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Topic: BTCinch Merchant Services and Wallet - page 2. (Read 2257 times)

legendary
Activity: 1008
Merit: 1023
Democracy is the original 51% attack
August 29, 2011, 02:31:34 PM
#2
Awesome, great work! Thank you for the update.
sr. member
Activity: 316
Merit: 250
August 29, 2011, 02:15:51 PM
#1
Hello everyone,

It has been a while since I've been on the forum, but I wanted to publish a BTCinch update here. I'll answer the questions posed in the linked post, as well as provide a status update.

Congratulations Ira on the launch of your new site!  Excellent interview on OnlyOneTv.

1.  what bank do you plan on using for ACH?  
2.  when you say you don't charge merchants for converting btwn BTC and USD how can you profitably do this given your immediate need to buy/sell via the exchanges?  if BTC gets volatile again i would worry about you getting caught like the Madhatter did with eMansipator.   http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=8258.0;all
3.  do you plan on offering an online widget?
4.  how can you legally act like a Dwolla or Paypal?
5.  doesn't ACH limit you to US tx's?
6.  how do you plan to transmit fiat cash to foreigners?  wire, check?

Fees and Services (Qs 2, 3)
BTCinch does not charge transaction fees, but does charge a small conversion fee. I said on the show that the only fee in our service is the conversion rate, but that is incorrect. We will charge monthly fees for premium services (better exchange rate, invoicing tools, etc.). Basic accounts will be free to use, and we will monetize by taking a small percentage for converting BTC to USD. If you are a store or an individual and never convert BTC to USD or opt for premium services, BTCinch will be entirely free to use.

We built a trade-bot which communicates and trades on multiple exchanges in near real-time. It is obviously impossible to always stay ahead of the market, but the bot has performed well for 7 weeks of testing. We'll continue to improve on it, and are confident that it will perform well. Through use of the BTCinch trade-bot, we manage our own market exposure, and protect against situations like Bitcoin4Cash encountered.

Withdrawal Methods (Qs 1, 5, 6)
BTCinch uses US Bank for our pooled USD account, and ACH transactions. We currently only send ACH transactions to the US, though I believe that Canadian banks also use ACH. We have plans to integrate withdrawal methods for other currencies, but are focusing on the US market for our launch.

Legal (Q 4)
BTCinch LLC is registered in Nevada, and we intend to follow all requirements to operate as a general money-services company. We have been assured that our current legal status is sufficient to operate as planned until we grow significantly larger. If you have any more legal questions about using BTCinch, PM me.

Current Status
We are pushing forward with live testing on a very aggressive schedule. The feedback and interest we received at the conference were incredible, and we're trying to take care of all of the requests before our new transaction server arrives in 2-3 weeks. Until the server is up, we are not recommending BTCinch for time-sensitive transactions, as there can be delays.

We're working with various merchants to test and improve a variety of core services. A brief status update follows for each.

In Person Checkout
Received a ton of interest in our In Person Checkout system, and are setting up a few stores to try it out. We're ordering personalized, We Accept Bitcoin QR codes for those merchants helping us test. Expect to see these pop up around Denver and NYC over the next few weeks.

osCommerce Plugin
Working perfectly, and currently in use on bitmunchies.com. If it continues to behave well in testing, we'll release the code publicly on Oct. 1, 2011.

Zen-cart Plugin
Completed, and undergoing unit tests. If you requested to test our zen-cart plugin, please be patient a little longer. We've been busy dealing with the transaction server and the conference, so it isn't quite ready. I expect to send the plugin to our beta testers this week, and release the code publicly on Oct. 1, 2011.

OpenCart Plugin
The OpenCart plugin is under development, and should be ready for testing by Sept. 2nd. OpenCart is the most requested plugin, so we're prioritizing it. Hopefully, the volume of OpenCart transactions should shorten the test schedule, but it may be the second or third week of Oct. before we're ready to release it to the public.

Magento Plugin
A Magento plugin is on the development schedule for next week. It should be ready for testing by Sept. 9th.

If you have a site and are interested in helping us test one of the above options, let me know, and I'll send you the respective plugin.

Time-line
Aug. 29th - Sept. 9th integrate requests from conference, continue testing In Person Checkout, Zen-cart plugin, and osCommerce plugin. Release OpenCart and Magento plugins for beta testing.
Sept. 12th - 23rd Set up production servers and cold-storage systems. Last stage required for launch.
Sept. 26th - 30th Finish beta test phase and assess launch readiness.
Oct. 1 Open registration to the public, and release plugin code.

That answers most of the questions we've been receiving, but please respond with anything I missed. I will follow this topic, and provide updates here.

Ira Miller
CTO - BTCinch LLC
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