BitcoinBourse.eu is a decentralised escrow and trading system for Bitcoin to Euro (SEPA) transfers, developed by Bitcoin SARL. They are based in France and have just released their updated Bitcoin Bourse site.
The trading engine has been completely redesigned and reworked.
Decentralised crypto-currency exchange is understood to be the holy grail of exchange. By eliminating trusted third parties, the technology can achieve something closer to the ethos of Bitcoin itself.
As Satoshi himself noted in his white paper, “What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party”.
The raison d’etre of Bitcoin was to provide “an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust.”
There are a number of higher-level technological projects working on purely peer-to-peer exchange mechanisms and systems based on cryptographic proof. In the meantime, other approaches are always welcome.
The essential characteristic of a decentralised exchange like Bitcoin Bourse is that bitcoins and fiat currency are exchanged person-to-person with the arbitration of a third party when disputes arise. The recent Mt. Gox saga illustrates the shortcomings of centralized exchanges.
Person-to-person Bitcoin exchanges like Bitcoin Bourse can also offer faster settlement directly between bank accounts.
How does Bitcoin Bourse achieve this? Well, it works like a secure escrow service, where Bitcoin Bourse freezes Bitcoins until the transaction is finished between seller and buyer. Each user gets temporary Bitcoin addresses to fund their Bitcoin Bourse account with Bitcoins.
Users can sell their Bitcoins to any other user, who accepts his ASK rate, or to any user whose BID rate the seller accepts.
Bitcoin Bourse is announcing some new features. Buy and Sell orders now have an expiration time of 72 hours. Share trading is now also open to the public.
Users and System shareholders of Bitcoin Bourse can now trade shares with each other in the platform provider itself and on the exchange directly, through share buy and sell orders.
Bitcoin Bourse also allows third Party shares to be bought and sold on the platform. Companies interested in listing their Shares at Bitcoin Bourse should contact the company for further advice.
The Bitcoin Bourse system embraces a 0 fee structure for buy, sell and deposit and a withdrawal fee of 2.
Security and legality are hot topics in the space at the moment, since the network transaction malleability issue affected a number of Bitcoin exchanges in some way. Bitcoin Bourse’s approach is to process withdraws manually. This removes any potential transaction malleability issues and, the company hopes, will act to comfort users of the platform.
Overall this is a useful approach and implementation of the decentralized exchange concept, given where the ecosystem is at technologically.
Bitcoin is quick to note, in light of the recent Mt. Gox bankruptcy, that Bitcoin accounts are never stored online on any of their servers. All Bitcoins are in cold-storage and offline. Further questions about the exact nature of the cold storage can be directed to the company itself.
Traditional centralised Bitcoin exchanges have business models similar to traditional financial services enterprises. They take deposits of fiat currency, which they hold in control.
Bitcoin Bourse aims to provide a different product and service: eliminating the need for trusted intermediaries, a worthy pursuit.
The company has a well designed, functional and operational platform for SEPA users and an affiliate program to compliment it. The system tracks referrals and pays commissions for every client referral. There is also a long cookie duration, so if a customer comes from to the merchant’s site and then comes back to purchase one month later the referee is still paid.
They have streamlined the entire affiliate process to ensure ease of use, while still maintaining extremely accurate affiliate tracking.