The Glaring Need for Decentralized Exchanges

[BittBurger]

Anyone who truly understood Bitcoin was already aware of the pitfalls of having centralized services controlling the flow of Bitcoins.

With the downfall of Gox and the huge loss of funds, this is more obvious than ever.

MtGox, Bitstamp, BTC-E were necessary for the beginning stages.

The Mastercoin Foundation is apparently almost done with their fully decentralized exchange.  The first of its kind.

Are there more in the pipeline?   This needs to be the next big transition for bitcoin.

Decentralization means Decentralization.  Period.

-B-

[Lauda]

This is not that urgent. If 1 exchanges operates like it should we're good to go.
Although this is welcome sooner rather than later.

[Seohce]

This is not that urgent. If 1 exchanges operates like it should we're good to go.
Although this is welcome sooner rather than later.

We'd be "good to go" if there was only one reputable exchange? The entire volume of world trade moving through a single exchange? That would be a worse case scenario in my opinion.

[bomb7]

The thing that decentralized exchanges don`t address is the point of fiat-to-bitcoin conversion. If you have a decentralized exchange, you can`t fund it with fiat. So maybe your trading is secure, but then when you shift your btc to a centralized exchange to sell for fiat and withdraw, it gets stuck in a queue and the exchange vanishes.

Until bitcoin is on everybody`s smartphone and accepted everywhere, conversion will be necessary for most people.

[Sheldor333]

I think at least one decentralized exchange should happen. Just to show the rest of them that there is a better way. It would be easier to do it now than later. Later people would be just like why do we need another exchange when there are so many in place and really good ones. Better now than later.

[BADecker]

Decentralized exchanges??? Isn't that what P2P is? In other words, all exchanges that involve only two parties, or at the most a third for escrow, are what the essence of decentralized exchanges really are. Bitcoin is, by its nature, decentralized. Why are we trying to corrupt it with Exchanges? And then, why do we cry when our corruption hurts us?

[redhawk979]

Why does everyone talk bad about GOX?

All that happened with Gox is a successful entrepreneur made a massive profit off some software he was using. It's not his fault people didn't bother to secure their own funds. Free Market dream right here.

[rayfloyd]

Why does everyone talk bad about GOX?

All that happened with Gox is a successful entrepreneur made a massive profit off some software he was using. It's not his fault people didn't bother to secure their own funds. Free Market dream right here.

You must be new here.

[Timo Y]

Bitcoin.de and localbitcoins.com are semi-decentralized.

The reason they didn't get the same volume as mtgox is that they are not attractive to day traders.  But for ordinary users they already do the job more reliably than any centralized exchange.

[Matt Y]

Hi,

Counterparty has a functioning decentralized exchange as well as a number of other features. The project is only four months old, however, the development timeline has outpaced all other similar projects, such as Mastercoin. As of now the protocol is accessed via command line, however, Counterwallet will be released shortly and will allow users with little or no technical prowess to use the fully functioning features of Counterparty. Here is a link to the official announcement thread as well as the Counterparty forums.

Announcement thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=395761.0
Counterparty forums: https://forums.counterparty.co/index.php

[tokeweed]

ripple is a good option too. imagine if mt.gox were a gateway.

transfer btc to ripple, trade mt.gox btc for bitstamp btc or bitstamp usd then transfer to bitstamp account.

easy.

[Bill Bisco]

Ripple is premined garbage.  No.

[jimhsu]

Hi,

Counterparty has a functioning decentralized exchange as well as a number of other features. The project is only four months old, however, the development timeline has outpaced all other similar projects, such as Mastercoin. As of now the protocol is accessed via command line, however, Counterwallet will be released shortly and will allow users with little or no technical prowess to use the fully functioning features of Counterparty. Here is a link to the official announcement thread as well as the Counterparty forums.

Announcement thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=395761.0
Counterparty forums: https://forums.counterparty.co/index.php

Not looking to promote here, but Counterparty does have a functioning (if still alpha) implementation of a decentralized exchange (the same cannot be said of any other 2.0 coin yet, though I know several are working on similar projects). Trading bitcoin for IOUs (ala Ripple) currently has not been implemented, if for the lack of a, well, counterparty for that trade. But do take a look.