This is really cool!

[The Madhatter]

Looks like changes have been made to mybitcoin again. I'm still in the process of integrating it with my exchange site. I'm trying to get the 'SELL BITCOINS' button so I can automate the booking of orders and remove bank notes from my inventory.

Explaining this crazy thing is difficult. It is easier if I show you.

https://www.mybitcoin.com/sci/paypage.php?t=6Iwy65ZhqwRPbalrlnS_3GHfYRSI03FUgPmHwgP5LPcK0sn-GkM_HH2BeYqte92P_-XlvZe1oDyPeH3FDbw8pJNl0P-2TxTl8Zm-w_bUpDMH93ELwZ40s37znYtX8nWfe_o25FxcbYRahhMJFVTg7Cv6YalQu6FnZznn6ZIk13Zh4v-eFzK4h1Fog6uAHvSl4SD3Zj-eaKv22xjzMhI37ALOjzogAyQUCuKdH4aeWn8Vx1m8XDD0mOdEMzSgmyZQvEdxw5J9NNNN6gzObG7LMzNhmk_IrNd0rR9cIuihfxCPr-rnpb_vUuxcXBAT59qPpns7YqJs3uZRTTJm

Click the link and notice how I priced this link in US Dollars. Mybitcoin automatically converts $0.01 USD into BTC for the duration of the transaction. It reminds me of e-gold! lol! E-GOLD II: THE RESURRECTION!

Okay, choose "PAY WITH BITCOIN". (Don't choose any of the other options.)

Generate a temporary payment address and copy it into your clipboard, remember the BTC amount too.

Here comes is the interesting part. Don't send payment just yet. Click on the continue button.

You'll see a page that says something like "please wait, locating your payment" or something. It has a spinning icon.

Okay, now send the payment and almost instantly (with a few seconds or so) you should see my "success page".

How in the hell are they able to do that? The spinning "please wait, locating your payment" page? It is wild! Totally streamlines the process if you ask me.

P.S. I will refund any coins from this test, just PM me your address and I'll send back your ~0.16 BTC.

[1714184384]

1714184384

[1714184384]

1714184384

[1714184384]

1714184384

[LZ]

Yeah, it works! 19ejMxHUUFhHEBNwAtfhuwJRniWxpHKzjW

[The Madhatter]

You have bitcoins!

[sgtstein]

This is really cool! Nice video btw ;-)
Take the BTC as a tip.

[The Madhatter]

Thanks!

Yeah, that video is sweet.

[Gavin Andresen]

Hmm...  I guess I was too slow:
  "PAYMENT TIMED OUT! We didn't receive a payment from you. Try again."

I copied the generated BTC address, but forgot the amount by the time Bitcoin launched, so sent you 1.11 (eleven is my favorite number) bitcoins.

Now I didn't get whatever it was I paid for.

Definitely cool, but also definitely clunky.  Where this needs to go, in my humble opinion:

1. MyBitcoin should get rid of the CAPTCHA for most users (do the Google thing, and only show the CAPTCHA if it detects potential abuse)  (oh, you didn't know Google search does that?  Yup, they do, if you do enough weird-looking searches quickly enough you'll get a CAPTCHA...)

2. Bitcoin needs a 'refundtransaction' feature, to get rid of the scary "Do not ever reuse a temporary payment address or your Bitcoins may get lost" warning.  Sending to an old address should just do an immediate refund.

3. I want to be able to put the payment address into MyBitcoin and see the status of my payment.

4. Gotta get rid of the "memorize the amount and then copy and paste to Bitcoin" (need a bitcoin-payment-request MIME type, in my humble opinion).

5. Gotta improve Bitcoin startup speed; at the very least, make the UI come up quickly while it re-verifies the block chain (I think that's what it is doing...).

[Bimmerhead]

Very nice... worked smoothly.  Keep the change.

[The Madhatter]

Hmm...  I guess I was too slow:
  "PAYMENT TIMED OUT! We didn't receive a payment from you. Try again."

I think it only scans for a couple of minutes.

I copied the generated BTC address, but forgot the amount by the time Bitcoin launched, so sent you 1.11 (eleven is my favorite number) bitcoins.

Leave it up to you to break things, Gavin.

I think the waiting page should show the address and amount. Yeah, if you don't send the amount it is looking for I think it ends up in "lost and found".

Now I didn't get whatever it was I paid for.

Quick! Call the FBI! j/k

Send me an address and I can refund.

1. MyBitcoin should get rid of the CAPTCHA for most users (do the Google thing, and only show the CAPTCHA if it detects potential abuse)  (oh, you didn't know Google search does that?  Yup, they do, if you do enough weird-looking searches quickly enough you'll get a CAPTCHA...)

Oh, I'm an avid Tor user. I've seen google's captcha. mybitcoin also has Tor functionality. Maybe they should only switch on the captcha when they detect Tor or something.

2. Bitcoin needs a 'refundtransaction' feature, to get rid of the scary "Do not ever reuse a temporary payment address or your Bitcoins may get lost" warning.  Sending to an old address should just do an immediate refund.

I was thinking the exact same thing last night. There is no easy way to handle refunds.

3. I want to be able to put the payment address into MyBitcoin and see the status of my payment.

I don't understand.

4. Gotta get rid of the "memorize the amount and then copy and paste to Bitcoin" (need a bitcoin-payment-request MIME type, in my humble opinion).

Yup.

5. Gotta improve Bitcoin startup speed; at the very least, make the UI come up quickly while it re-verifies the block chain (I think that's what it is doing...).

Yeah, I never turn mine off and I use the console version so it doesn't bug me at all. The majority of users will be Windows UI users, so yeah this needs to be addressed.

Thanks for your input.

[Gavin Andresen]

3. I want to be able to put the payment address into MyBitcoin and see the status of my payment.

I shoulda been more clear:  I've now got a 1.11 payment to {some random address} in Bitcoin; I want to take that {some random address} and give it to MyBitcoin (or you, the merchant) and see what's up with that payment.  Ideally, it would pick up the payment process as if the PAYMENT TIMED OUT never happened.

And MadHatter:  keep the change.

[The Madhatter]

Gavin: Gotcha.

What they should do is create 2 transactions (because you overpaid), send one over the SCI postback thingy for 0.16 BTC, and create a 2nd orphaned transaction.

[sirius]

Do they offer payment confirmations to a user specified reporting url? That would enable easy bitcoin integration with webapps without running your own bitcoin server. Probably you'd need to call their server back to ensure that the report really was from them. That's how ZayPay does it.

[The Madhatter]

Do they offer payment confirmations to a user specified reporting url?

Edit: Yes. They call it a Receipt URL. It is in the merchant tools section.

That would enable easy bitcoin integration with webapps without running your own bitcoin server. Probably you'd need to call their server back to ensure that the report really was from them. That's how ZayPay does it.

No need to call back to their server. They PGP sign (optional, you can switch it off) the posts to the receipt URL on my end. The downloadable toolkit "just worked" out of the box for me. I had to muck with GnuPG a bit first. Hell, I can even have them post the receipt data over Tor to my .onion address if I were really paranoid.

I was pissing around and I found privacyshark is using their new merchant interface already. They have their domains priced in dollars, when you go to place an order mybitcoin is converting it to BTC on the fly.

I used to sell stuff with e-gold back in the day, and I'll tell you, customers don't want to buy things priced in grams of gold. They can't wrap their head around it. Price it in USD (or EUR, whatever) and they understand it instantly.

mybitcoin's site lists this feature (main page) as "currency comparison". lol! I bet they didn't want to use the terms conversion or exchange anywhere on the site.

I'd really like to see statistics. I wonder how many transactions happen @ mybitcoin per day/hour/week.

[jgarzik]

Sounds like they copied key elements of the Pecunix SCI API and the Liberty Reserve SCI API.

[The Madhatter]

Yeah. It is a mixture of 3 or more APIs that I've seen. At least they include working code to hook into GnuPG. I really wished Pecunix did that.. jeeze.

The documentation is non-existent, but the toolkit contains a lot of example code. I only had to edit 3 variables in the config file, set the payment forwarding (I don't trust them to hold my coins) to my client here, and I had the receipt url stuff working instantly.

I'm in the process of making it work with my existing database. (Inventory, etc, etc).