San Francisco Open Exchange (YC S14) Aims to Be the E-Trade of Bitcoin | Hacker News Reader

San Francisco Open Exchange (YC S14) Aims to Be the E-Trade of Bitcoin

techcrunch.com

55 pointskatm20 comments

Hi guys,

I'm one of the founders of SFOX.com. It's been great working on the product with the great team at YCombinator. It was incredibly helpful to us.

Please let me know if you have any questions or feedback on SFOX.

Thanks!

When there were cheap coins at gox, would sfox have been able to buy them on behalf of the user?

So... you're operating what is effective a commodities brokerage?

I assume you've got enough insurance to cover fighting with the CFTC and the SEC?

Who is this aimed at? Reqular people buying some Bitcoin don't care about a price difference of $1. Traders looking to do arbitrage probably already have their own bots and scripts to do that.

>Traders looking to do arbitrage probably already have their own bots and scripts to do that.

I doubt this actually happens, at least in any significant scale, in real life. Algorithmic traders already make enough money in less dangerous environments than Bitcoin.

I don't know, APIs are becoming extremely easy to use nowadays. I've managed to create my own simple arbitrage script in about an afternoon using APIs from btc-e and coinbase. I don't have it live and probably never will (written in Python, can only imagine how badly I'll get burned) but it was a fun project!

There after any number of algo trading opportunities in bitcoin. In fact, Algo prop shops may be uniquely positioned to trade bitcoin as more established entities can't or won't.

There are any number of bots trading and arbitraging on the bitcoin exchanges. I've helped someone write one myself.

It happens. I wrote an arbitrage script that makes a little bit of money every day (only requires me to rebalance the wallets every so often). Only risk is holding whatever is presenting the most lucrative arbitrage opportunity.

Treating Bitcoin like an investment commodity just harms its utility as a currency. I wish they were focusing on how to make spending Bitcoin easier, rather than making tools for speculators.

It's either going to become one or the other isn't it? (not sarcastic)

I agree. What are some ways you can think of to make spending Bitcoin easier?

Generating efficient prices through a deep market actually would make it more useful as a currency. (FOREX markets are good examples)

>Treating Bitcoin like an investment commodity just harms its utility as a currency.

Bitcoin is a commodity. If you treat it as an everyday currency you will soon get a visit from the IRS for capital gains tax non-payment. Pay your taxes people.

How are currencies not commodities?

Currencies don't have any inherent useful value, while commodities do.

So there are 2 major problems with that definition.

1) It's factually untrue. Currencies have both the value of their materials and the art imposed on them. Now it is true, that the primary driver of their price is not that "inherent" value. The primary driver of their price is that they work as stores for value, as a medium of exchange, and that they are fundamentally tied to the governance regime they are associated with. But there are lots of commodities that have the same characteristics. Gold's price is much more dependent on people's perception of it as a value store than on it's usefulness as an input to industrial production or as an artistic element and energy credits are commodities existent only within the governance regime that created them.

2) Even if you don't buy that loosened definition of commodity in general, in the context of an exchange currencies are universally considered commodities because they have several important characteristics 1) there are both spot & derivative markets for them 2) They are completely fungible, dollars made in Philly are identical to ones made in San Fran 3) It is easy (trivial even) to create standardized contracts around their delivery.

There'd be much more incentive to spend Bitcoin if it were not deflationary by design.

Does a user need an account at each individual exchange, or is an account with SFOX sufficient? In what states does SFOX hold a money transmitter license?

no, you just need an account with sfox.com

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