Real life Crypto Exchange

[shamzblueworld]

Is there a scope for real life crypto exchange? Where people could go and exchange some crypto currencies to others, would that actually work?
One downfall would be no anonymity but one plus point is the reliability, I mean you own your crypto's all the time and there is someone real that you know who would have to answer if something fishy happens.
What do you guys think?
 

[rico666]

Is there a scope for real life crypto exchange? Where people could go and exchange some crypto currencies to others, would that actually work?
One downfall would be no anonymity but one plus point is the reliability, I mean you own your crypto's all the time and there is someone real that you know who would have to answer if something fishy happens.
What do you guys think?

Like https://localbitcoins.com/ ?


Rico

[NeuroticFish]

Is there a scope for real life crypto exchange?

In theory it's a great idea. In reality, the chance for success is small because you'll have to pay people to stay there and run the exchange(s). Edit: And this could make the prices unattractive.
Somebody had a similar idea: Bitcoin exchanges in the big cities. But I don't think that he has got beyond the "idea" phase.

Like https://localbitcoins.com/ ?

Rico

I think that OP was thinking on something like the currency exchanges you can see in airports or at the corner of the street:
human operator can sell you crypto for price1 and can buy crypto from you for price2.

It's not clear if OP thought only of Bitcoin vs USD/EUR and what other pairs will it have (ETH/USD? DOGE/USD?)

[rico666]

I think that OP was thinking on something like the currency exchanges you can see in airports or at the corner of the street:
human operator can sell you crypto for price1 and can buy crypto from you for price2.

Ah - ok. But then ... why not approach the existing market players? There is already infrastructure in place, the staff is there anyway...

My advice: study the existing exchanges market, how it works, what they want, what you (the OP) could provide and how both parties could profit from it.

=> Make use of the already existing network and bring something to the table
=> profit!

Actually if you could pull this off (IMHO not without the help of some BTC payment provider), it could actually be big.
The booking.com of Bitcoin.


Rico


And the network is HUGE. This is only one player in one country just 2 of the 31 places they are present in:

http://www.aaavaluty.cz/public/fotogalerie/images/smenarna-praha-prosek-003.jpeg
http://www.aaavaluty.cz/public/fotogalerie/images/smenarna-plzen-globus-4.jpg
Another one: http://www.cashpoint.cz/ Google spits out like 50 companies here

[shamzblueworld]

I think that OP was thinking on something like the currency exchanges you can see in airports or at the corner of the street:
human operator can sell you crypto for price1 and can buy crypto from you for price2.

It's not clear if OP thought only of Bitcoin vs USD/EUR and what other pairs will it have (ETH/USD? DOGE/USD?)

Yes thats the idea.
And yes it will have the more popular or beneficial Altcoins as well.

There are some real-life exchange offices. For example, in my town, you can go to the exchange office and buy or sell BTC in direct trade. Of course, this isn't a very favorable option as they take high fees. You can always use LocalBitcoins, but be careful because there are many scammers on the website.  

Yes that is the idea, as there are lot of scammers, the exchange provides security, comfort and dependability, although to run the exchange and earn profit from it, the fees had to be high.

And I think secondly, the location would matter a lot too? You have to pick a city where there the possible number of crypto users is quite high.

[Joel_Jantsen]

Is there a scope for real life crypto exchange? Where people could go and exchange some crypto currencies to others, would that actually work?
One downfall would be no anonymity but one plus point is the reliability, I mean you own your crypto's all the time and there is someone real that you know who would have to answer if something fishy happens.
What do you guys think?
 

Bad Idea.
Why would you want to replace a bank by starting another one ? Another main reason of people signing up at a exchange is not just buying bitcoins but trading them.Do you think one has to wait in the physical exchange for an entire day to complete their trade ? Moreover what about the people serving customers in an exchange ? They need to get paid right ? Certainly the money would come from their customers pockets.Nope I don't like banks.

[onemanatatime]

Is there a scope for real life crypto exchange? Where people could go and exchange some crypto currencies to others, would that actually work?
One downfall would be no anonymity but one plus point is the reliability, I mean you own your crypto's all the time and there is someone real that you know who would have to answer if something fishy happens.
What do you guys think?
 

sure there is, but your customer base would be so very limited and bounded by geographical factors. How will you eventually plan to scale?

[Iranus]

Is there a scope for real life crypto exchange? Where people could go and exchange some crypto currencies to others, would that actually work?
One downfall would be no anonymity but one plus point is the reliability, I mean you own your crypto's all the time and there is someone real that you

It would work in the literal sense that it would be theoretically possible for someone to go to one of those and exchange their cryptocurrency for another.

But the key difference between a physical fiat currency exchange and physical crypto exchange is that physical fiat exchanges only occur in places where people need physical currency.  When they're at the airport, for example, they're in the new country and they know that they need to get the local currency.

A physical crypto exchange would have no ideal place to be, because people exchange their fiat when they get to a new place, which is through the airport.  Cryptocurrencies are global and people wouldn't go hours out of their way for a service that they could just do online.  It would even be less convenient when they're there, ignoring the journey time altogether.

When people actually do forex trading, they do that online even though fiat is largely physical anyway.

[Yuuto]

I think that OP was thinking on something like the currency exchanges you can see in airports or at the corner of the street:
human operator can sell you crypto for price1 and can buy crypto from you for price2.

It's not clear if OP thought only of Bitcoin vs USD/EUR and what other pairs will it have (ETH/USD? DOGE/USD?)

Yes thats the idea.
And yes it will have the more popular or beneficial Altcoins as well.

There are some real-life exchange offices. For example, in my town, you can go to the exchange office and buy or sell BTC in direct trade. Of course, this isn't a very favorable option as they take high fees. You can always use LocalBitcoins, but be careful because there are many scammers on the website.  

Yes that is the idea, as there are lot of scammers, the exchange provides security, comfort and dependability, although to run the exchange and earn profit from it, the fees had to be high.

And I think secondly, the location would matter a lot too? You have to pick a city where there the possible number of crypto users is quite high.

I think that OP might be thinking about regular cantors which we can find on the streets.
But I guess that he might wanted to see cryptocurrency cantors like that available at the city.
That could bring a great results as a business because you would just bring cash to convert it into any cryptocurrency you wish, with a decent rates ( obviously, they would be higher than in online exchange, because of the costs like renting the place, processing costs, etc. ) so everyone with internet connection could have buy their own crypto for regular paper money.

We would not see many scams, because only licensed company could do that, also people would be very cautious to exchange their money in such places like a new-born cryptocurrency cantor.

[PremiumCodeX]

The trust-threshold of face to face transactions is usually lower. People like to see the other people who manage their funds. The issue of crypto exchanging is trust. We often do not know (in real life) the Staff of exchange. We do not know who to make responsible. I think, there is a demand of exchange with actual people in it.

Now, the problem to overcome is, will it really worth? As @Yuuto mentioned. Like paying actual people to stand there for long hours, managing the physical security and providing continuity...

And then there is the question if we, crypto exchangers, would like to take our time to physically go there. Exchanging 24/7 in an online exchange is very comfortable.