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Comment by ck2 | Hacker News Reader

There are a few US based now right?

Can the market support so many US exchanges? (do any have working USD ?)

   buttercoin (no selling yet? ACH? wire? CC?)
   coinbase   (technically not an exchange but USD works)
   campbx     (bank halted ACH/wire transfers on January 31, 2014)
   kraken     (located in SF, USD back soon: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7321703 )
   coinsetter (in beta, bank approved USD)
   cryptsy    (located in FL, USD soon, registered Money Services Business/BSA/FinCEN)
   coinlab    (never opened exchange)
   coinmx     (may not actually be in US, overseas CC charges, be careful)

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First time I've ever seen someone complain about too many bitcoin exchanges :)

I think it's a bit of a stretch to include coinlab, they don't seem to ever have actually launched a US exchange.

Also, Kraken looks to be US based but don't yet allow US customers to trade USD pairs, only crypto/crypto so far.

Would also really like to see exchanges offer proper websocket/streaming API access, so far the only two who have shut down (Bitfloor, MtGox). Trying to write a proper trading algo against unreliable "REST" APIs is generally an exercise in frustration.

We literally just suspended USD pairs last week as we are upgrading our connectivity to a much larger bank that can offer us the quality of USD settlement our users deserve. We'll be live again with USD very soon. In the mean time, we still have other conventional currencies... notably EUR.

Who is 'we'? (The parent comment equally mentions CoinLab, Kraken, MtGox, and Bitfloor. As the topmost topic, Buttercoin is a possible antecedent as well.)

I believe they are kraken (payward)

Until there's one that doesn't suck, there should be more competition keeping the exchanges innovating and improving their services to be more competitive.

A stable market ecosystem should have at least two that don't suck.

They're all "USD soon" but none of them actually have it. The real race is to getting that available. Til then none of them will really take off, since you can't really trade between USD and bitcoin if you can't deposit or withdraw the USD.

It leads me to believe the government might be convincing banks not to do business with bitcoin.

Note how campbx's bank yanked their account.

Others are having a lot of difficulty getting a bank to work with them.

Free market says some bank should have stepped up by now unless maybe there are outside influences stopping them.

Do you think banks really need convincing not to business with bitcoin?

Risk, banks don't want to deal with it since a tsunami of fraudulent wires will be heading their way because scammers can turn their botnet obtained bank logins to untraceable bitcoins. That and all sorts of black PR on cryptocurrencies they don't want extra work for their compliance officers. Offshore banks don't seem to mind but it will cost hefty transfer fees

You can get USD in and out of CampBX. You just have to do it with money orders. (Which is nearly as fast as ACH, though much less convenient.)

I wouldn't expect CampBX to survive a lot longer. Without a banking partner they're fighting a very steep battle. Their volume has always been tiny tiny tiny even in the best of times.

I'll be surprised if Cryptsy ever makes it to USD.

Also, while they have a very wide range of alts to gamble with (and let's face it, the smaller alts are pure gambles), the experience of using the site does not inspire faith in their technological abilities. I would not be at all shocked to learn they have significant security holes.

They seem very serious about obeying all regulations/filings so it is just a matter of them finding a bank to play along.

They don't even make an effort at KYC compliance.

I assume that would come when fiat (USD) transfers come online.

Why set that barrier for coin to coin exchanges?

This blog post from Cryptsy on transaction malleability was somewhat reassuring.

http://blog.cryptsy.com/post/77809302091/transaction-malleab...

I too have to cast serious doubts about Cryptsy's tech abilities. I navigated their website before they were publicly known (their website was already operational) and found some disturbing errors - nothing big, but I did not dig deep.

I think kraken (https://www.kraken.com/) is based in the US as well.

I signed up and they won't let me exchange USD<->BTC because they're not registered yet. Is anyone else able actually use them?

We are in the death throws of partnering with a much larger bank to facilitate USD settlement connectivity at the quality our users deserve. We completed our relationship with our last parter about a week ago. It sounds like you just joined during the short intermission... hang in there.

Let's hope the throes aren't really that deathly :-)

I joined six weeks ago and am still only pre-verified for tiers 2 and 3. I doubt that the reason fastest963 can't trade USD is because of the reason you just gave. Kraken needs to be more forthcoming with which states it's properly registered in to deal with USD, because I know it's not registered in California or Kansas.

I will emphasize that this is not my area and I am not commenting in an official capacity but IIRC it's less about 'registered in', and more about 'has state-specific financial licenses for' versus 'has a business presence in' versus individual state law. Somewhat like the mess that is US the domestic tax nexus. Anyway, I believe there are legal reasons why, owing to the above, we are not allowed to divulge state-on-state policy. We have a really good legal team. Yes, this sounds nuts and is entirely counterintuitive, but that's the US legal system for you.

kraken is owned by payward which is a UK business

https://www.companiesintheuk.co.uk/ltd/payward

Their bank is German.

I don't think it is a US business.

Oh wait, maybe yes:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1rztum/release_the_...

CEO is Jesse Powell. Company address is in San Francisco

Ah well their site contact office is US so I just assumed. Good correction - parent companies are important in the world of bitcoin.

This is incorrect - I suppose we should make this clearer on our site.

For the record: Kraken is owned and operated by Payward. Payward's parent company is a US company. The Payward entity in the UK is one of many overseas entities that we have across half a dozen jurisdictions already, and that number is growing... particularly here in Asia.

Among the coin traders I know, no one is at all clear on where you're based. You definitely need to be a lot more obvious about it. :-)

The coin traders you know need to get better info. They are based in SF and Jesse can be usually found at the SF Bitcoin Meetup.

VaultOfSatoshi looks pretty slick, and currently accepts USD. I don't know its trustworthiness however.

Apparently they are Canadian owned, but I do not know where their bank is located.

Honorable mention for North America.

From the casual attention I pay to this, I thought Coinbase was one of the, if not the, largest US exchange at this point. I'm surprised no one has even mentioned it here. Am I missing something?

Coinbase is not an exchange; they're a broker, when you buy there you're buying from Coinbase, not from someone else's sell order like you would at an exchange. Exchanges match buyers to sellers.

Is it disclosed where Coinbase gets their bitcoin?

Found this...

From Brian Armstrong, Coinbase Agent, via the coinbase support site, 11 Nov 2012:

"We integrate with a variety of exchanges and also hold our own reserves. When you sell your bitcoins for USD we usually sell them to other Coinbase users at some point down the line (this is where our reserves come from), but we may cash them out if needed. In general, our goal is to abstract away some of the complexity so it's a simpler process for our users. What we have now is a good start but not finished by any means. Hope it helps!"

This doesn't prove Coinbase gets their Bitcoin from Bitstamp, but the plot makes a compelling inference worthy of further research:

"Coinbase buy price is pegged to Bitstamp" (Dec 2013):

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=392422.0

Coinsetter (https://www.coinsetter.com/) is a US based exchange launching this year with VC funding.

You forgot CoinMKT, Atomic-Trade, and Cryptsy.

Cryptsy is up there but you are right CoinMKT is US based and has USD working with a US bank. They also have a very clean website. They just need better marketing because I never heard of them.

Atomic-Trade is also in US and apparears to have a US bank relationship. Another one I never heard of them so they need to hire some marketing people.

Unfortunately I can no longer edit my post.

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