Intersango exchange (formerly Britcoin)

[LMGTFY]

Don't forget that banks don't process payments at weekends

I'm painfully aware of this.  I decided to give them 3 working days too but they've not managed complete the transaction yet, *sigh*.  Can you imagine if the banks operated 24-7 and it was Bitcoin which closed down for evenings, weekends, and bank holidays?

I'm with smile.co.uk, and it took two working days - I asked britcoin to transfer me the money late one night, the next day britcoin confirmed the transaction, and I had the money in my account the following day. They are closed at weekends, however...!

[Jokah]

I'm hoping someone here can help me. I'm probably just being a tool but here goes.

I've got my login sorted on britcoin and I've deposited my first ever bitcoin .

Now I can see how to create an order for my BTC for other people to accept. My question is how do I accept someones order that is already there?



Am I missing some buttons or something?

[teukon]

I'm hoping someone here can help me. I'm probably just being a tool but here goes.

I've got my login sorted on britcoin and I've deposited my first ever bitcoin .

Now I can see how to create an order for my BTC for other people to accept. My question is how do I accept someones order that is already there?

Am I missing some buttons or something?

I've been using the site for a few days but I've had no better luck than you.  I believe the only way to accept an order is to place an order which matches up with it on the home page.

Also, there are times when the quoted 'Cost / BTC' for an order does not match up with the ratio of the 'Giving' and 'Wanted' values.  This can happen when an order is partially filled by another order with a different rate but I'm afraid despite genjix's efforts I still don't understand why.

[Jokah]

Well I've just put up my 1 BTC for £4 and it was almost instantly accepted/sold. So it obviously can be done as someone accepted mine. Just can't figure out how to accept other peoples.

[teukon]

Well I've just put up my 1 BTC for £4 and it was almost instantly accepted/sold. So it obviously can be done as someone accepted mine. Just can't figure out how to accept other peoples.

I think that the site sees that your order giving 1 BTC for 4 GBP matches with existing orders to buy bitcoins at the rate of 4:1.  That's why the offer is practically instant.

I wish there was a way of accepting an offer / the best offer, or better yet, a way of making a request for an amount of BTC or GBP at the home page and have the system calculate the cheapest way of doing this with the orders on the book.  It seems that currently the home page only calculates the value in the wanted field using the current best rate.  It does not take into account whether or not your request can be filled at that rate.  It seems rounding errors sometimes cause you to enter an amount, click buy, and have an order added to the orderbook which just misses the best rate and simply sits there.  Indeed, whenever I want to 'accept' an existing offer I find myself reaching for my calculator just to try and work out what order I should put in to accept the offer.

I'm happy to pledge 10 BTC for some improvement.

[Jokah]

In a way I initially tried what you said but didnt seem to work. I saw someone was wanting 1 BTC for £3.50. I went to the home page and put up an offer matching this but nothing really happened so after a few minutes I cancelled it.

After struggling for a while I just thought sod it I'll just put my bit coin up for £4 and see what happens (prior to doing this I looked at what peopel were wanting for GBP but no one was after a 1 BTC and none at exactly £4). Literally seconds later when I went back to my account I saw I had £4 sitting there instead of 1 BTC. Someone had accepted my offer.

[genjix]

Well we have a new version of the site at https://gitorious.org/intersango/intersango/commits/exper

but it's experimental and awaiting testing before the changes are rolled out for real.

http://bitcoinconsultancy.com/wiki/index.php/Intersango

[teukon]

In a way I initially tried what you said but didnt seem to work. I saw someone was wanting 1 BTC for £3.50. I went to the home page and put up an offer matching this but nothing really happened so after a few minutes I cancelled it.

I've had this happen to me but not with such whole numbers before.  For amounts with lots of figures after the decimal place I have to divide the BTC by the GBP to calculate the rate and then place an order ever so slightly better than that rate (and than the quoted 'Cost / BTC').

After struggling for a while I just thought sod it I'll just put my bit coin up for £4 and see what happens (prior to doing this I looked at what peopel were wanting for GBP but no one was after a 1 BTC and none at exactly £4). Literally seconds later when I went back to my account I saw I had £4 sitting there instead of 1 BTC. Someone had accepted my offer.

Disclaimer: The following is my current understanding of the system and is probably completely wrong.

It is possible for one order to partially fill another.  For example, if someone places an order to buy 10 BTC for 40 GBP the system will calculate a 'Cost / BTC' of 4 and add this entry to the book.  If someone else comes along and places an order to buy 4 GBP for 1 BTC the system will again calculate the 'Cost / BTC' and place the order in the orderbook.  However, it will not be long before the system realises that there is a bid and ask offer at the same rate and a transaction will take place.  The 4 GBP for 1 BTC order will be filled and the existing 10 BTC for 40 GBP order will be changed to an order for 9 BTC for 36 GBP.

This is all well and good for simple examples like this but things get a bit hairy when the best bid and best sell rates overlap.

If instead, the second order is to buy 3.50 GBP for 1 BTC then I believe that this order will also be filled automatically and that the original order of 10 BTC for 40 GBP will be modified to 9 BTC for 36.50 GBP (rather than to 9 BTC for 36 GBP as I'd expect).  Also, I don't think the 'Cost / BTC' is recalculated and so will remain at 4.00.  This is also problematic because a third person sees this offer and places an order to buy the 36.50 GBP for 9 BTC and the system calculates a 'Cost / BTC' for this third order of 36.50 GBP / 9 BTC = 4.06 (2.d.p).  Being larger than 4.00, no trade takes place.


By the way: How do you guys stop your e-mail address from appearing on your posts?  I've tried selecting 'hide my e-mail address' in my profile (no change) and I've tried deleting my e-mail address from my profile (not allowed).

[teukon]

Well we have a new version of the site at https://gitorious.org/intersango/intersango/commits/exper

but it's experimental and awaiting testing before the changes are rolled out for real.

http://bitcoinconsultancy.com/wiki/index.php/Intersango

Excellent.  I've downloaded a copy and unpacked it, read the INSTALL and DATABASE files, and explored the source a little bit.  Unfortunately, with my lack of experience with websites and databases I estimate it would take me several hours just to get this working so I'm not a good candidate for testing.  I would much rather spend  that time testing the live site so I'll wait until you and droidbird are confident enough to modify the main site.  It is good to have the source though, I may take a look at the source for the main site at some point to understand just how these orders are filled; I feel like I'm missing something obvious.

[teukon]

It's now been 7 days (Wednesday evening -> Wednesday evening) since I withdrew 22 GBP from Britcoin and it still hasn't shown up in my account (online banking, Barclays).  I've checked the bank details many times and I cannot see that I have made any errors there.  Are you sure there hasn't been some error in Britcoin?  I will go to the bank tomorrow and ask for as much information as they have on this transaction.

I know, I'm being impatient again.  Impatience is not a good trait for a Bitcoin seller.  I have to try harder.

[driznator]

It's now been 7 days (Wednesday evening -> Wednesday evening) since I withdrew 22 GBP from Britcoin and it still hasn't shown up in my account (online banking, Barclays).  I've checked the bank details many times and I cannot see that I have made any errors there.  Are you sure there hasn't been some error in Britcoin?  I will go to the bank tomorrow and ask for as much information as they have on this transaction.

I know, I'm being impatient again.  Impatience is not a good trait for a Bitcoin seller.  I have to try harder.

This is not good, I am also waiting on a withdrawal of about 200GBP... Been waiting for almost 3 days. It did however take 4 or 5 days for a deposit of 50GBP to register to my account. Genjix made it happen when I PM'd him. I’m going to wait another 48 hours and see what happens.... TSB to HSBS take about 12 hours.... so I think it’s just down to Genjix getting time to go through statements and check/double check. 7 days does seem a bit ridiculous though.

[drgr33n]

Go easy on this guy as he's running a top quality service for FREE. Payments are not automated ATM I would of thought due to the home screen message so if he's busy you might be waiting a few extra days for your money but a lot better than loosing loads to fees

[bitz]

I'm also waiting for a withdrawl.

This isn't a great service for something that's allegedly backed by a founder of bitcoinconsultancy.com.

[driznator]

Go easy on this guy as he's running a top quality service for FREE. Payments are not automated ATM I would of thought due to the home screen message so if he's busy you might be waiting a few extra days for your money but a lot better than loosing loads to fees

Agreed, but mayby more man power is required. Pay him in BTC's! 

[drgr33n]

Go easy on this guy as he's running a top quality service for FREE. Payments are not automated ATM I would of thought due to the home screen message so if he's busy you might be waiting a few extra days for your money but a lot better than loosing loads to fees

Agreed, but mayby more man power is required. Pay him in BTC's! 

If you follow this post I think the delay has got more to do with the new project they are working on. Not how much they are earning

[bitz]

Go easy on this guy as he's running a top quality service for FREE. Payments are not automated ATM I would of thought due to the home screen message so if he's busy you might be waiting a few extra days for your money but a lot better than loosing loads to fees

Agreed, but mayby more man power is required. Pay him in BTC's! 

If you're going to offer a service, offer it realistically and support it, or don't do it at all. Don't dick around with my time with your online experiment if it involves my hard earned cash.

Part of being realistic is working out how much time it will take to support something and putting in place resources to do this, and distributing the cost fairly by charging if necessary

[drgr33n]

Go easy on this guy as he's running a top quality service for FREE. Payments are not automated ATM I would of thought due to the home screen message so if he's busy you might be waiting a few extra days for your money but a lot better than loosing loads to fees

Agreed, but mayby more man power is required. Pay him in BTC's! 

If you're going to offer a service, offer it realistically and support it, or don't do it at all. Don't dick around with my time with your online experiment if it involves my hard earned cash.

Part of being realistic is working out how much time it will take to support something and putting in place resources to do this, and distributing the cost fairly by charging if necessary

Maybe you should look at Rule 1 from the terms and conditions.

1. This site is in an early public-alpha state. While problems are infrequent, they do occur. We are currently at this stage not liable for mistakes which could occur but this will change in the future. We will do our best to resolve issues. In no part are we liable. To date, no one has reported lost or missing funds which were irretrievable.

It's your money and your choice who you use. I would suggest before you trade you read the terms and conditions and make your own judgement on where to go.

[genjix]

Here are the majority of reasons why people's deposits don't go through and I have to do them manually:

- You misspell your deposit code.
- Your bank fubars the reference field adding junk or dropping it entirely.
- You try a deposit on the weekend when banks are closed.

For withdrawals it happens that often people forget or mistype their sort code. Even then, withdrawals take a few days.

Anyway I run the service so people can get GBP in the UK and it's tireless work. If you want, then the source code is open for you to setup your own exchange. Sometimes it's hard to respond because I get upwards of 20+ emails a day.

[jack102938]

Your work is much appreciated genjix 
I am new to bitcoin but britcoin has made it very easy for me to buy them.
I have successfully used britcoin twice and no problems so far.
Thank you for this great service!

[mintymark]

I also much appreciate this site.

Many of the inherent design decisions are just plain sensible, and so far as I can see it just works. It may (at the moment) be a bit parochial, but from small acorns grow...

Its easy to use, seems to just work, what more could you ask for?  Its way,way less hassle than Mtgox!!