Definitely interesting. Could you elaborate on your motivation? It seems you want to do this "just" to bring bitcoin forward? Or any other background?
Our motivation is really to bring more people to Bitcoin. See below:
nice
Thank you. We think it is nice too.
@ SEAL LINK:Sorry for doubting you, but I recommend you look into it a lot more seriously. The last thing we need is another exchange set up who will go bust. Read up about chargebacks and the relevant bank accounts required. You will notice that their services for what you want to provide for your clients will not come cheap, or easily. Most of the exchanges that have gone bust, have done so because of chargebacks. This is one of the main reasons for brokers requiring verification.
Thank you for your opinion Seal Link. We have taken the risks into consideration and are only currently accepting ONE payment method which is reversible (easily). However, we have sidestepped that issue already using a series of dummy PayPal accounts. PayPal might not like it, but we are not breaking their T/S and if PayPal is to point the finger at anyone, it should be the fraudsters, not BitAvenue.
As for verification, we are willing to take that risk and possible pay for it too if it means our userbase can remain anonymous, the way Satoshi designed Bitcoin to be. Also, we are accepting PayPal because we KNOW it will expand the userbase of Bitcoin.
Also, if you do get short-changed. Who will pay the price if you do not collect any fees? What if your BTC float (or worse, your offline wallet) is compromised, who will pay the price for that? Most of us who have thought about setting up our own exchange have weighed the pro's and con's. Even with a 0.65% charge on each trade, the profit you will get on a moderate trade volume will not justify the effort required and the costs incurred.
In the event that someone takes advantage of the service we are offering and 'rips us off' so to speak, I will be the one footing the bill. We are not after profits on this venture. Our model is based on the belief that anyone should be able to buy and sell Bitcoins easily WITHOUT having to pay for the privilege to do so.
Do banks charge us to use Visa? No.
A few questions:
How much are you investing into this project?
Whats in it for you, personally?
Our current capital base is $23,000. BitAvenue has been number crunching and we believe it can cover the costs of building the website, our own mining Pool (My favourite part) paying for hosting costs, and doing some moderate advertising. We will also be accepting donations once our site is up and running.
Personally, I have the satisfaction that I have created something useful. To some it sounds cliché, but our goal is to have people look at BitAvenue and develop a positive association towards it as many people do towards non-profit organizations. We aim to expand the userbase of Bitcoin. Mt. Gox and Intersango are not ideal in terms of 'user-friendliness'.
1) They charge fees
2) They are not completely transparent
3) They require verification of identity for certain transactions
And a pointer: Intersango's code is open source, it contains a very powerful and capable trading engine which supports multiple currencys. If you are serious about this then you should consider using it.
We have been taking a look at that. I have also been in contact with BitInstant's founders and their dev team MIGHT take a look at writing our website.
(on a side note, you have a typo: you put down GBD as a supported currency)
Thanks you.