It's been a busy month here at TradeHill. Here's what's new:
1) Bitcoin.com Here's the big one: In the coming weeks we're going to roll out a beta of our new wallet and merchant services on Bitcoin.com. Our goal with Bitcoin.com is to make Bitcoin more accessible to everyone in the world by developing an ultra-simple set of Bitcoin services. What good is an exchange when currently most people can't use their Bitcoins in a safe and easy fashion?
We know that Bitcoin.com is a big opportunity, and we're not taking it lightly. We really want to get this right. As such we're very keen on not repeating the mistakes of other wallet services and exchanges. In the past two months we've heavily invested into security, talent and infrastructure to make sure we stay the one major Bitcoin site without any security incidents.
As such, we're not quite ready for testing with the public at large, but we're preparing for a staggered roll-out to our core customers in the coming weeks. During this time, we're also intending to keep an open dialogue with the wider community - we want your input on how we can help Bitcoin succeed. Get in touch with us at
[email protected] for anything related to bitcoin.com and the future.
If you want to be among the first to try the new site, sign up for the beta waitlist at
http://bitcoin.com/. We'll make sure existing TradeHill customers get the first seats.
2) TradeHill Of course we're also continuing development on the TradeHill side of things as well. TradeHill will soon receive a full facelift and run on our new architecture, which we're hoping to build out into the most professional trading site you could wish for. Bear with us, first the new site and then later the toolchest for automated and professional trading.
3) EngineeringHaving seen the recent disastrous consequences of under-engineering at other bitcoin services, we've focused on security and resilience instead of outward-facing features.
This was a tough call for us because it meant falling behind a bit on visible updates. We think that time will show that this was the right decision, and that you need good infrastructure to earn trust.
As part of our engineering efforts we've hired new engineers and significantly upgraded our tech infrastructure. At all times we are now running on two server clusters at independent datacenters in different countries. One of these clusters acts as a hot spare to which we can immediately switch over in the event there are any problems at the primary data center. We, of course, religiously back up all data to an additional set of independent data centers.
Only two of our engineers have access to any production servers and we have emergency measures in place to prevent the theft or loss of any large quantity of Bitcoins (beyond what we can cover using reserves) even under the most adverse of circumstances.
4) InvestmentNext, we'd like to reiterate that we're extremely committed to making Bitcoin big - we're in this for the long run. To do this, we've just reached agreement with new investors which will allow us to continue growing our team, improving our infrastructure, and helping Bitcoin succeed. TradeHill is here to stay and we're just getting started.
5) Site FeedbackWe take all feedback seriously and we are very well aware of a number of improvements we need to make to our services. Most of our recent technical development has been focused on behind-the-scenes infrastructure that we need to power the new services we're going to launch over the coming weeks. However, we soon intend to catch up on the needed changes. We've listened to your input, and we're anxiously awaiting the day when we can launch the features and improvements that you want.
6) Payment OptionsWe have been hard at work on adding more payment options for our users and we are happy to announce a new partnership with BitInstant. BitInstant allows you to instantly transfer funds between exchanges such as MtGox and TradeHill. BitInstant is currently in a closed beta right now, but you can learn more at
http://bitinstant.com/. This is one of the many payment options we'll be rolling out in the next few weeks.
7) HiringWe're still hiring. If Bitcoin excites you, please get in touch! We're especially interested in good designers. Please contact
[email protected]8 ) USD WiresWe are again accepting USD wires both domestic and international. See this blog post for more details:
http://tradehillblog.com/2011/08/16/usd-domestic-and-international-wire-transfers-are-available-again/9) Professional TradersWe have special deals for high volume traders. Please contact us.
10) Bitcoin ConferenceWe'll be attending the Bitcoin Conference in New York this weekend. See you there!
That's it from us for the week!
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