Evercoin: A cryptocurrency exchange platform | Hacker News Reader

Evercoin: A cryptocurrency exchange platform

evercoin.com

134 pointsmcone74 comments

Oh, so it's like https://shapeshift.io/ except subject to the arbitrary and Orwellian US financial regulations!

All jokes aside, I'm not knocking Evercoin. It looks beautiful and I welcome anyone and everyone who wants to bring liquidity to crypto markets. I'm just concerned about the sustainability of any platform based in the US. Maybe Evercoin knows something I don't though.

I feel like the smartest thing we can do is exactly what Bitfinex has done. Shut out US customers and put pressure on regulators to be sensible.

Shapeshift is very convenient but the fees are exorbitant compared to other platforms.

And Evercoin's fees are even higher.

I just tried placing an order and Evercoin's fees appear to be significantly lower.

Shapeshift: 1 BTC -> 14.20477011 ETH

Evercoin: 1 BTC -> 14.25967407 ETH

Changelly: 1 BTC -> 14.35434362 ETH

While Changelly appears to have the best rate they don't guarantee the rate. In my experience the actual rate is often much worse than the estimated rate (and unfortunately it's too late to cancel once you see the rate).

I was originally testing BCC to BTC, so it looks like it depends upon what you are exchanging:

Shapeshift: 1 BCC -> 0.06773499 BTC

Evercoin: 1 BCC -> 0.06682701 BTC

Maybe someone should build a Kayak for Bitcoin exchanges, that picks the cheapest exchange for each trade...

That thought definitely crossed my mind...

Writing the formula for you

1) pick the cheapest exchange 2) sell at expensive exchange price 3) add commission 4) add network fees

The formula is more complicated than this. Services such as shapeshift.io guarantee the price for 10 minutes, as well as sending purchased tokens almost instantaneously. To accomplish this means keeping inventory and becoming vulnerable to volatility risk and liquidity risk.

Picking a reasonable bid-ask spread is hard, and probably involves more input factors than the 4 you listed above.

They're all going away after cross-chain atomic swaps become THE thing.

Yes. XCAT is definitely the way forward for transactions that involve only XCAT-compatible chains. Especially as it can be implemented either in a pure P2P fashion or with trustless exchanges, resulting in zero or very low fees.

The gambling industry tried that ~10 years ago, but it's still very difficult to gamble online with a us bank account, so I'm not sure how well it worked.

Pick your poison I guess. Skimming Shapeshift's T&Cs, it seems their maximum liability to you is $50. So if you want to convert 1BTC to ETH (for example) and something goes wrong at Shapeshift's end and they don't transmit ETH back to you, the best you can hope for out of them is $50. They also put you on the hook for uncapped admin fees at their discretion.

Finally, there's no company info in their T&Cs (just a vague mention that they are incorporated in Zug, Switzerland).

So... all dandy when it works. Pretty scary if shit goes wrong and you were doing a largish trade at the time.

Edit: I have no affiliation with Evercoin or Shapeshift (learnt about both in this thread)

>> except subject to the arbitrary and Orwellian US financial regulations!

abiding by those seems to be the only recipe for long term. Otherwise you're talking about living in interesting times. Never know when or how they come for you

Widespread global liquidity on an in invisible commodity that has high demand all across the world is a complete game changer.

In the very long run, I think state funded consumer protection organizations will become obsolete. I only hope we can educate consumers as quickly as we've created the networks. Otherwise, a lot of people will get hurt.

Either way we live in interesting times.

When you say consumer protection, you mean the SEC?

How does crypto make the SEC go away? If you want to live in the US, sure you could have a computer in your closet on a VPN running an exchange, but all of that needs to be on the books when you need to write a check to your kids private school.

I think it's more likely there will continue to be a black market and a white market. The black market will be bigger, and easier to use undetected. But you still will need to launder that money if you want to pay for your daughters ski trip. And not everybody has an appetite for felonies. The market of people who would prefer not to commit a felony is quite large actually.

What am I missing? How do you picture a world without an SEC?

The only way I can imagine is is if other muncipalities without as much regulation can show cryptocontracts can provide insurance that is so good and cheap the regulatory bodies are proved unnecessary, then that puts competitive pressure on more regulated economies. But... Fraud is a Hegelian arms race for the hearts and minds of naive investors. I just don't see how crypto contracts solve that, not in the next 100 years anyway. Maybe when teenagers are doing ICOs to pay for their lattes.

Btc-e was was not based in the US and see what happened?

I don't actually. Tell me what you think happened with BTC-E. I'm aware of the recent headlines but I feel like it's way too early to know the whole story.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/russian-national-and-bi...

Also: https://www.reddit.com/r/BTCE/comments/6tlkme/update_6/

As others have noted, this is a clone of https://shapeshift.io/. Clones are fine: it's possible that evercoin does something different/better than shapeshift. What is not fine is the apparent lack of transparency in fees [0]. evercoin says that they charge both exchange and miner fees but do not specify either; just because they include the fees in the final price does not mean they do not exist. Compare this to shapeshift [1], which only charges a miner fee, specifying exactly what that fee is.

[0] - from their FAQ (https://evercoin.com/faq):

> How about fees?

> Let's assume Evercoin tells you that you will receive 7.55 LTC for depositing 1 ETH. All fees (our fee and miner/blockchain fee) are all baked into our pricing so there is no additional fee. That means if we receive -exactly- 1 ETH then you will get -exactly- 7.55 LTC in your LTC wallet. No playing with the numbers, no surprises.

[1] - from https://info.shapeshift.io/about:

>With ShapeShift, what you see is what you get. The exchange rate shown is exactly what you'll receive, minus only the "miner fee." There is no exchange fee, or service fee.

> [fee schedule follows]

It sounds like using Foreign-exchange with an ATM card - there's no explicit fee except the conversion rate is adjusted to work in the bank's favor as a cut of the total amount transfered.

I'm pretty sure Shapeshit charges a fee (spread).

They do and explain as much in their FAQs.

It doesn't matter. At the end of the day, all you care about is the exchange rate (e) for the number of tokens you send (x) and the number of tokens you get (y). i.e (x/y = e)

The way the exchange determines this rate is entirely upto them. If it's too high, go somewhere else.. but no exchange is required to disclose how they derived their rate. Just because one did, doesn't mean it's any better than the other.

If the e(shapeshift) < e(evercoin), I'd go for Shapeshift, or vice-versa.

In the real world, I wouldn't expect a money-exchange at the airport to include a full breakdown of their costs on their exchange schedule.

Actually, in most of the world money exchangers are required by law to state if they charge flat fees/commissions/etc on top of exchange rates, and having "NO FEES/COMMISSIONS" is an advertising point.

So it looks like Evercoin is in the "NO FEES" camp, which would usually mean crummier rates for larger sums, and Shapeshift is in the fee camp, again usually meaning you take a hit on small sums but get better rates for larger sums. (Note that I'm not sure if this is actually the case.)

This seems so wacky to me. Are you guys seriously going to start sending thousands of dollars in currency through some random website with a marketing page and a blog?

Welcome to the "new normal" in crypto-currency. There's so much money floating around it ends up everywhere.

You just described 90% of online merchants.

...and you're right, plenty of online merchants rip people off. This is one reason that large trusted merchants dominate the space (overstock, amazon, newegg, etc..).

If a shapeshift clone exit scam [0] hasn't happened yet it will happen soon. People should do careful research on these sites before using them, just like people should do research on online merchants.

That being said I don't think evercoin is a scam. I'm glad to see competitors to shapeshift and innovation in this space. The website looks great! I wish evercoin all the best.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_scam

But aren't you protected by your credit card if the merchant fails to deliver?

>But aren't you protected by your credit card if the merchant fails to deliver?

Yes, among other legal protections. The reason this seems so crazy to me is because you have absolutely no recourse in the event of a mishap. The company doesnt even have a published address or phone number. I cant even find a support e-mail. A Google search yields nothing about the company but this announcement. The blog is run entirely by their "Chief Marketing Officer". I guess my skin is not thick enough for the crypto world.

Chargebacks provide some protection but in the final analysis it really depends on how scummy the merchant is. If they really want to cheat you they will find a way:

1. products that never arrive after long shipping delays (NYC camera shops are the masters of this technique),

2. keep delaying shipping the product, then as soon as they ask for a refund say you already shipped it and they will be billed for shipping cost (another classic NYC trick),

3. substituting inferior products (broken 2GB RAM module with a label that says 8GB, how easy is to make an NTFS drive look bigger than it is?),

4. playing games with receipts to make them harder to contest (wrong address, slightly different product),

5. threatening to sue or reveal personal information if you contest,

6. a refund process which involves onerous and never ending paperwork,

7. never send a receipt, cancel the order on the web form "sorry we are out stock" and then bill anyways, stealing money from everyone who doesn't read their credit card bill like a hawk.

etc...

Or they can just use your credit card to buy something for themselves for roughly the price of the product you thought you purchased.

thanks. we're working hard to earn trust from the community we want to serve.

Generally I send $10s, then maybe $100s, and if all goes well I may do $1000s if they are still around in a few years.

Risk management 101.

Looks like a shapeshift/changelly clone.

It very much does, what's the advantage?

More profit? http://sharing.rainforestqa.com/3X1E1h2V1c0d

I guess the only difference between these services is pricing... It is very nice concept because of the simplicity. Hope we'll see more competition in this field.

The simplicity of the conversion is fantastic, but I am perplexed as to how an anonymous exchange exists when there are KYC requirements.

first by admitting that KYC wouldn't help stop terrorists even if it was implemented how you imagined it. Even Shapeshift wrote that in response to the WannaCry investigations.

One hop to Monero and the whole money firewall regime is foiled, hopefully enough that the people of any nation ask their governments to stop spending their money on that task, and focus on the economy in more productive ways.

KYC laws apply to national currencies. Any cryptocurrency exchange that has limits is just trying to run a show to appease some senators for the time being.

> KYC laws apply to national currencies

Assuming federal laws don't apply because you sprinkled some magic around you is a pretty awful way to end up in jail. KYC violations are criminally punishable. Anyone operating a non-compliant exchange is subject to investigation, arrest and asset freezes.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This comment does not constitute legal nor investment advice.

> Assuming federal laws don't apply because you sprinkled some magic around you is a pretty awful way to end up in jail.

AML/KYC apply to institutions that apply for Money Service Business licenses, MSBs for short. This is promulgated by FinCEN agency of the US Treasury department. FinCEN has comprehensive definitions of what kind of digital currency use is subject to MSB registration.

It is easy for digital currency to other digital currency exchangers to be exempt from those regulations, via one of the codified exemptions, because your straw man argument about federal laws not applying wasn't the argument I was making at all. So now that we've established that, let me know if you want to discuss the something closer to reality.

> AML/KYC apply to institutions that apply for Money Service Business licenses

MSBs have KYC requirements. It does not follow that non-MSBs have no KYC requirements. FINRA-member firms, for example, are not MSBs and have strict KYC rules [1].

FinCEN has nowhere said that non-MSBs are exempt from KYC. Nobody can competently say that. All American businesses are subject to the minimum threshold of KYC responsibility in coöperating with OFAC restrictions [2].

[1] http://www.finra.org/industry/notices/11-02

[2] https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Sanctions/Page...

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This comment does not constitute legal nor investment advice.

FinCEN wouldn't be the agency to say non-MSBs are exempt from KYC.

There may be a kind of FINRA member firm that is both regulated by the SEC and not an MSB, but many kinds, such as broker-dealers are regulated by both FINRA and the SEC and subject to the source you linked.

Yes, OFAC is a different discussion with different considerations.

It's not clear that KYC requirements apply when you're not handling fiat money, which these exchanges aren't.

Although I agree with other comments noting that it's pretty ballsy to make that argument if you're incorporated in the US...

Why are you all so keen on a monopoly?

Competition = better rates for both services.

Nobody is arguing for a monopoly, but you need some differentiating factor until your service grows to the point of being a commodity.

No you don't. Businesses like to claim some profound difference that makes them better than the competition, when in reality it's just a thinly veiled gimmick around a clone of the exact same business model.

"Were parked on different marketing channels" is the only differentiation you need.

If your competitors join you, there are infinite incremental improvements you can make tailoring your offering to submarkets within those channels. It's a neverending arms race for specificity and anyone can play.

Google for birds

Google for tropical birds

Google for sick tropical birds

Google for birds in social media

Google for flying mammals

Google for virtual flying animals

...ad nauseum...

You just have to keep noticing things about your audience your competitors.havent noticed yet.

Their LinkedIn profile doesn't inspire much confidence except for everyone is Turkish and they keep recommending each other there.

Sure, let's just hide the fees and not tell users they are getting taken. How about some transparency?

This is Talip@Evercoin. We have mainly two kinds of fees. Miner/Network fees, which are fixed and can be listed (and we will). Second one is our fee, which is dynamically calculated based on multiple parameters such as our reserve, market trend and recent transactions. It is basically a risk calculation. We can and should say that on our FAQ but not sure if that is going to be 'transparent' enough. Btw, we are a new service, we need feedback from the community to know how to make our service better and time to get them done. We are committed to become better. So please keep the feedback coming.

I am naive but why is there not a decentralized service for exchanging cryptocurrency (or is there?)?

There are, see Etherdelta. And also projects like 0xproject.com are working on going entirely trustless.

Is there any simple exchange like this that accept Paypal? I am losing too much in fees buying locally. And using places like Localbitcoin is too much expensive.

How is different than having a Bittrex account and then using Bittrex's API to perform trades based on people's request on the website?

A noble attempt, but without supporting Monero you're not supporting fungibility and privacy.

I hope this is an oversight that you'll correct.

This is correct. Without private (anti-1984 cypherpunk) money the exchange is junk.

This is Talip@Evercoin. Yes we are currently working on adding Monero. Should be ready in a week. Thanks for the feedback.

Now Monero is supported!

Why not Neo? Seems like the hottest one to support right now. Would probably test it out if you get that working :)

I was hoping to learn that the in game coin for EverQuest was backed by a public blockchain

Couldn't that stop gold farming / selling? Proof of work (proof of grinding)?

Online games give gold to their users liberally as positive reinforcement for playing the game.

That's probably not compatible with a strict minting schedule constrained by a proof of work system.

Also, making it super easy for gold farmers to cash out probably isn't great if you don't want large gold farming groups affecting the game economy and making it harder for legit non-gold-buying players.

An exchange for unlicensed securities, hope they enjoy what's coming for them

what do you mean by unlicensed security?

Hi everyone.

I am Miko from Evercoin and I'm happy to answer your questions.

The People Behind EverCoin

I'm happy to see people on this board looking at our service with suspicion, this is normal and the community needs to protect itself from scammers. We do show our own faces and linkedin profiles on the front page of our exchange. Yes, it is possible that people are just using the identities of others. We are obviously not so prominent or famous but I do have a number of fairly prominent people in crypto who could vouch for us or who have met us including general partners at Pantera Capital, Jackson Palmer, originator of Dogecoin, Robert CEO of ZenCash, Zooko from Zcash and many others. I know these aren't necessarily the gods of crypto like Vitalik Buterin, but I havent met him so he can't say if I'm a real person or not. I am one of the organizers of the SF Advanced Crypto Asset Trading group and Crypto Underground meetup, so 3500 people in that community know who I am at some level. Anyhow, I welcome the suspicion, I hate scammers as much as anyone and feel like everyone who asks you to "send bitcoin to this address" deserves to be checked out. I've been in Silicon Valley for 25 years working in tech.

Check out our Linkedin here Miko (me) https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikomatsumura/ Talip's linkedin is here https://www.linkedin.com/in/talipozturk/ Yasin's https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasin-tamer/ Ahmed's https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmet-alptekin/ Ismael's https://www.linkedin.com/in/ismaelkose/

Talip created the open source project Hazelcast. https://github.com/hazelcast/hazelcast a github based Apache open source licensed project with over 24,000 commits and 143 committers.

Honestly, we are a BRAND NEW service, so there are very few reviews. Here is us on Product Hunt https://www.producthunt.com/posts/evercoin Here is our Blog https://blog.evercoin.com/

We need to get more reviews. it will take time to become a trusted and reliable member of this community, we get it. We will keep working hard to earn your trust.

If you want to see our offices, this is what it looks like: https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*5NMG03OXtNCUzXnKYj...

Meet us better on this blog post https://blog.evercoin.com/meet-evercoin-exchange-4506f897545...

Happy to answer any other questions you all may have.

How to start As with any crypto service, start small. Just try a very small transaction to see how the system behaves. It's a fully functional system, so you'll immediately get the feeling of that. And yes, do your homework.

Any plans to support Monero?

We just added Monero today!

Is the rate shown when placing an order guaranteed or an estimate?

This kind of activity spurs 'The Dawn of $1B ICO's' https://hackernoon.com/the-dawn-of-the-1b-ico-a0486f6587a2

High fees, no good coins, bare bones functionality.

Why would I use this when there a dozen better products that do this and more?

This is Talip@Evercoin. We will be adding more coins over time starting with Monero in a week. We think support matters a lot. We want to make sure we are quickly reachable via anonymous chat on the website when needed.

Unfortunately, they don't have IOTA listed...

What is IOTA?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=h09z2N0MtuQ

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