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Topic: Official Gox / CoinLab Integration and Transition FAQ - page 11. (Read 20799 times)

full member
Activity: 141
Merit: 100
The killer app for a Bitcoin exchange would be...

The killer app for a Bitcoin exchange would be to always show the correct "Last price" on their home page, a feature that I would like to see come to MtGox soon:



Will the Gox / CoinLab integration also include this "feature?"


It's funny you say that, the data feed issue is a big one, actually. All I can say is we're working hard on this with Gox, and I feel your need.
full member
Activity: 141
Merit: 100
Re: Nefario,

I think I can fairly characterize our decision as deciding to drop any plans to move ahead with him after he was barred entry in the states. Smiley

Re: Tihan, he invested in us first, we looked at Bitcoinica (and Tradehill) at CoinLab and passed on investing/buying/running them for a variety of reasons.

Also, it's weird to see video of oneself, but the linked youtube video up there is me; I'm much, much more excited about Bitcoins, though Smiley


legendary
Activity: 4592
Merit: 1276
So Petter Vessenes is the CEO of Coinlab and Executive Director of the Bitcoin Foundation ?

Am I the only one that think these roles should be held by different persons ?

I doubt that you are.  But the simple fact of the matter is that unless you are a core Bitcoin developer or a high tiered member of the Bitcoin Foundation, your only practical option is to suck it.

Most people who spoke up about the Bitcoin Foundation when it was in request for comment stage were fully in support of it and by extension, of it's goals of taking Bitcoin mainstream.  So forward we march.

hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 1000
Here's a video of what I think is Peter Wessenes. I also think he has a father with the same name, but a different middle initial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7S9aK22ld0

To me, he seems a bit high strung as a person, and from what I could find from google, he's helped starting a dozen different businesses?

Look how he's constantly moving around in that video, like he can't sit still. Will he have a long term involvement with CoinLab and bitcoin in general, or will he jump to a new exciting project in a couple of years ?

According to Bitcoin 2013: Brown University with an Sc.B. in Theoretical Mathematics, and an emphasis in cryptography.

That in itself sounds impressive.

And also, why's Tihan Seale invested in CoinLab, didn't he lose enough in the Bitcoinica scandal ? And what about Nefario, why did Peter Wessenes and Mike Koss want to work with him ?

http://www.geekwire.com/2011/coinlab-center-bitcoin-projects-created-seattle/

Are these guys to be trusted, or are we looking into a new clusterfuck to happen ?
sr. member
Activity: 462
Merit: 250
So Petter Vessenes is the CEO of Coinlab and Executive Director of the Bitcoin Foundation ?

Am I the only one that think these roles should be held by different persons ?

No you're not.

If mtgox does this move, its clearly they're confident they're the best and only exchange.


hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 1000
So Petter Vessenes is the CEO of Coinlab and Executive Director of the Bitcoin Foundation ?

Am I the only one that think these roles should be held by different persons ?
legendary
Activity: 4592
Merit: 1276
...
Probably my concerns are unwarranted, but we need to ask ourselves hard questions.

I tend to feel that in most cases like this the answer is not knowable to a high degree of confidence.

My personal strategy is to assume the worst and make what use I can of things under that assumption.

legendary
Activity: 1400
Merit: 1009
Perhaps it's time to move your coins away from MtGox at this point ?
Why would you ever leave bitcoins in an account somewhere instead of in a wallet under your exclusive control?
legendary
Activity: 1750
Merit: 1007
My main questions which weren't answered in the post:

1) How will this transition effect withdrawal limits?
2) How will this transition effect the verification process?
3) How will this transition effect users which have already gone through the verification process with MtGox?
4) Will this transition remove the ability to use Dwolla for withdrawals?
4b) If it is removed, is there going to be a similar virtually free withdrawal method ($0.25 at any size is tough to beat)?
hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 1000
Has anyone done any extensive background checking on this Peter Vessenes guy ?

What was his motives of going to Japan to 'audit' the MtGox systems ?

How and why has he befriended Mark Karples into giving up control of 80% of the MtGox liquidity ?

Why couldn't CoinLab make their own exchange ?

Now, with the Bitcoin Foundation and MtGox operating 80% on US soil, this doesn't look too good.

We all know that if the US Govt for whatever reason dislike the activities of Coinlab/MtGox, they'll shut them down in a heartbeat and block all customer funds virtually indefinately.

Perhaps it's time to move your coins away from MtGox at this point ?

What guarantees do we have that this is going to turn out well ?

The scary thing is that if there's some SilkRoad investigation or IRS investigation, the customers of MtGox will know absolutely nothing, and the customer data will probably be gone in bulk.

Probably my concerns are unwarranted, but we need to ask ourselves hard questions.
legendary
Activity: 1064
Merit: 1001
full member
Activity: 144
Merit: 101
Is this the reason Mt. Gox decided to no longer deal with US customers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Account_Tax_Compliance_Act

Also, how did storing funds abroad prevent larger investors from purchasing coins?
legendary
Activity: 1064
Merit: 1001
The killer app for a Bitcoin exchange would be...

The killer app for a Bitcoin exchange would be to always show the correct "Last price" on their home page, a feature that I would like to see come to MtGox soon:



Will the Gox / CoinLab integration also include this "feature?"
legendary
Activity: 4592
Merit: 1276

I am sensitive to the potential for you guys to shut down and retain all of my sensitive identification data.  At that point there would be little reason not to go ahead and sell it for market value.  I have the same concern about Mt. Gox and any other exchange which is why I have yet to use them in a way which demands high quality documentation.  Nor have I allowed them to sucker me into needing to do so.

My hope is that there is some program by which you could make an 'API call' to Fincen or whoever for authorization to move USD around on my behalf (and in particular, to send it to me.)  I don't know much about how these surveillance organizations are structured or are evolving, but I would rather prove to the government that I am who I am than prove it to a private organization, and particularly one who operates in Bitcoin-land.  I feel that the government already has my information and tracks my financial activities so in that case I am giving little away.

legendary
Activity: 1400
Merit: 1009
The killer app for a Bitcoin exchange would be to give customers an account number they can use for ACH push transactions and direct deposit.
full member
Activity: 141
Merit: 100
Reserved
full member
Activity: 141
Merit: 100
Hi guys,

I'll update the head with salient bullets and we'll try and stay on top of questions as they come up in the thread as well.

Let me start about by saying some bloggers have one thing really wrong so far, I seriously respect Gox' hard work on security and uptime and anti-fraud. Most of you have no idea how hard this is, and how well Gox does. The kind of attacks they withstand, social engineering, technical, financial, legal are non-trivial. I don't expect that CoinLab can or should be set up to duplicate that effort; we wanted to team up together because we can offer something that I think will turn that baseline into lots of value for our whole community.

How Will It Work? I've gotten a bunch of questions about this -- APIs, deposit mechanisms, web interface, etc.

In brief, on March 22, nothing about your interactions will change. You'll log in to Gox, do your trading, and go home. You might notice some rebranding on the website. You'll see a different wire-to address for instructions.

Your USD will be in the states at that point, and you'll be able to send to our SVB account for deposits. More about the bitcoins below.

We'll also be using something like trade.coinlab.com as the mtgox interface, at launch. We will be rolling out more features on our site, (beta.trade.coinlab.com?) incrementally and aim at a nicely UI-designed easy to work with site. To do that we'll be instrumenting the Gox site at some point, and figuring out how you all use it. Right now our analytics are fine from a marketing point of view, but we need to get better at knowing how you all use the site, and how we can make it better.

I don't trust CoinLab's Bitcoin or Web Security One thing we're exploring right now internally is leaving the Bitcoins with Gox at launch, and moving them over once we're sure we've got a battle-hardened high transaction volume system in place. Gox is happy either way, so I'm interested in feedback on this. We have a highly secure (I think best in class) storage system we're about to roll out, but it trades rapid response for security, and that won't work for all Gox customers, for sure.

As Mark and others at Gox know, we have a lot of respect for the work they've done. I have no intention of hurting customers by yanking that work; instead, we want to layer on top of it.

Deposit Timeliness
This should improve, if your customer profile is low risk. At the very least, you will be able to deposit at a US bank, rather than wire to Japan. We're doing our first run-throughs of the system at SVB next week with a few early adopters, and that will lead to more details as to what you can expect, but we did take a deposit today and cleared it onto the trading account in 30 minutes, so that's nice!

Often customers who complain on bitcointalk about delays have triggered some risk system at Gox; I can't go into detail, but let me just say, there are many, many bad folks who want to use the exchange. Some of them happily take their complaints here without explaining that they are using, say, fake documents, or are lying about one thing or another.

I credit Gox with simultaneously wading through these folks and trying to give legit customers a good experience, especially because it can hurt reputation to see these folks in the forums, and of course, given the nature of risk management systems, Gox cannot explain publicly why Jane identity thief in Serbia is not allowed to use the system.

I'm hoping we'll be able to communicate better with new customers and existing ones to sort of settle people down if they're freaking out, and meantime get legit and longtime customer transactions through at high speed; I know that will help. It's tough to watch the price move and be delayed, and have it be working hours in the states, and midnight in Japan.

How will this transition effect withdrawal limits?
Good question. At launch it won't effect withdrawal limits. The history of withdrawal limits has to do with some FinCEN rules about transaction size. We've registered with FinCEN as a seller of prepaid access, they do not distinguish MSBs that sell prepaid access by transaction size, so I would hope we'll see our way clear to increasing these limits or doing away with them.

There's also a risk-mitigation factor -- we'll probably always have a human look at large transactions going out. Think of the different attacks over the last few years and how many would have had little impact if there were systems to block large wallet transfers.

How will this transition effect the verification process?
My hope is that it will drastically improve the process in terms of simplicity, ease of understanding, communication about the process and shortening of wait times. We've been batting around figuring out how to just do it on a video camera live, how awesome would that be?

How will this transition effect users [that] have already gone through the verification process with MtGox?
We are still spot auditing Gox' AML documents to make sure they are up to our promised standards. If they are, (and I have no indication they are anything but excellent), I would expect that users would stay at the same verification level you have now. TL;DR: Hopefully, once is enough. Smiley

Will this transition remove the ability to use Dwolla for withdrawals?
No. It is possible we'll have a small delay while we make sure we're comfortable with the Dwolla withdrawal API, we're still talking to the Dwolla folks right now. That said, we want to support Dwolla, and Dwolla wants to work with us, so I don't anticipate major changes. I agree that once you've got the accounts set up, the fees at Dwolla are rocking.

Is Peter Vessenes twitchy and high energy?
I think so. I'll ask employees for comments. Update General Response is "yes."

Did Mark sell my personal data to CoinLab without my $#!$ permission?
Quoting Mark: "MtGox did not sell users identities, and acted in the best interest of its users to ensure CoinLab had no access to said data.  None of users private information will be shared with CoinLab until the user accepts CoinLab's ToS on the site. If you choose to never accept CoinLab's ToS, then your data will never be shared with CoinLab."

Will My History be available post transition?
Yes, you'll still be able to log in and see all the same data.

More Coming
Our folks will start slotting in questions here, and I'll respond throughout the day; from here on out, I will try to not respond to other threads about the transition, and just keep everything here, so post away.
Thanks for all the support so far! We're all really excited.

Peter Vessenes
CEO, CoinLab
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