BitPiggy.com - new Australian Dollar <-> BitCoin exchange

[BitPiggy]

Hi all,

I've setup a basic website - http://bitpiggy.com - to start trading BitCoins for Australian Dollars.  At the moment it is a very very basic website, essentially telling you to contact me if you want to do a trade.

That said, I'm a professional web developer (I'm currently working on http://theconversation.edu.au) and native Australian citizen, and so with that in mind to I plan to rapidly start adding automated trading features, e.g. similar to CoinPal/CoinCard but for AUD (and it looks like I'll need avoid using PayPal.  BPay is one option I am considering).  

Anyways, I'm just posting this to judge the interest out there.  Hopefully many of you are interested in trading BitCoins for AUD or vice versa.  If you have any feedback, would love to here it.

Cheers,
~Mat

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[Anonymous]

http://bitcoin.com.au

I set that up as a portal for aussie bitcoiners and we have an irc channel at #bitcoin-aus if you feel like joining.

Vic seems like the central hub of bitcoin in Aus at the moment.

[BitPiggy]

Ah yes, I think I sent a message on your contact page a couple of weeks ago. Can't remember what happened with that.

Anyways, I'll have to check out the irc channel. Not on irc much these days. Thanks for the tip!

[Anonymous]

Ah yes, I think I sent a message on your contact page a couple of weeks ago. Can't remember what happened with that.

Anyways, I'll have to check out the irc channel. Not on irc much these days. Thanks for the tip!

yw. I really need to fix the contact page. What do you suggest as a portal site for aussie users?

Wordpress is the limit of my ability to code 

[commlinx]

I'll definitely be interested in this when up and running . One thing worth doing when you're going to be trading is registering at http://bitcoin-otc.com/trust.php.

[duman]

Hi guys,
I am looking at getting involved in the Australian Bitcoin market too. Ill keep an eye on both the sites and update all if i get onto anything myself

[BitPiggy]

Hi all,

Apologies that I disappeared for a week or two there. I will need to keep on top of this forum better.

BitPiggy has been updated, so that customers can sell BitCoins (to BitPiggy) via a semi automated service.  On top of this I enabled SSL version of the website, which you can reach by https://bitpiggy.heroku.com.

Currently the site only sends money via direct bank deposits.  

Buying BitCoins and more features to come soon.  I need to explain my fees as well.  For the meantime, it is working nicely.  Currently users can sell up to $500 worth of BitCoins.

Cheers,
~Mat

  

[commlinx]

Just wanted to post here that last week I used the site twice to sell 50 and 80 BTC and it all worked flawlessly

[BitPiggy]

Another update:

Users can now buy and sell on BitPiggy.  There are some simple daily limits, and some per-sale limits.  The site tells you if the amount is to big or too small.  Just go to http://bitpiggy.com

Please let me know if you have any suggestions, or experience any problems.

Otherwise, enjoy!
~Mat

PS. And thanks to commlinx for that recommendation.

[Strik3r]

I will be putting through a sale of 10 BTC (just to see how it all goes) this afternoon.

If all goes well, I will look to do some larger amounts with you. Its great that your in Australia and do bank deposits. Removes all the currency conversion / transaction fees.

[Rodyland]

Great idea.  Would be nice not to be screwed on international transfers and conversions on mtgox.

[Cluster2k]

Great idea.  Would be nice not to be screwed on international transfers and conversions on mtgox.

MtGox allows easy transferring of Australian dollars to the exchange, but how do you withdraw them back to an Australian bank account?  As far as I can see only US/Euro accounts are supported.

It would be nice to have an alternative to BitPiggy.  While that site has been reliable and honest, it's just one place to trade bitcoins/cash.  More options are needed should BitPiggy experience problems.

[dbit2011]

I will be putting through a sale of 10 BTC (just to see how it all goes) this afternoon.

If all goes well, I will look to do some larger amounts with you. Its great that your in Australia and do bank deposits. Removes all the currency conversion / transaction fees.

I am also considering trading with bitpiggy.

How did that 10BTC transaction go?

[Strik3r]

they were out of funds yesterday when i went to do it, but this morning they were back up and running, so i put the request through. Apparently takes 1-24 hours to process, so i'll update this thread with the results.

[dbit2011]

I've put in a small 0.5BTC transaction to test things out, I will report on progress within 24-48 hours.

[Dracs]

Just got my first lot of money from Bitcoin

Tested the service selling 1 Bitcoin, received my money ~2 days later. Will definitely be using again.

[Cluster2k]

BitPiggy is once again out of funds this morning.  Is there another way to get BTC to AUD$?

[BitPiggy]

Hi,

Apologies once again, I have been away from this forum for a while.

As mentioned in the post above, the website is still experiencing hiccups such as  running out of funds and/or BitCoins.  In addition to that, parts of the process are still manual, such as sending/receiving money.

In short the user-experience is not as good as say CoinPal, which I think had a fantastic experience.

Hence, my roadmap for the next week or so is to:

• Take down the site temporarily
• Add BPay as payment option
• Setup own internal BitCoin server

The benefits of these things will be:

• Allow me to focus on fixing the site ASAP
• Make automatic notification when someone pays a reality
• Allow automatic notification of when BitCoins are sent/received

The only major part that will still be missing is automatic payment of AUD to someone who has sold BitCoins to BitPiggy.  As far as I am aware, there is simply no automatic way to do this in Australia.

Please let me know if you have questions/comments.
~Mat

[Strik3r]

Yea, I think you're right. I can't see any automated way of doing it without going through an intemediary service of some sort (which just adds fee's etc.). Unless your bank offers some sort of merchant package that allows you to send payments through an API of some sort I don't know of any that do, but it might exist ?

I'm fairly happy with a 96 hour turn around time anyway. I sent my BTC through this morning, and would be happy to see the money in my account before next Tuesday. As long as people dont have unrealistic expectations and you are upfront with the transaction time, i dont see any problems.

As a bit of a suggestion, i'd perhaps flesh the site out with a little bit more information. It doesn't really say too much at the moment, and might put some people off.

Cheers,

Gervase

[Cluster2k]

ABC Radio National had a story about Bitcoins on tonight's PM program.

New online currency offers a 'better way'
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3240179.htm

A whole lot more Australians may soon be interested in trading BTC.

[Oldminer]

Great to have an Aussie trading site..I'll check back regularly on its progress and am very interested in trading.

[Strik3r]

My bank transfer arrived today. Very fast service all in all. Quite happy ! Will be using it again.

Cheers !

[dbit2011]

I've put in a small 0.5BTC transaction to test things out, I will report on progress within 24-48 hours.

Received payment into my australian bank account yesterday.

Fast turn around. I received money into my bank account within 48 hours of selling bitcoins.

I created the order on Thursday morning, by Saturday morning the money was in my account.

You receive transaction status updates by email, you get an email confirming your order and another one when they send the money to your bank account.

Overall I had a good experience during this transaction so based on this I can recommend them.

I hope the site will be setup for 24/7 trading in near future. It will definitely be one of my favourite sites to trade with.

[Oldminer]

BitPiggy is currently down for maintenance.

[Lightspeed]

i've bookmarked the site, but it's down so I can't investigate fees

how much do I lose per transaction or per BTC ?

Looking forward to using this service heh

[timmmay]

Very interested and I know at least another 5 Aussies who are too (and that number is growing).  Hope you get the site back up asap.  I'm happy to help out with anything you need!!

Cheers

[Cluster2k]

Waiting for BitPiggy to come back online.

In my experience the service was pretty fast and the rates not too bad.  About 15% below the current MtGox price.  While BitPiggy is down I've been selling BTCs on MtGox and have money in Liberty Reserve, but I haven't found a way of getting that money into my Australian bank account.  The LR service requires engaging a third party money transfer company to move the cash, but upon inspection of some of these companies I'm quite hesitant to do it.  Some of them have web sites that look like they haven't changed since 1997.

[timmmay]

Waiting for BitPiggy to come back online.

In my experience the service was pretty fast and the rates not too bad.  About 15% below the current MtGox price.  While BitPiggy is down I've been selling BTCs on MtGox and have money in Liberty Reserve, but I haven't found a way of getting that money into my Australian bank account.  The LR service requires engaging a third party money transfer company to move the cash, but upon inspection of some of these companies I'm quite hesitant to do it.  Some of them have web sites that look like they haven't changed since 1997.

You might be interested in watching this thread http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=15913.0

MtGox will be supporting payments into Aussie bank accounts soon

[Oldminer]

Bitpiggy is back up 

https://bitpiggy.com/

[Cluster2k]

Bitpiggy is back up 

https://bitpiggy.com/

Great news.  Good to see it (and Mt Gox, on which Piggy is reliant for pricing) back again.  Mt Gox still doesn't offer withdrawing into Australian bank accounts, so Bit Piggy is the easiest way to sell BTC.

[Anonymous]

The aus directory is up if you want to add bitpiggy.

http://bitcoin.com.au/directory/

[commlinx]

The aus directory is up if you want to add bitpiggy.

http://bitcoin.com.au/directory/

I just went to check it out and got a "This account has been suspended" message.

[Oldminer]

The aus directory is up if you want to add bitpiggy.

http://bitcoin.com.au/directory/

I just went to check it out and got a "This account has been suspended" message.

Bugger

[BitPiggy]

Hi,

Just a quick update + exciting news. 

BitPiggy has been running nicely since MtGox began trading again. That said, we keep underestimating the demand for selling BtiCoins in exchange for Australian dollars.  In any case, buying BitCoins has been constant.

As for the exciting news, we are getting ready to launch some basic banking features + a mobile payment system.  This means you will be able to buy/sell goods with BitCoins, while walking around the streets with just your mobile, in pretty much any country in the world.  The payments are also essentially instantaneous.  At this stage the details are still being ironed out, but as an outline:

Setup/limitations are as follows:

- Buyers and sellers both need a Twitter account.
- Buyers and sellers must be following @bitpiggy on Twitter.
- Buyers will need an account with BitPiggy (currently it is not possible to create an account- this is coming), with some BitCoins in their account.
- Buyers need to register their mobile phone number with BitPiggy.
- Sellers do not need an account with BitPiggy, but will need to notify BitPiggy (via a secure method) their BitCoin receiving address.

The process:
Again this is still being ironed out, but the current workflow is:

1) Buyer uses any twitter client (e.g. on their phone) to initiate a payment.  They do this by writing a specific direct message to @bitpiggy. The format is:

"D bitpiggy pay <sellers_twitter_handle> <amount>"

For example, to pay @matholroyd, you would write:

"D bitpiggy pay matholroyd 1.5 BTC"

2) Seller is notified of pending payment via twitter.  This helps ensure the buyer typed in the correct twitter handle name. 

3) A random PIN number is sent to the buyer's mobile phone number, which the Buyer types into Twitter to ensure they do want to make the transaction. The format of this is:

"D bitpiggy <pin>", e.g. "D bitpiggy 1234"

4) BitPiggy debits the buyers account, sending the BitCoins instantly to the seller.

5) Both seller and buyer are notified of the successful transaction.

Summary

The setup is somewhat restrictive, in that Twitter is required by both buyer and seller.  That said, it would work from any smart phone, whether iPhone, Android, Windows mobile, etc, and does not need any extra software installed.  In theory, the same interface can be used by 3rd party developers to build nicer interfaces on top of BitPiggy's underlying service.

Note the specifics are still up in the air, but that is the rough cut at the moment. The time frame at the moment is to have this up and running within the next 3~4 weeks.

We also have a bunch of improvements up our sleeve, but that's the essentials for the moment.  Let us know what you think.
 
Cheers,
Mat

[timmmay]

That sounds very exciting indeed Mat.  I'm looking forward to it!!

[Oldminer]

Great, going to keep my eye on this one

[Cluster2k]

BitPiggy is out of funds whenever I load the site.  I've used it several times in the past and it has been reliable, but recently its been unavailable.  I guess far more Australians are selling BTCs than buying them.

[simonk83]

I'm glad there's an Aussie portal for this, but the sell rates are a bit harsh

As of right now, to sell 1 BTC:

Bitpiggy:  $11.75
Bitmarket:  $13.50

That's no choice at all really      Granted it's slightly more convenient (depending on the receiving options you choose on Bitmarket), but it's worth it at these rates.

[BitPiggy]

To simonk83,

BitPiggy's exchange services are modelled after a traditional exchange service, where customers go for quick place to exchange one currency for another, while BitPiggy charges a commission for this service.  

Currently the spread between buy and sell is 6~7% (~3.5% each way).  This is roughly the same spread you would get for exchanging AUD for USD at a major bank, so in that sense we are competitive.

While we would like to reduce the spread further, we still want to maintain some profit or we simply will not be able to operate at all.

Note for instance to buy BitCoins directly from MtGox, you need to first pay Technocash, which charges 5%.  Hence BitPiggy is currently better value for buying then MtGox when using AUD.

One final note: Who is BitMarket? There is BitMarket.eu, but they do not trade in AUD as far as I can tell.

To Cluster2k,

You are right that BitPiggy has experience frequent periods of no money in the past. We have increased our reserves and made other adjustments to stave off that problem.

Customers have been able to continuously sell for the past week or so.


Hope that helps answer both your concerns.
~Mat

[simonk83]

Yep, I understand profit is required at your end in order to keep running.   The thing is though, it's also required at my end

I was referring to Bitmarket.eu, but they do deal in AUD.

[mem]

great site, I have tested by purchasing 1btc - works well.

Recently placed an order for 10btc, cant wait

[mrblu]

Transferred $50 to Bitcoins, came through in 2 days.

[arby]

genuine name

[mem]

used a 2nd time to purchase 10btc, easy as.

[Bitcoin Oz]

I just want to give bitpiggy props for providing a great service. I recently put wrong details on a bank transfer and they sorted it out promptly. I wish all bitcoin services were so user friendly 

[wingsuit]

Hey Bitpiggy, I noticed you had to block new registrations for buying bits. Is that coz you were flooded with orders?

[Cranky4u]

I just discovered bitpiggy today and it is a great service!!!

will bitpiggy be delving into LTC?