[ANNOUNCE] Elqnt -- Anonymous Peer-to-Peer Bitcoin Exchange

[bluemeanie1]

If it's peer to peer, who is collecting the money?

[elqntdotorg]

If it's peer to peer, who is collecting the money?

Thus far the model has essentially been 'an anonymous + peer-to-peer localbitcoins'.  The biggest differentiator between the two of us was that our back-end was completely p2p + anonymous -- the mechanics of actually executing a localbitcoins exchange are challenging if you truly want to maintain anonymity, not to mention the price lag, and the current workflow of Elqnt wasn't going to completely solve the mechanics aspect, but did solve the anonymity aspect.  

However, just in the past few days I've been developing a new idea around mesh exchange utilizing the Elqnt p2p framework.  This is 'The Holy Grail' of Bitcoin exchange and I may have figured out how to do it.

This new track is going to pause the deploy of the exchange because it may substantially change the infrastructure, but with the result of a much better exchange.

I'll post some updates in the coming days.  

In the mean time, if anyone is a solid Android dev, I'd love to talk -- stephen@elqnt.org

Stephen

[elqntdotorg]

Very interesting project. I see this as one of the few solutions for a truly decentralized Bitcoin exchange.

Indeed -- up until this point, it's been operating under the idea of an anonymous + p2p localbitcoins alternative.

Just in the past few days though, I've been working through a model that would utilize the exising Elqnt p2p framework to provide true mesh exchange.

[elqntdotorg]

I'm excited to present the Elqnt White Paper!

In the past two weeks, myself and another developer have conducted a number of lengthy discussions around how we might be able to leverage the existing p2p technologies I'd been developing over the past few months to actually bring about a fully decentralized + anonymous + peer-to-peer exchange for Bitcoin -- we think we've developed a way to do it and are actively developing towards the first proof-of-concept version.  

The above white paper gives a high-level overview of how the platform will function.

One of the most exciting pieces to this method of exchange is the incentivization model which rewards all peers involved in an exchange route (detailed in the white paper).  

Please give us feedback!  
We really want to hear what others are thinking, where you think things might break down, and what concerns you might have -- all feedback is welcome.

If you're interested in joining us in development, let me know -- stephen@elqnt.org -- and I'll setup a time to get you spun up on things and plugged into our git repo.

All code will be released under GPL-3.0 license and will be completely modular -- meaning, we're shooting to structure the platform in such a way that you can run it without having to setup any servers -- just run the exchange node in a browser window (or extension) from file and run the peer client on an android device and you've got yourself a mesh network for exchange.

Best,
Stephen

[Shenol]

Is there any update about this project?

[sprinkle]

Is there any update about this project?

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. 

[Shenol]

What about posting this as an open source project? I guess there will be people willing to contribute. I think it is more important to have this implemented than the profit.
Here is what I was thinking about recently: Implement this only as a platform to get in/out FIAT money. eg: 1 USD=0.99 virtual USD, people who do the physical exchange of the money get 0.01USD commission. This way there will be many people participating in the system. once you have virtualUSDs you can use them on a distributed exchange easily.

[sprinkle]

What about posting this as an open source project? I guess there will be people willing to contribute. I think it is more important to have this implemented than the profit.
Here is what I was thinking about recently: Implement this only as a platform to get in/out FIAT money. eg: 1 USD=0.99 virtual USD, people who do the physical exchange of the money get 0.01USD commission. This way there will be many people participating in the system. once you have virtualUSDs you can use them on a distributed exchange easily.

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.