[2014-07-28] CD: Coinapult Launches LOCKS, a Tool to Eliminate Bitcoin Price Vol

[Kosta#]

How is it different from selling futures with 1:1 leverage?

Well, one difference is that a futures contract has an expiration date.

you can always roll forward. btw, bitcoin futures market is in heavy contango, so they just pocket the difference between the present and future price. nice gig if they can find customers that stupid.

Another is that you never actually exchange bitcoins for anything.

futures settlement is also in bitcoin, so no difference here.

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[Smack That Ace]

Read the article and i think its a great step towards bringing the common man closer to bitcoin.

Good luck with the project to Coinapult Team.

Duke

[DeathAndTaxes]

Maybe I'm dumb but why do you guys make it so complicated with futures etc? I hope that's not the case. I really hope the Bitcoin is just sold for cash or gold with audited statements.

Delivery (taking final possession of converted funds) is generally expensive and doing it twice for a roundtrip transaction is just insanity.   Go ahead and price what markup/markdown would be needed to go from BTC -> USD -> GOLD -> USD -> BTC.  I am 100% absolutely sure, the customer's deposited BTC isn't sold for dollars or physical gold.  To do that they would need to have fees in the 5% range and who is going to use a service which eliminates volatility but guarantees a 5% loss.

[TraderTimm]

This is just another "service" that essentially books the profit from any Bitcoin appreciation and leaves the customer holding the bag at a static price point. How much do you want to bet they keep their fees in Bitcoin? Its just another payment aggregator that is saying "trust us", while taking their slice of the action, and then some...

[jl2012]

Where do you get the coins to pay everyone if that actually happened? If bitcoin suffers a catastrophic crash and most of your users decide to cash out how can you cover that?

It should work like this: when you deposit bitcoin to them, they will sell at market rate and hold fiat. When you want to withdraw bitcoin, they will buy at market rate and give you the bitcoin. That's why you can "lock" the value in USD: you have sold your bitcoin for USD

[bigasic]

So, if its pegged to the us dollar, they just hold your fiat in dollars, if you peg it gold, they just purchase the gold with your fiat, I really don't see the advantage, why not just hold your fiat and buy bitcoin when you want to use it, it wont gain any value.. This is just waste of time.

[Raeg]

So, if its pegged to the us dollar, they just hold your fiat in dollars, if you peg it gold, they just purchase the gold with your fiat, I really don't see the advantage, why not just hold your fiat and buy bitcoin when you want to use it, it wont gain any value.. This is just waste of time.

That's exactly what I thought. I'd rather not trust a third party with my money either,

[bitpop]

Because you can't get bitcoins instantly to buy stuff unless you do it yourself by keeping fiat at Bitstamp, etc

[knight22]

Because you can't get bitcoins instantly to buy stuff unless you do it yourself by keeping fiat at Bitstamp, etc

Well, it gives the opportunity to businesses to keep their bitcoins instead of exchanging them to fiat instantly.

[seriouscoin]

I have just tried the LOCK feature,

Basically its their wallet, not yours. You set the amount you want to "LOCK" (max is $3k), then you're requested to send the equipvalent in BTC to their wallet either from your external wallet (any wallet) or your Coinapult wallet(basically you sold your coins LOL). The exchange rate is ofcourse the "hidden fee". ie Bitstamp currently at $593/btc, their rate is $584/btc. And i only tried less than 1 btc, i assume with larger fund, the rate is even worse.


I hate it when the Coinapult asshole talked like this feature is so innovative, while infact hes just taking the cut on every trade he does for you on the exchange.

[LiteCoinGuy]

but at least its a nice step in the right direction and it solves "a problem"....in my view.

[Coinapult]

I have just tried the LOCK feature,

Basically its their wallet, not yours. You set the amount you want to "LOCK" (max is $3k), then you're requested to send the equipvalent in BTC to their wallet either from your external wallet (any wallet) or your Coinapult wallet(basically you sold your coins LOL). The exchange rate is ofcourse the "hidden fee". ie Bitstamp currently at $593/btc, their rate is $584/btc. And i only tried less than 1 btc, i assume with larger fund, the rate is even worse.


I hate it when the Coinapult asshole talked like this feature is so innovative, while infact hes just taking the cut on every trade he does for you on the exchange.

Hi Seriouscoin, thanks for your feedback, hopefully we can explain why we think Locks is an innovation that goes beyond a normal exchange.

Anytime a user wants to use an exchange, they are taking ownership of fiat into a verified bank account. There are a few noteworthy disadvantages to this:
1. The non-trivial and time-consuming process of gathering and verifying documentation (days or weeks)
2. The lack of privacy
3. The necessity of having a bank account

#3 is perhaps the most striking. If over 50% of the world doesn't have a bank account, you are effectively cutting off 50% of the world from accessing Bitcoin as a payment network. One of Coinapult's primary motivations is bringing Bitcoin access to developing countries and economies, and requiring all of our customers to have bank accounts would not be conducive to our mission.

Our fee is not hidden, we have a spread of approximately 1-2% (closer to 1% when volatility is normal) any time someone Locks or unLocks. We are actually mid-preparing a new "Price Discovery" page for our site that will give more details into how we calculate an averaged BTC index price, as well as Coinapult's spread.

[TraderTimm]

What crap-a-pult fails to mention is that paid debit cards that are being rolled out by exchanges, notably Chinese based ones, allow anyone to have a method to use their funds without a bank account.

But of course, they wouldn't dare mention it, as it would become quite obvious that their only intention is to skim their margin from users anyway.

[Coinapult]

What crap-a-pult fails to mention is that paid debit cards that are being rolled out by exchanges, notably Chinese based ones, allow anyone to have a method to use their funds without a bank account.

But of course, they wouldn't dare mention it, as it would become quite obvious that their only intention is to skim their margin from users anyway.

Hi TraderTimm,

In our above post, we specifically detailed why Locks is quite different from working with an exchange. How would you recommend a farmer in Ghana, with no bank account, sign up for a Bitcoin exchange account?

In addition, the charges that are associated with these debit cards seem to be in the same range as Coinapult's spread for Locks.

[TraderTimm]

Sure, you guys are changing the world out of the sheer goodness of your hearts.

I'm betting you won't be giving a "farmer in Ghana" any relief from your middleman-skimming, eh?

That's right, you're just a business, and even if your marketing materials exude that "help everybody, yay!" spin, it just comes down to your profit margin on poor schmucks who have no other alternative.

How convenient for you...

[MarkyRamone]

I think that everyone in this thread should take a look at bitshares-x (http://bitshares-x.info).
Basically is a distributed bank were you can hold your deposits in any currency (first iteration will have bitUSD, bitGold and bitBTC).
These are market-pegged assets or collateralized network issued IOUs .. If you have 1 bitUSD it will always be worth 1 USD worth of BTSX (the crypto that this network use).
The pegging is being done with a prediction market running in the blockchain that have 10 second confirmation time using DPOS (delegated proof of stake).
BTW: This bank makes money with transactions fees, inactivity fees, margin calls fees and this revenue goes directly to the shareholders. Just owning the underlying crypto BTSX (the one that bitUSD is backed) you are a shareholder.
For me is the most innovative thing ive seen since bitcoin.

My 2cts

[xeroc]

I think that everyone in this thread should take a look at bitshares-x (http://bitshares-x.info).
Basically is a distributed bank were you can hold your deposits in any currency (first iteration will have bitUSD, bitGold and bitBTC).
These are market-pegged assets or collateralized network issued IOUs .. If you have 1 bitUSD it will always be worth 1 USD worth of BTSX (the crypto that this network use).
The pegging is being done with a prediction market running in the blockchain that have 10 second confirmation time using DPOS (delegated proof of stake).
BTW: This bank makes money with transactions fees, inactivity fees, margin calls fees and this revenue goes directly to the shareholders. Just owning the underlying crypto BTSX (the one that bitUSD is backed) you are a shareholder.
For me is the most innovative thing ive seen since bitcoin.

Sadly the OP is about eleminating btc price volatilty .. I am pretty sure most people
around do not realize the power of the bitUSD and the bitGLD ..

if you guys don't know what bitUSD is => blame educate your self

[delulo]

Coinapult,

how does it help the farmer in Ghana exactly?

What (real world) use cases do you see for it? What advantages does it have towards something like Realcoin or BitUSD (part of Bitshares x) if it works ? With Realcoin you also have the qualities of Bitcoin (fast and cheap transfers) plus price stability. And with Realcoin you buy price stability at the price of trust in the company that is backing Realcoin (trust in the effectiveness of the market peg with Bitusd)? What advantages does LOCKS have? Because it has the disadvantage that you loose 1% every time you want to use your Bitcoins to transfer them...

[Kosta#]

What crap-a-pult fails to mention is that paid debit cards that are being rolled out by exchanges, notably Chinese based ones, allow anyone to have a method to use their funds without a bank account.

But of course, they wouldn't dare mention it, as it would become quite obvious that their only intention is to skim their margin from users anyway.

Hi TraderTimm,

In our above post, we specifically detailed why Locks is quite different from working with an exchange. How would you recommend a farmer in Ghana, with no bank account, sign up for a Bitcoin exchange account?

In addition, the charges that are associated with these debit cards seem to be in the same range as Coinapult's spread for Locks.

Dear Coinapult,

Please explain who gets the difference between future price of bitcoin ($646 for December contract, according to icbit.se) and the current price ($578). According to my calculations, it is 12%, not 1-2% you have mentioned.

In other words, if I move one bitcoin to icbit.se and short December contract, I get $646 worth of bitcoins in December. With you, I only get $578 minus fees and spread. (In fact, I don't even have to move whole bitcoin to icbit.se, only 1/leverage worth of bitcoin).

[TraderTimm]

Dear Coinapult,

Please explain who gets the difference between future price of bitcoin ($646 for December contract, according to icbit.se) and the current price ($578). According to my calculations, it is 12%, not 1-2% you have mentioned.

In other words, if I move one bitcoin to icbit.se and short December contract, I get $646 worth of bitcoins in December. With you, I only get $578 minus fees and spread. (In fact, I don't even have to move whole bitcoin to icbit.se, only 1/leverage worth of bitcoin).

Bingo.

This is less about "making the world a better place" and more about certain co-founders making back what they lost in the Mt. Gox implosion.