Thanks for setting up a gateway!
I want to exchange BTC for BitBTC. Let's assume I trust your centralized gateway not to just keep my BTC after I send first.
How many BitBTC are available?
Which exchange will you be passing larger orders through on when you run out?
What is the expected time after you receive BTC (0-confirmations) before you send BitBTC?
What security measures have you implemented? Is this an auto-exchange with your private keys held online? Do you have a small hot wallet and keep most funds in cold storage?
What is your business model to assure us you will remain profitable and keep the service running?
What jurisdiction are you based in?
If this business grows, will you plan to seek licensing?
Are you aware of the problems that will arise when trying to implement a service that "sends funds to the address they came from?" To name one: if you send from any third-party service, such as an exchange, you will typically not control the address the bitcoins appear to come from, so any payment back to that address (on another blockchain in this case) will be sent to the third-party service, who will not likely be easily able to link them to your account (especially since they almost certainly do not have their BTC private keys imported into a BTS wallet). It is highly recommended to implement the service properly, by requiring the user to specify the receiving address for BitBTC (TITAN name, preferably). Also a refund address in case you need to cancel their order for any reason. I recognize the simplicity of using the same privkey for 2 networks, but for usability it's probably a non-starter. You should also generate a new BTC address on your side for each transaction.
Good questions!
How many BitBTC are available?
Right now this gateway is beta mode for testing purposes, as such only 0.5BTC on each side are available and the maximum transaction size is 0.01BTC. This is because we are in public test mode and will change when we are fully operational.
Which exchange will you be passing larger orders through on when you run out?
This has not been decided yet, we have a number of things to consider before we can finalise.
What is the expected time after you receive BTC (0-confirmations) before you send BitBTC?
1 confirmation
What security measures have you implemented? Is this an auto-exchange with your private keys held online? Do you have a small hot wallet and keep most funds in cold storage?
As we are in test mode we don't have hot/cold wallet arrangement, but we will move to such a set up in production mode.
What is your business model to assure us you will remain profitable and keep the service running?
We have a couple of options here, again not totally finalised. One is to implement a spread on the buy/sell prices, another is to keep BTC/bitBTC spread and charge free and implement charges on other features in the pipeline, such as different markets.
What jurisdiction are you based in?
UK / Germany
If this business grows, will you plan to seek licensing?
We would like to acquire the relevant licences for a fiat gateway in the future.
Are you aware of the problems that will arise when trying to implement a service that "sends funds to the address they came from?"
Indeed - the production version of our gateway will remove the need for this concession.
Cheers, Paul.