Coinsetter - New transparent bitcoin forex trading platform intro/feedback

[Jaron @ Coinsetter]

Hey everyone,

I'm a long time lurker and a big fan of bitcoins. I come from a heavily financial background (I was previously an investment banker and in private equity at J.P. Morgan and other companies) before leaving to start a company I'm really passionate about, which is a levered forex trading platform for bitcoins. Our big focus will be on security and transparency, on top of creating a best-in-class platform and professionally-run company. I want to get feedback from the community before we go into beta to see if there are any neat features we can incorporate and also start answering some of the tough questions you're going to have or find that we need to come up with better answers for. So I welcome any and all feedback.

We are in development and will launch in beta late February/early March. If you're interested in receiving an invitation to our beta, you can sign up via our contact form at www.coinsetter.com.

In the meantime, here are a couple of cool screenshots from our site! Please note that we are using dummy numbers in certain spots, so a few calculations don't tie .

Trading screen: https://i.imgur.com/gF4K05B.jpg
Homepage: https://i.imgur.com/fNt6WX8.jpg
Newscloud: https://i.imgur.com/b4nb3Sx.jpg

You can learn more about me personally by visiting my LinkedIn profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/jaronlukasiewicz, and feel free to reach out to me directly at jaron@coinsetter.com. I look forward to talking with everyone!

Jaron Lukasiewicz

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[gweedo]

Are you going to have an API, so people can run trading bots?

[Jaron @ Coinsetter]

Yes, offering an outstanding API is very important to us, and our goal is to have the best one out there. Our REST API has resource-oriented URLs with human-readable error messages and default JSON responses. Everything you can do from the control panel, you can also do through our OAuth authenticated API. We have detailed documentation and will be providing libraries in many popular languages.

[evoorhees]

Very excited about this.

Mods - if you're watching, you can whitelist the OP.

[dust]

Is this based on the bitcoinica source code?

[Jaron @ Coinsetter]

No it is not, and we definitely want the community to know that.

[MPOE-PR]

Very excited about this.

Mods - if you're watching, you can whitelist the OP.

You two know each other?

No it is not, and we definitely want the community to know that.

It would be just about high time, finally.

[cedivad]

Seems cool.

But how could one seriously trust you with their money? What stops you from running away with it?
You should deposit the amount you have on the platform to several trusted escrows.

[Jaron @ Coinsetter]

Hey MPOE-PR, Erik and I have spoken a couple of times recently (we have random friends of friends of friends in common) but do not know each other on a personal level yet. As Coinsetter works on becoming an important company in the bitcoinosphere, I'm sure we will continue to get to know each other better.

Cedivad, that's obviously a huge (and justified) concern with any bitcoin company. In the long run, the only way we can actually build trust is slowly, over time. That goes for pretty much any business in any industry. The first thing we're doing is making it very public about who we are so that we can be held to a high level of accountability. If you look at Yo's (my business partner: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jchysk) and my track records, you'll see a history top notch positions at respected companies, as opposed to a history of producing "get rich quick" schemes. Additionally, while Yo and I are funding the company personally at this time, we are working on raising seed capital for Coinsetter from respected tech investors. We are creating a company in the right way.

There are other ways we are working to earn trust and create a great platform. We are looking into taking out insurance against hacks to help protect our customers' account balances (this is only a secondary protection, our primary focus is on constantly securing our system against hacks). We are also based in the US and bound by US law.

I appreciate your escrow idea, but it's not a path I believe we'll follow at this time. First, I have to place just as much trust in them as I place in myself, and it's not a dependency I'd be willing to have our company rely on. Second, it doesn't really seem feasible from a technical level. Funds deposited into an account are used to make trades. We expect trading accounts on Coinsetter to be quite active, so the having money sitting in escrow would slow down trades with no added benefit. Third, it would increase trading fees. Fourth, this seems like a theme that's prevalent when talking about bitcoin companies, but we wouldn't expect Forex.com to hold money in escrow because we don't trust them. We look at our company as being professional on that level. Finally, similar to the first point, bitcoin escrow companies are companies that have earned users' trust over time, but they are no more trustworthy than we are. I would rather build up my own reputation in the community and gain users slowly as I prove myself than to rely on an escrow company just because everyone told me they're okay.

Hopefully my reasoning behind this makes sense. With that said, I want to do everything we can to demonstrate that we are a company you can trust. I'm open to all ideas on how we can make you feel comfortable using our platform, and we'll work hard to show the community that we are a legitimate company doing things the right way.

[MPOE-PR]

Frankly, there is a need of this sort of thing. Currently the situation is that some inept kids tried it and it blew up in their faces, hurting a bunch of more or less innocent bystanders. After that some even more inept kids stole the codebase and are practically speaking a crater waiting to happen. So, if you actually know what you're doing, have the human and financial capital to do it and will stick to it that's great. Impossible to call it at the present time, but it'd be a good idea to get in the WoT, and perhaps see here.

[Jaron @ Coinsetter]

Thanks for pointing me to the WOT. We've definitely studied up on the history of people that have created similar platforms to what we're building. I'm 100% committed to creating the company that does this right (and I'll keep openly putting my money and reputation on the line to prove it). If you have any specific things you'd like to see us do/offer based on your experience with some of the previous platforms that have emerged, I'd love to hear it.

[hazek]

Would you be prepared to disclose the precise logic of how your trading platform executes trades, in other words would you be prepared to share pseudocode for the exchange mechanism?

[Jaron @ Coinsetter]

Hey Hazek, the source itself will remain closed. However, we don't mind releasing some of the pseudo-logic of the order process after we've made sure we have filed all the IP protection rights we're within legal rights to own and have passed all security audits (which we will complete both internally and through a third party after our seed capital raise) to ensure we're not opening ourselves to exploits. We will do a detailed write-up of many of the implemented and to-be implemented security measures we take to protect our users.

[hazek]

Hey Hazek, the source itself will remain closed. However, we don't mind releasing some of the pseudo-logic of the order process after we've made sure we have filed all the IP protection rights we're within legal rights to own and have passed all security audits (which we will complete both internally and through a third party after our seed capital raise) to ensure we're not opening ourselves to exploits. We will do a detailed write-up of many of the implemented and to-be implemented security measures we take to protect our users.

That's good to hear because the main reason I'm asking is it's the only way we can really know whether or not your platform is a bucket shop like Bitcoinca was or not. I don't know if you're familiar with the expression "getting Zhou Tonged" but it's certainly not something I'd like to see being used with regards to your platform

[Jaron @ Coinsetter]

Yeah I totally understand. The leverage we offer on our platform will be provided internally, first through our own personal capital, and second through a line of credit we will have with our lenders. I think this is important because it aligns our incentives with customers in many ways, especially in regards to how we would be impacted by security breaches (we would personally lose more money than our customers would). That's one way I hope to build confidence in our platform: by putting our own money where our mouth is.

At launch, we expect our lending base to be relatively small (somewhere in the $20,000 to $50,000 range). As we grow, it will be a central focus of our company to continuously expand the amount of capital we can offer as leverage to users. One important aspect of our platform I would like to make everyone aware of is that trades on our site are limited to a holding period of one week. We intend to extend this holding period as we go on, but with limited capital at hand, we want the loans we offer to be used by active traders as opposed to being stored up by long term investors. Not that I have anything against the buy and hold strategy, but our platform is targeted toward active traders and everyone will benefit if we serve them well. On the positive side, we will not charge interest on trades held less than 24 hours.

[RyNinDaCleM]

... we will not charge interest on trades held less than 24 hours.

I like this! That is a good feature for a daytrader.
Would available leverage ever come from depositor funds? I know you said you will have lenders, also that you aren't going to be like Bitcoinica, but during the Bitcoinica times, if you deposited into your own account, there were times when you would not have access to your own funds to trade. Your funds would be snatched up (borrowed) nearly immediately by other traders.

[The Fool]

Please allow people to trade with fractions of a bitcoin! I trade for fun and would love to start with tiny amounts on your exchange! 4-8 decimal points would be awesome!

If you let people grow from even the tiniest amounts, you build loyal customers and a more liquid exchange!

[MJGrae]

Definitely interested in trying the site out when it goes live. Go figure, I'm busting my back to get INTO investment banking right you're leaving it. Cheers, hope launch goes well. I can't stand the interfaces on these other exchanges.

[Jaron @ Coinsetter]

RyNinDaCleM, we plan on offering the option to have your account balances earn interest by being lent out to other users. Sort of like how your bank has a checking and savings account, you would have a trading and savings account on Coinsetter. It will be structured in a way where there is never a situation where someone can't immediately access their funds, even in unlikely events such as a market crash. With that said, my complete focus is solely on using our own capital and bank loans for Coinsetter's leverage until we have that system built out.

The Fool, we will definitely allow fractional quantities to be traded. Whether or not we will have a minimum trade size is still being decided, so I'll have to get back to you on that.

MJGrae, good luck on your investment banking path. Where are you located?

[ColdHardMetal]

Will you be offering anything beyond BTC/XXX pairs?