Would there be a market/interest for such a service?

[AdolfinWolf]

I'm thinking (Or rather fantasizing ) of creating a service where you could exchange bitcoin -> most altcoins & vice versa. Now i know that this market is very saturated, (Shapeshift.io & Changelly.com)

But i think that there is still a place for such a service, where there is more attention to lower fees, more accepted/tradeable coins, and more privacy/anonimity.

I was wondering what the community here thinks about the currently already existing instant exchanges such as Shapeshift & Changelly. If you use them, are you content with them? Are there things you wish that were different about them/are you missing features when using them?

I'm really just testing the waters here, i'd love to hear your opinions.

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[Baofeng]

Why not?

Personally, I'm been lurking in the exchanges thread for the last couple of months looking for alternatives to both services.
Shapeshift does make some changes lately, affecting mostly US user based.

https://info.shapeshift.io/blog/2018/04/02/shapeshift-services-change-based-customers%E2%80%99-jurisdiction

Thus, ShapeShift will begin to tailor our product and service offerings based on the location of the customer over the coming weeks and months. Your ability to purchase certain digital assets on the ShapeShift platform may change depending on where you reside.
 
In the US, where our customers may be most affected, we certainly applaud several of the recent SEC enforcement actions, in which token sales involving fraud and deceptive practices were targeted. We hope to see more of that, as one of the primary goals of the blockchain industry is to remove fraud from finance.

So I have been using Changelly, quite OKish to me but at least we need more alternatives, just saying.

[LeGaulois]

The market isn't much saturated to say, but the most popular are now established and with a good marketing done. But in the end, there is always a spot to make a new one. Its success will come from how you market the product what do you give different from the existing ones.

Just posting this two to give an idea how it can be done differently
https://evercoin.com
https://godex.io/

[AT101ET]

If you can one up on Shapeshift (not sure what the other one is called) then great! I use Shapeshift every now and again but if there was another trusted service out there you'd have me as a customer.

[buwaytress]

Definitely not saturated I'd say, not when only 2 names really come up when first thinking about instant exchanges. Same as the mixing/tumbling services (and some see an added mixing advantage with exchanges). Not when they both still charge a significantly higher fee than at a standard exchange. I'd say you could take a pointer or two from some of the bigger exchanges in displacing former early movers: low fees, if not very close to 0, and take a % of the actual trade, in bigger discounts as the volume/frequency increases. A bit more difficult to do since you've to take tx fees into account.

My suggestion is to have a look at implementing Bitcoin upgrades like SegWit and then upcoming LN functionality and you'll get an edge over the others.

[bumTUNA999]

Personally don't think I ever used them and I've been around since the launch of Doge coin. BUT when I was new I was eager to just get onboard and went through crazy overpaid ways of getting my crypto. Looked at all sorts of options and ended up with Virwox like many of the peeps around that time. I think it was like 10% on top usually lol. Ridiculous but I did not care; I'm saying this because I feel all newbies woudn't care and would want an instant way. If you can manage that with lower fees, you could be king of your domain.

[TheUltraElite]

I use shapeshift specifically when I need an emergency conversion from one coin to another. I dont use it when I am trading coins. While trading I would prefer to sell them during the bull run for USDT and then hold the USDT till price of the coins drop and then use that same USDT to buy a bigger amount of the coin.

I have personally used both shapeshift and changelly and I never had any problems with them - even though there is an unresolved scam accusation against changelly here for which they received negative trust.

@AdolfinWolf,
I can suggest a few pointers for your idea:
1. A chart where I can view all trades and possible profit/loss of trading them. Though that seems more like something that a full time exchange would have.
2. A P2P marketplace as well for Fiat<>crypto based exchanges. Something that is lacking on many other platform but risky as well.

[AdolfinWolf]

I will definitely look further into this, and research a bit more on current regulations, as it is rather vague for me atm.

I use shapeshift specifically when I need an emergency conversion from one coin to another. I dont use it when I am trading coins. While trading I would prefer to sell them during the bull run for USDT and then hold the USDT till price of the coins drop and then use that same USDT to buy a bigger amount of the coin.

I have personally used both shapeshift and changelly and I never had any problems with them - even though there is an unresolved scam accusation against changelly here for which they received negative trust.

@AdolfinWolf,
I can suggest a few pointers for your idea:
1. A chart where I can view all trades and possible profit/loss of trading them. Though that seems more like something that a full time exchange would have.
2. A P2P marketplace as well for Fiat<>crypto based exchanges. Something that is lacking on many other platform but risky as well.

1. I have seen charts on other exchanges that kind of function like Shapeshift etc, and i feel like it really is a hit or miss. (eg, litebit.eu's implementation.) If implemented correctly it could indeed be a nice addition.

2. I personally am also missing an exchange where i would be able to simply cash out bitcoin -> paypal, (without using KYC), but i feel like there are probably a lot of AML laws that prohibit this very thing without KYC. So i really doubt that this is possible without the implementation of KYC, but who knows.

The market isn't much saturated to say, but the most popular are now established and with a good marketing done. But in the end, there is always a spot to make a new one. Its success will come from how you market the product what do you give different from the existing ones.

Just posting this two to give an idea how it can be done differently
https://evercoin.com
https://godex.io/

Evercoin.com isn't available yet? (At least not on desktop?)

Godex looks pretty good, except for the fact that they say they take .5% commision, but when you calculate what the actual price of BTC -> ETH is, it becomes obvious that they're adding another ~1-2% to that 0.5%. Am i missing something here?

Code:

You Get (Expected): 24.09929812 ETH
Expected exchange rate: 1 BTC ≈ 24.22743529 ETH
Fee included (0.5%): 0.12813717 ETH


Actual exchange rate as per Coinmarketcap ≈ 24,60085388 ETH

24,60085388 - 24.22743529  / 24.22743529  * 100 ≈ 1.6% ontop of the already existing 0.5% fee.

Seems like most other instant exchanges (Shapeshift) also do this. I guess it's either due to volatility/they want to make some more $. Interesting.

[Baofeng]

Anyone heard of https://coinswitch.co/?

As per their FAQ:

What is our transaction fees?

CoinSwitch charges a fee of 0% to 0.75% depending on the exchange you select for your transaction. The conversion rate you see is inclusive of the fees.
Note: This fees does not include any amount charged by the exchange itself and the network fee.

This is there ANN thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2041972.0

Not much is written on their thread though so the best thing to do for me is to test it.

[AdolfinWolf]

Anyone heard of https://coinswitch.co/?

As per their FAQ:

What is our transaction fees?

CoinSwitch charges a fee of 0% to 0.75% depending on the exchange you select for your transaction. The conversion rate you see is inclusive of the fees.
Note: This fees does not include any amount charged by the exchange itself and the network fee.

This is there ANN thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2041972.0

Not much is written on their thread though so the best thing to do for me is to test it.

I just took a look at their site, and it seems like they're simply an intermediary to other instant exchanges. (Shapeshift, ChangeNow, Changelly)

I don't really understand their business model, or why anyone would ever use them. As your basically using a thirdparty ontop your exchange, while that is completely unnecessary, and potentially dangerous. ( I have no clue who operates Coinswitch & how trustworthy they are..)

You can simply see what site offers the best exchange rate, and then go to that site yourself.. cutting CoinSwitch.co out completely.

[Baofeng]

Anyone heard of https://coinswitch.co/?

As per their FAQ:

What is our transaction fees?

CoinSwitch charges a fee of 0% to 0.75% depending on the exchange you select for your transaction. The conversion rate you see is inclusive of the fees.
Note: This fees does not include any amount charged by the exchange itself and the network fee.

This is there ANN thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2041972.0

Not much is written on their thread though so the best thing to do for me is to test it.

I just took a look at their site, and it seems like they're simply an intermediary to other instant exchanges. (Shapeshift, ChangeNow, Changelly)

I don't really understand their business model, or why anyone would ever use them. As your basically using a thirdparty ontop your exchange, while that is completely unnecessary, and potentially dangerous. ( I have no clue who operates Coinswitch & how trustworthy they are..)

You can simply see what site offers the best exchange rate, and then go to that site yourself.. cutting CoinSwitch.co out completely.

Thanks man, I was thinking of using them but have second doubts now. ChangeNow, hmmm, I dunno, there's been some scam accusations so I guess I need to look for more alternatives or probably wait for your service,