Dev Update :safe: Transcript 16th February

Hi All

Here it is, transcript for Monday 16th Feb:
Dev Update Monday 16/02/15

6 Likes

Meeting with airbitz? Interesting. Any information that can be shared about that?

David investigating Semantic web/SAFE integration. Very cool.

Symantec as in anti virus? Could you elaborate?

lol…

1 Like

Well pardon me… Also this is very cool after reading

1 Like

Nigel, Airbitz is maintaining what is called Libbitcoin which is a toolkit for dealing with the bitcoin blockchain;

It is considered for use as the bitcoin aspect for safex (the decentralized exchange); makes it easier to enter the network through fiat or existing digital currency users

so something like:
fiat → bitcoin → safecoin
will be easy to do since bitcoin already has a significant amount of infrastructure; also this will reduce the barrier to entry for people to acquire space on the network if they can not farm; or otherwise would need more substantial access to data than a person can provide;

6 Likes

I had no idea they maintained that. Thank you @dallyshalla. I can’t wait to see SafeEx by the way so good luck :slight_smile: purchasing Bitcoin with fiat is likey something that happens outside the network correct? Then transfer Bitcoin to safex address etc?

fiat ->safecoin is still an option though?

Please don’t tell me, were relying on Bitcoin to purchase Safecoin

2 Likes

Introducing fiat into the Safex also brings along with it a lot of legal/regulatory issues such as KYC - how is this addressed or is there a reason why it doesn’t need to be?

2 Likes

Hi i own some safecoins and i am following the progress of the project.
It seems like there are a lot of people working on it at the moment looking at the dev update.
But did not see any changes or objectives marked off the Dev roadmap for over a month now.
Is this list up to date or why is there no progress to be seen?

there definitely is a lot of progress. but those boxes will only be ticked off
once they are completely done. so don’t be surprised by not seeing a change
for a long time and then 5 boxes marked off all at once. for a more detailed
view you can follow the maidsafe Jira stream: Dashboard - JIRA

1 Like

My personal view is that it would be great to enable fiat to safecoin purchases. For many, the barriers to get into crypto currencies are pretty high and the learning curve is particularly steep. This puts many off and, IMO, would curtail network adoption for those wanting to use the network, but for whatever reason are unable or unwilling to provide resource. Being reliant on BTC would tie safecoin to the BTC price which is not a great thing in my view.

Regards the KYC process, is this something that is carried out manually by an exchange or can this be automated?

3 Likes

In the beginning we probably will. Fiat<->SafeCoin trades only require people willing to make such trades and a platform that supports it.

So either centralized third party exchanges that hold significant amounts of both fiat and SafeCoin, or a decentralized exchange with plenty of people willing to make fiat<->SafeCoin trades on a regular basis so that that market is reliable enough to be able to make such a trade at any moment.

Lack of these is the reason why practically every altcoin uses Bitcoin as an intermediary. There is no reliable market to support direct fiat exchange.

I think the reason is that it’s a decentralized exchange. I think it’s probably easier to think of SafeEx as a protocol than a business.

2 Likes

The process of purchasing Bitcoin and maintaining a wallet and cold storage etc etc in order to participate in the crowdsale is not something I want to experience again.

I understand you need to reduce the friction of getting crypto into safecoin…but the funds tied up in the crypto space are minute.

There are piles of capital in this world about to be exposed to negative interest rates and crazy taxes…and the US$ being the reserve currency, is where this capital will be headed.

I think it critical that a frictionless mechanism, for currencies to move directly into safecoin be developed.

3 Likes

As I tried to explain, it’s ultimately not about technology, but about people. There have to be enough buyers and sellers, then there’ll be a market, and exchanges will pop up and be used. The reason why we can trade fiat<->Bitcoin relatively easy is not because of some extraordinary technology, but because there’s enough supply and demand.

I wonder if something could be done similar to bit square just straight to safecoin? I’m having a hard time understanding how something that functions off the network (that’s not Bitcoin)as far as funds would be traded on the network.

Hi Nick, it’s not really my area, but the main reason for KYC is to prevent money-laundering and facilitate investigation into such. Photo-ID level verifying documents need to be presented to the centralised Exchanges etc that want to cover themselves and avoid a Silk Road type legal case. As to if this could be done in a de-centralised way, then I’d say that maybe insofar as an app could accept scanned documents and hold them in a smart contract way until the (shared) key to the info is input to access it – how the app verifies that the docs are real or relevant….I don’t know, but it’s an interesting problem.
Here are the UK anti-money laundering rules, though they’d vary world wide. (not looked at yet):

Senecca, I appreciate that the fiat exchange may be technically feasible (you would need feeds for all main fiat currencies though, I would expect, but the tech side is beyond my ken tbh). My concern would be a legal one for the app dev/company that made/maintained it….even if that company wasn’t Maidsafe, I think the potential to bring un-necessary attention is there. I would advise to research and tread carefully before acting. The last thing we want is “Safenet Exchange closed/funds confiscated” etc head-lines. Even if that is not technically feasible, I’d be avoiding legal issues like the plague, because rightly or wrongly, Maidsafe literally cannot afford to fight this level of legal battle – it is another attack vector.

Yes this is really what I was getting at. Can this be carried out without requiring human input or centralisation of some kind. I’m personally not a huge fan of regulation, but keeping on the right side of the law would avoid the negative consequences highlighted by @Al_Kafir. Negative press would be an effective way to drive mainstream adoption away from SAFE.

2 Likes

Stop asking me I’m a painter…lol. I’m also thinking that some kind of Ripple like protocol would have to be integrated into the exchange to bridge into the world of fiat payments…is this the case…lol
Edit: I’m thinking that the human intervention goes as far as checking that a passport has a photo and name and that the name corresponds to that on the scan of a utility bill and that the address on the utility bill corresponds to the address on another utility bill – this kind of thing. I don’t know if this is either possible or indeed actually necessary (just the smart contract thing) or if human intervention is legally required in itself.
Maybe there is a simpler solution, the basic question is how can a real life identity be given by the exchange when required. I would suggest a mechanism like the app launcher maybe?
I’ll do some reading and update you on anything relevant.

Yes that’s the main point.