It is currently impossible, yes, however, we are working with the leading digital currency compliance company and are in the process of establishing relationships with a number of banks. When it is possible, we will be at the top of the list.

I completely agree regarding the UK and SA. We are looking into both now along with India and Africa.

This is brilliant to advertise 1% and get most people including me to believe it.

Matt, do you have any sort of estimate for what % of the money flowing into bitcoin is coming from the US? I would make sure to get cozy with some gox or bitstamp employees and try to get them to tell you a ballpark to make better decisions about target markets. This is just a wild guess, but it seems to me that well over half of it is coming from the US, excluding markets with capital controls like China. Maybe even something like 75%.

You might consider just licensing the exchange software and partner with people in various countries who have the necessary connections to get banking partners in countries where the only option to get bitcoins is to do a wire. Having a bank account in local currency gives a huge edge over competition, since domestic transfers are usually very cheap or free. However, I guess I should note that this doesn't seem to be helping the Brazilian exchange very much, despite a market of 200m people with capital controls.

Vancouver based Bex.io might beat you to it though:
http://www.paymentssource.com/news/b...3014759-1.html

Honestly the exchange space just looks completely screwed to me. The people who bring value are the ones who can recruit banking and compliance partners since they are all scared of the uncertainty. People who can recruit huge capital to park in bank accounts to keep the banks happy are good too. Actually building the exchange is worthless. People seem fine with using exchanges with crappy trade engines, security holes, etc. ZhouTong wrote bitcoinica in 5 days using ruby on rails.

I would also be careful of the exchange space because there are a lot of places ready to enter soon that have serious backing. I know of at least one, and I'm sure there are several more. VC wants into this space, especially because having more convenient exchanges will the fastest thing to raise the price of Bitcoin, which many VC firms that are getting into this space will be holding Bitcoins, so setting up these businesses don't even need to be that big of a success if they raise the price.

The days of small-time exchanges are over, and unless you have some serious connections and money, it's not a game I would get into. At least in major markets like the US. If you are trying to get into under-served places, it's another story.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterfer...lnerability/2/

Too bad the article derails to goldbug afterwards, but still a nice article imo.

seth, when you say Coinbase must have a great anti-fraud team to avoid being scammed, what exactly are you referring to here?

Actually the whole article is typical goldbug drab and vague prophecy that they've been saying for 100 years, here's the relevant part to this thread:

There used to be an online currency called e-gold and it ended up being shutdown for legal reasons. It had physical backing in gold, and was formed outside the US. That, amongst many other recent reasons that have come to light, make me wildly bearish on bitcoin exchanges, and many things about bitcoin as a whole. A lot of new exchanges have opened up as of late with some cool ideas though and a lot of money backing them so I guess we'll just have to wait and see whether or not the government wins this time. Agree with others that coinbase is basically impossible to compete in the US with on so many levels.

e-gold was run by a central authority for a start so not sure if it's a fair comparison with BTC. I'm sure there's a host of other crucial differences as well someone who knows more about it could say

The one thing I don't like about coinbase is you can't sell btc and keep the cash on their so you can buy back without having to have money coming in and out of your bank account.

What's that matter when you get coins credited instantly when you buy, and when you sell the money is in your account next day? If you sell, and then want to buy them back 10 min later you can just do it and it will come out fine in your bank account. I think if anything this is a huge positive because coinbase doesn't hold huge cash balances that are at risk unlike mt gox.

Only if you get instant verification. For some reason, I cannot get CB to verify me, I even get into the secondary questions, all answered correctly and nothing. My only issue with CB is how they basically refuse to assist with that process..don't offer, if you won't assist.

True.. I retract my complaint!

When I've had a few pops I like to bang this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pID03RrmKow

Then I always pull the trigger and buy some more!

perhaps relevant to your interests and an interesting listen no doubt:

buttercoin ceo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySTnH...tailpage#t=390

A bit off topic, but how is coinbase able to take money from your account, I guess the same as any bill pay service like my credit card and mortgage. What would happen if someone hacked coinbase or coinbase went rogue, could they just withdraw 50k out of my bank account and I'm sol?

ACH's can be clawed back in a certain period of time or even cancelled right as they happen if you are able to show proof that they were hacked/went rogue.

[IMG]http://s11.************/awaew7fpf/9_CYQFOR77_tztv_Jrpiy65_Pz_U1q09_L2_Siv_G37g0_Ol_O D4.png[/IMG]

Mining = dead money

While I think half of those won't deliver or deliver very late I do agree that mining is dead for the people without xxx.xxx budgets.

So are these guys banking on a massive increase in bitcoin value? How could they possibly justify the investment?

http://blockchain.info/tx/4ed20e0768...2afba8c8554537

And does anyone have a blog or twitter they recommend for bitcoin news/analysis?

These people do not justify their investments. They think "look at difficulty now, FREE MONEY!!!" and buy ASICs. These are not savvy investors or businessmen, they are a lot of times morons who got lucky being in the right time and right place and got bailed out of their stupid decisions in the past by something that mitigated their risk (price increase), whereas if they were banking on price increases, they were better off buying and holding the damn coins up front.

News sites:
http://coindesk.com
http://bitcoinexaminer.org/
http://thegenesisblock.com
http://forexmagnates.com/category/bitcoin-2/

Blogs:
https://btcglobal.net/blog
http://blog.coinsetter.com/

Matt, sounds good. Everyone is just getting hung up on compliance. Coinsetter and Kraken said they could have launched during the bitcoin2013 conference. All they are doing is waiting on regulatory stuff.

I am not aware of any site that estimates the source of wire transfers to bitcoin exchanges. Are you sure you saw this data? The only way they could get that data to make an estimate is from the exchange operators, and I don't recall that information being in the Mtgox transparency report.

would you buy Block Eruptor at 0.19btc/u if you didn't pay electricity ?

absolutely not (for profit). for education, ya its prolly worth buying 1 and setting it up.

http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator
Coins Dollars
per Day ฿0.00 $0.30
per Week ฿0.02 $2.13
per Month ฿0.08 $9.27

when difficulty goes up 100% in a month, you gotta adjust your projections