducing something 'new' without a propper getting started seems a bad approach product wise.

I found the process not that intuitive and althought it might make perfect sense to you guys, a sequential 1-2-3 guide wouldn't hurt.

We don't currently have a video, but hopefully we will soon.

How to use:

* Pick your currency of choice from BTS, NXT, ETH from the front page by clicking on the market row
* If you're buying BTS, type in your Bitshares account name and press 'Submit'
* Send bitcoins to the address which is generated and we will send you the equivelent BTS

If you want to know in advance how many you'll get for the amount of BTC you send, use the 'Buy Quote' field at the top of the page.

Hope that helps!

Cheers, Paul.

[tokeweed]

Interesting.  Do you guys have a website?

[monsterer]

Interesting.  Do you guys have a website?

Check my sig

[tokeweed]

Lol.  Stupid me.  Thanks.

Looks good.  I think there should be more instant exchanges for simple conversions.  Hopefully you get all the funding and support needed.  Good luck.

[jza]

* If you're buying BTS, type in your Bitshares account name and press 'Submit'
* Send bitcoins to the address which is generated and we will send you the equivelent BTS

Cheers, Paul.

Sorry for the n00biness, but would I need to be running local wallets to perform this operation? Both BTC and BTS.

[wannaPlayCK]

* If you're buying BTS, type in your Bitshares account name and press 'Submit'
* Send bitcoins to the address which is generated and we will send you the equivelent BTS

Cheers, Paul.

Sorry for the n00biness, but would I need to be running local wallets to perform this operation? Both BTC and BTS.

yep. well no, you can use any address. but it's probably a bad idea to store your crypto on an exchange.

[jza]

But an exchange makes it easy to trade between hundred of altcoins, doing this through local wallets would be a nightmare. Specially each with their own blockchain runing 24/7.

Is like trying to play casino doing bank transfers everytime you want to play. Because is a bad idea to have your money on plastic chips on the table.

[monsterer]

But an exchange makes it easy to trade between hundred of altcoins, doing this through local wallets would be a nightmare. Specially each with their own blockchain runing 24/7.

Is like trying to play casino doing bank transfers everytime you want to play. Because is a bad idea to have your money on plastic chips on the table.

Bitshares has a lite or web wallet, bitcoin has blockchain.info wallet, nxt has a bunch of online wallets... only ethereum needs a full wallet install

[TPTB_need_war]

monsterer, are you aware of the potential for entirely decentralized cross-chain exchanges?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=193281.msg6487835#msg6487835

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=515370.0

Note however there are unresolved technical issues, thus I think your exchange is not threatened immediately, if ever.

I am a bit too sleepy to elaborate on the technical at the moment.

[monsterer]

monsterer, are you aware of the potential for entirely decentralized cross-chain exchanges?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=193281.msg6487835#msg6487835

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=515370.0

Note however there are unresolved technical issues, thus I think your exchange is not threatened immediately, if ever.

I am a bit too sleepy to elaborate on the technical at the moment.

Yeah, I initially looked into developing something with this scheme in mind, but decided that it wouldn't suit because it was too clunky (with all the refund transactions, and DOS angles) and only supported bitcoin derivatives, whereas I wanted to offer a lot of '2.0' currencies.

[TPTB_need_war]

monsterer, are you aware of the potential for entirely decentralized cross-chain exchanges?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=193281.msg6487835#msg6487835

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=515370.0

Note however there are unresolved technical issues, thus I think your exchange is not threatened immediately, if ever.

I am a bit too sleepy to elaborate on the technical at the moment.

Yeah, I initially looked into developing something with this scheme in mind, but decided that it wouldn't suit because it was too clunky (with all the refund transactions, and DOS angles) and only supported bitcoin derivatives, whereas I wanted to offer a lot of '2.0' currencies.

TierNolan's (et al) proposal isn't tenable (especially not for trades where the game theory of profit tied to market bid/ask order book is in seconds or microseconds) until at least we can guarantee that block chains don't orphan and become probabilistically final on the order of seconds or less.

Btw, I think these requirements are only required on the altcoin chain in order to interopt with Bitcoin. Thus afaics the reason you can't implement the proposal is because the altcoins don't meet the requirements.

Thus as I say your marketplace isn't threatened for the moment and if ever the requirements are met by some altcoins, you can enable supporting that functionality and basically become a distributor of clients and then try to profit ongoing on that traffic some how (selling advertising or perhaps charging a microtransaction for every web-based client login as opposed to a captcha). Thus the name "metaexchange" is good, but I would also consider a shorter more brandable name such as meta.exchange, metaX.trade, meta.trade, etc.. I see the following choices are available for domain registration:

emetatrade.com ($6 right now at namecheap.com)
emeta.exchange
emeta.trade

Grab it now!

I strongly suggest you change to a slightly more brandable domain and name.

P.S. I had a fundamental error in my recent discussion with you about "inertia" but I left it as for the moment to keep potential competitors off course (and also to conserve my time for programming). Will come back to that soon to correct. Best we will dig into that once I am ready to go 100% open source (soon again).

[monsterer]

Thus the name "metaexchange" is good, but I would also consider a shorter more brandable name such as meta.exchange, metaX.trade, meta.trade, etc.. I see the following choices are available for domain registration:

emetatrade.com ($6 right now at namecheap.com)
emeta.exchange
emeta.trade

Grab it now!

I strongly suggest you change to a slightly more brandable domain and name.

P.S. I had a fundamental error in my recent discussion with you about "inertia" but I left it as for the moment to keep potential competitors off course (and also to conserve my time for programming). Will come back to that soon to correct. Best we will dig into that once I am ready to go 100% open source (soon again).

Believe it or not, we have actually been operational for 1 year already, so there would be a high marketing cost to losing all our external link rankings and referral traffic by changing the domain name

[TPTB_need_war]

Thus the name "metaexchange" is good, but I would also consider a shorter more brandable name such as meta.exchange, metaX.trade, meta.trade, etc.. I see the following choices are available for domain registration:

emetatrade.com ($6 right now at namecheap.com)
emeta.exchange
emeta.trade

Grab it now!

I strongly suggest you change to a slightly more brandable domain and name.

P.S. I had a fundamental error in my recent discussion with you about "inertia" but I left it as for the moment to keep potential competitors off course (and also to conserve my time for programming). Will come back to that soon to correct. Best we will dig into that once I am ready to go 100% open source (soon again).

Believe it or not, we have actually been operational for 1 year already, so there would be a high marketing cost to losing all our external link rankings and referral traffic by changing the domain name

whois.com has .trade and .bid domains on sale for $2.88. I think you can afford that, lol.  

You can purchase superior domains and decide to make them optional, so you don't lose your existing traffic. Just use them in your new promotions and have the time autoconfigure its web pages for each name. Overtime you can monitor to see which name sticks and then phase out promoting the other ones. Hey you should know this already, else it means you really don't have sufficient experience in internet marketing.

If you want to scale to big time, then .info seems like a strange appendage to me, but better to let your market decide because my personal opinion may not be representative of your target demographics.

These are available:

emeta.trade
ometa.trade
xmeta.trade

Seems more memorable and concise than, although you'd want to grab all the meaningful one letter permutations above redirect them to your preferred domain and not having meta.trade sort of ruins some of the potential advantage:

metaexchange.info

A slight improvement over .info in my opinion is:

metaexchange.bid

But I'd prefer meta.exchange or metaexchange.com, which are already taken, thus metaexchange.info is not widely brandable.

Perhaps:

metaxchange.net for $3.88
metaxchange.bid for $2.88
metatrade.bid for $2.88
metatrade.co for $2.78 (at namecheap.com)

emeta.biz    
emeta.trade  
meta-e.biz   for $2.78 (at namecheap.com)
meta-e.co    for $2.78 (at namecheap.com)
meta-e.net   for $3.88
meta-e.trade for $2.88

bitmeta.net
bitmeta.trade

transmeta.biz
transmeta.co
transmeta.org
transmeta.trade

transmogrify.bid (joke)

metaspan.biz
metaspan.co
metaspan.trade

transpand.bid
transpand.com for $5.88 (at namecheap.com)
transpand.net
transpand.trade

But there is no clear winner, so maybe stay with your existing name. Of all of those, transmeta is the widest brandable, but within a narrower demographic sphere (which may be the case for your market) maybe metaexchange is more clear even if there are other companies with the same name but don't overlap your market.

[TPTB_need_war]

If you want uniquely brandable but weird:

cryptog.ooo
cryptogoo.trade
cryptoglue.trade

Goo for glue. And crypto to hit your target audience and differentiate from other more general uses of "metaexchange" and "metatrade".

cryptxchange.net
cryptoexchange.net

I remember bitfinex, because bitcoin-financial-exchange.

[TPTB_need_war]

My sudden inspiration:

exchainge.net
exchainge.trade

 

That is brandable and fits precisely the meaning of what you are attempting to do. It is a competitive name to Shapeshift.io.

[monsterer]

We're halfway through the sale! Ending on christmas day 2015 - 100 BTC of METAFEES sold so far, 100 BTC remaining.

https://metaexchange.info/markets/METAFEES/BTC

[TPTB_need_war]

My sudden inspiration:

exchainge.net
exchainge.trade

 

That is brandable and fits precisely the meaning of what you are attempting to do. It is a competitive name to Shapeshift.io.

You didn't like?

Seems like a perfect fit given you are emphasizing exchange between altchains (altcoins).

Imho (afaics), you can't really brand metaexchange beyond a small demographic, because it is not unique (you own only metaexchange.info).

[TPTB_need_war]

monsterer, are you aware of the potential for entirely decentralized cross-chain exchanges?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=193281.msg6487835#msg6487835

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=515370.0

Note however there are unresolved technical issues, thus I think your exchange is not threatened immediately, if ever.

I am a bit too sleepy to elaborate on the technical at the moment.

Yeah, I initially looked into developing something with this scheme in mind, but decided that it wouldn't suit because it was too clunky (with all the refund transactions, and DOS angles) and only supported bitcoin derivatives, whereas I wanted to offer a lot of '2.0' currencies.

TierNolan's (et al) proposal isn't tenable (especially not for trades where the game theory of profit tied to market bid/ask order book is in seconds or microseconds) until at least we can guarantee that block chains don't orphan and become probabilistically final on the order of seconds or less.

Btw, I think these requirements are only required on the altcoin chain in order to interopt with Bitcoin. Thus afaics the reason you can't implement the proposal is because the altcoins don't meet the requirements.

I offered my summary and ideas for improving the decentralized P2P atomic exchange protocol.

Again the problem remains it is jammable. I offer an idea for mitigation, but it is impossible to entirely squelch it.