Topic: [BETA] Coinffeine. Distributed Bitcoin exchange. (Read 8586 times)

You can now run your own decentralised exchange node and trade: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/--1365729

i read the blog post but i do not really get the difference between coinffeine and other distributed exchanges like instantdex 

This is very frustrating.

Hopefully somebody kept a copy. Try contacting the Coinffeine devs, their website is still up: http://www.coinffeine.com/ and they still have a public contact e-mail: [email protected].

I am interested but github page is deleted - 404

The recent events with Gemini (an arbitrary transaction reversal) again show how important a decentralised P2P exchange is. Somebody should pick up Coinffeine's code and finish the job. 

Also the fact that Localbitcoins does as much volume as Kraken means that people do want and need p2p exchanges.
https://bitcoinity.org/markets/list?currency=ALL&span=24h

Coinffeine transactions are in fact faster than Localbitcoins... so on the convenience front they could have been competitive.

I agree with many of the points that you make. In fact I never saw the main advantage of this to be for final users, but rather for b2b and professionals. If you run a website that sells bitcoins in a fast and convenient way to consumers... and you are buying/selling those bitcoins from a centralised exchange... or if you manage a number of ATMs... then you do care a lot about security.

Another clear advantage is the uncensorable part. Even Localbitcoins has had to exclude a number of countries because of regulations. A bittorrent type system could work in those places.

It looks like a very good idea but I don't think it has enough traction.

I was working on similar software myself (p2p cryptocurrency exchange) and ended up having to shut down as well.

I think what it comes down to is this: consumers care about convenience and speed more than they care about security and decentralization. They will obviously care about security if the Bitcoin exchange gets hacked but that's really something that only becomes evident when it happens (and it's happening a lot less with properly run, venture-backed exchanges.) So really, if the only benefit p2p exchange software can offer to consumers is security (which can also be done by centralized exchanges - as mentioned), and that benefit is completely invisible: then from the consumer's perspective there is literally no reason to use p2p exchange software (Coinffeine had low fees but there will always be some fees when doing fiat exchange.)

In the end Coinffeine didn't fail because they had a bad team, a lack of funding, poor execution, or anything of the sort. They failed because people want things fast and easy, and security slows that down. That is: people don't want p2p exchanges (but love to say they do.) It turns out what people actually want is a properly run centralized exchange that isn't hacked every week (and there are plenty of those now.)

Last but not least: the final reason a p2p exchange won't work comes down to marketing. It's hard enough to get people buying coins and "exchange" sounds scary enough as it is. Some people have smartly called their exchange a "wallet" but that probably doesn't help much when exchange is what everyone searches for. Could lead to confusion, so lets just say there's enough education to have people search for exchange. What exactly is a p2p exchange? Sounds weird and scary. And why do I have to download it? But lets assume they do download it: an exchange requires volume to be an exchange. So exchanges that are already established and have the most volume are going to be far more useful than those that aren't. There is a network effect at play here: everyone tries to sell on the most established exchanges and a p2p exchange would need to someone win those customers to be competitive.

tl; dr, true p2p exchange is dead.

I saw the CEO during the Barcelona Blockchain Week. He confirmed it.

It is very sad.

An exchange which never touches customer funds (neither BTC nor fiat) and therefore has no legal liability, as well as being global and uncensorable seems absolutely necessary to make Bitcoin more resilient.

The good news is that even if Coinffeine (the company) disappears, their software still works. It just needs users.

I urge anyone who can to get the code for v. 0.12.0 from github, compile it, run a couple of peers and try a few transactions. https://github.com/Coinffeine/coinffeine

Can anyone confirm this or not??

Wow. This is sad. I didn't know anything about them shutting down, it's a pity because they put in so much good work.

How do you know this? It doesn't mention it any where on their blog.

Coinffeine (the company) is shutting down, as often happens with startups. However the software is open source and distributed, so it can work even if its creators disappear as long as there are a couple of peers running it.

They have taken down the download links on the website:   http://coinffeine.com/download.html

...but the last version 0.12.0 is on github:
https://github.com/Coinffeine/coinffeine

Yeah in theory, 3 is not that bad at all... With circle it takes usually 3-4 days to get coins in and that's business days too.  20 minutes is not bad at all compared to other exchanges.  I've just heard about this though, where would one go to download the app? Is the program still in beta?

I think you addressed all the major reasons for Coinffeine not getting too much traction. If 2 and 4 are being worked on that's great news. The time it takes (3) is the other issue I've heard but 20 minutes is not that bad. I heard it was hours or days. Installing a desktop app is not a problem at all.

We still very much need a decentralised p2p exchange which does not touch user BTC or $. We still need an exchange that is global, distributed and uncensorable.

It is easy to forget that most of the early Bitcoin exchanges were hacked, went broke or ran off with user funds.

Apparently Coinffeine is closing shop.


Hopefully somebody will pick up where they left off and make some use of their open source software to build a fully functional, liquid decentralised exchange.

The good thing about open source projects is that they can survive the company that started them. Let's hope that this is what happens here:

https://github.com/Coinffeine/coinffeine

Then I don't understand what they intend to use. I guess we'll have to wait from somebody from Coinffeine to come out with an official announcement...

No, it will not work. Even "Send money to friends or family" is revertible, I assure you.