Developing a New Bitcoin Marketplace

[KhanJohnson]

Hey Bitcointalk,

Edit: I found myself better explaining the progress made while in a conversation with someone over Telegram. Here’s the gist of it:


The software operates in a darknet and only interfaces with both Tor and i2p individually via scrapers for search results.  You basically make an autonomous command line crawler that can run tor and i2p, then compile the results into a common index.  I thought it would be cool if it had a search engine that wasn’t traditional given the quirky UI.  I then discovered that the backend had plenty of capacity to autonomously operate user wallets too. At least so long as the chain was based on Bitcoin core. This is due to the fact that the bulk of the code is written in C but because of this, performance is top-notch.

So I’d been shopping for the right altcoin to give this thing an actual purpose outside of its Reddit-esque message board features and decided that Litecoin or Bitcoin would work just fine.  Allowing additional parameters for price setting and things of that nature to work as an add-on to standard posts and I could create a marketplace with the platform serving as escrow.

[KhanJohnson]

Update: price analysis has been worked out but there’s still plenty of room for growth in expansion of the overall idea.  For example, there’s no real advantage to using Bitcoin over a coin built specifically for the platform considering the lack of a solid and useable C API. So everything as it stands has been written from scratch. Although I’m still willing to support Bitcoin as the primary trading option I’d like to potentially explore rolling our own, provided I can find strategic partners and/or the right investors willing to go down that path. 

Speaking of business development. I have managed to find a sponsor to host the project on a fairly slow but functional test server but access will remain limited for the time being. Until I can work out a way to finance something better.  I’ll be working on some documentation for all this today in my spare time . Feel free to contact me on Telegram @KhanJohnson if interested.

[Slow death]

Update: price analysis has been worked out but there’s still plenty of room for growth in expansion of the overall idea.  For example, there’s no real advantage to using Bitcoin over a coin built specifically for the platform considering the lack of a solid and useable C API. So everything as it stands has been written from scratch. Although I’m still willing to support Bitcoin as the primary trading option I’d like to potentially explore rolling our own, provided I can find strategic partners and/or the right investors willing to go down that path.  

Speaking of business development. I have managed to find a sponsor to host the project on a fairly slow but functional test server but access will remain limited for the time being. Until I can work out a way to finance something better.  I’ll be working on some documentation for all this today in my spare time . Feel free to contact me on Telegram @KhanJohnson if interested.

You said you need an investor, but I ask you:

Does your project involve things that are prohibited by governments?

Is there a possibility for you to have license for your project?

investor will invest in safe and project that are in accordance with the laws

[Patatas]

Interesting Idea. The current MVP uses command-line correct? How does one go about configuring the IP and other network services to not expose any of the data to your command-line client? Can I get to test your project if it just involves downloading the client or forking the project and running it locally? How efficiently tunelling and stuff have been configured?

For example, there’s no real advantage to using Bitcoin over a coin built specifically for the platform considering the lack of a solid and useable C API.

You can fork from bitcoin and make the API for usable maybe?

[Dabs]

Seems like you could try for some sort of ICO/IEO/crowdfunding kind of thing. If you have a good roadmap and milestones to follow, you just might gather some investors. However, your best bet at attracting them if you don't go to an exchange, is to run it through escrow, who'd collect contributions from participants and only give some of it as your project develops or produces results.

[joniboini]

Seems like you could try for some sort of ICO/IEO

Please don't. If there's no need for a new token then making an ICO/IEO is a bad idea.

[KhanJohnson]

I am open to all possible options right now so long as it protects the integrity of the project.  In the event of any kind of ICO I’d want to at least tie that into an actual launch.  Even if its some kind of open beta since, for the record, I don’t have much trust for those myself unless I can use the product almost immediately.  The platform as it stands does work and is useable, has been for some time now and is indeed open to anyone who wants to try it out.  You’ll have to contact me directly though. 

I have also been struggling with the idea of it being open source.  Plainly put, there are a lot more use-cases for the tech outside of crypto and even now I’m torn as to whether this is something I should continue to pursue in the context of this space/industry due to the aforementioned regulations among other issues.

Interesting Idea. The current MVP uses command-line correct? How does one go about configuring the IP and other network services to not expose any of the data to your command-line client? Can I get to test your project if it just involves downloading the client or forking the project and running it locally? How efficiently tunelling and stuff have been configured?

Correct! There’s admittedly a lot more to be done on on the security front but two concepts underpin how things are being handled at the moment, obfuscation and encryption.  I’m super open to digging into things like tunneling going forward.  Another thing I simply avoid with the client is collecting much if any information at all.  The mentality there is you simply “can’t get what I ain’t got”

[tinyteapot]

According to your illustrations, your project sound like steemit in operations and i hope the payout for comments on the pages can be rewarding (You did not mention anything about this but i am assuming)

Explore both Tor and i2P hidden services via the search engine

I wonder the possibility of this because i2p and tor are 2 completely different thing but relate only by hidden services.

Provide the link to your MVP, investors shall be more interested in seeing it.

[Dabs]

I am open to all possible options right now so long as it protects the integrity of the project.  In the event of any kind of ICO I’d want to at least tie that into an actual launch.

Make sure it's in escrow. To protect both you and the participants.

I have also been struggling with the idea of it being open source.

You could still keep most of it open source, like how others do it. Red Hat? ... of course you keep secret and private keys used in the system.

Another thing I simply avoid with the client is collecting much if any information at all.  The mentality there is you simply “can’t get what I ain’t got”

That's a good thing. Just username and password and maybe the secret to 2FA, the time based one, not the text message based ones.

[Patatas]

Correct! There’s admittedly a lot more to be done on on the security front but two concepts underpin how things are being handled at the moment, obfuscation and encryption.  I’m super open to digging into things like tunneling going forward.  Another thing I simply avoid with the client is collecting much if any information at all.  The mentality there is you simply “can’t get what I ain’t got”

Encryption should not be a tough nut to crack. If I may ask, what is your technology stack used at the moment? How conveniently the command line client sits between the legacy Linux systems like Fedora or CentOs? As long as the hosting goes, you'd not want to host it on services like AWS etc. A peer to peer solution would be much difficult to implement but will be a game-changer.

[KhanJohnson]

I have an idea that I want to run by some of you.  Anyone here especially good with the linux command line? I could use your help with my implementation of the bitcoin address system.  May post an update as early as tonight with the link to a build for those interested.

Patatas, I used C99 and R scripts for scraping on the server side on multiple threads and it’s a single command executable.  The fun part was writing the tools which are more focused on tuning parameters regarding the moderation bot and tracking uptime etc.  I call it Sentinel because of how it just sits there chugging away at processing web data while being  able to hold down the fort too.  Again, admittedly built to be more versatile than secure but I’m working on it.

[Patatas]

I have an idea that I want to run by some of you.  Anyone here especially good with the linux command line? I could use your help with my implementation of the bitcoin address system.  May post an update as early as tonight with the link to a build for those interested.

Command-line as in? Someone who knows their way around linux commands or someone who knows bash properly? I can use CentOs based systems properly using only the command line so yeah I guess I can help you.

Patatas, I used C99 and R scripts for scraping on the server side

So R it is. Great!

[KhanJohnson]

Bash but I’ve actually managed to figure it all out.  The step after was to see how easy it was to “add” coins to the platform which went magnitudes better than I expected.  I can say now that it could support a great number of coins provided that they are derivatives of Bitcoin Core. I don’t have the stamina to figure out how to play well with the others (like ETH, Waves etc) yet.  Now I’m just working on tightening things up a bit. 

I’m testing everything by using coins with small chains right now to keep things lean and predictable.  So far we’ve got a wallet system that works well. More info on transactions later.

Also I get the feeling that people think this thing looks like your typical boring CLI-app.  This does at least have a pretty robust TUI that I’ll share in a bit.

[KhanJohnson]

Alright so here’s what I’ve got.  I’m calling it Giant BBS because it will be a constantly-expanding, modern take on the bulletin board systems of yesteryear.  The name is also a homage to its first supported cryptocurrency, Giantcoin, based on the GIANT platform.  Which is not at all an endorsement although I wish it was since I can’t even afford to host this thing on a cheap VPS.  So if the devs see this, let’s talk!

That said I am still working on supporting more coins which I’ve gotten down to just picking the best projects I can find right off Cryptoslate and throwing Sentinel at the tech. GIANT was first solely because it was the easiest to integrate and that’s just giving credit where it’s due.

I’ll be posting a link to the github from grabbing the client at some point soon.

Here’s a screenshot of the new home screen.

I can be contacted via @KhanJohnson on Telegram if interested in being a tester or contributing in some other way. 

The only thing left to do is roll an interface for withdrawals/deposits and reintroducing the marketplace parameters to the codebase.   Feedback welcome, and more updates to come!

[KhanJohnson]

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