Speed of transactions/BTC/Exchanges

[Guest]

Everyone here knows that the transaction speeds are soooo slow. It takes forever for me to exchange BTC or ETH on Coinbase (yes, I prefer the easy exchange) to another exchange. Now with so many people registering and there being backlogs, it is truly taking forever. 

Does anyone know what the plans are for the exchanges to speed things up? I have a feeling the "backlogs" won't go away as more and more people want to try out crypto. 

I can't stand the turtle slow speed of BTC and ETH. Add in slow exchanges and it's almost unbearable. 

[hammertoe]

I know, I tried to do a bit of arbitrage last night and got frustrated by this. I'm now just so used to moving XRP around and the transaction being settled in 4 seconds. I went to move some Ethereum from Bitstamp to CEX.io and it states that is need 100 block validations. If an exchange thinks they need to have 100 validations (about half an hour) before they think a transaction is final, then that doesn't give me much that blockchain's technology.

If you can move XRP itself around then you are fine. Moving XRP back and forth from Bitstamp to Gatehub (ie to the XRP Ledger) and it takes minutes (mostly waiting for Bitstamp to send and respond to the confirmation email).

-Matt

[manateehunter]

I think as the exchanges get more bogged down they will only have two options - upgrade or disappear into obsolescence. Just need some time and they'll catch up.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, hammertoe said:

I know, I tried to do a bit of arbitrage last night and got frustrated by this. I'm now just so used to moving XRP around and the transaction being settled in 4 seconds. I went to move some Ethereum from Bitstamp to CEX.io and it states that is need 100 block validations. If an exchange thinks they need to have 100 validations (about half an hour) before they think a transaction is final, then that doesn't give me much that blockchain's technology.

If you can move XRP itself around then you are fine. Moving XRP back and forth from Bitstamp to Gatehub (ie to the XRP Ledger) and it takes minutes (mostly waiting for Bitstamp to send and respond to the confirmation email).

-Matt

I agree - XRP is great to move around, and ultimately why I believe it will be #1. 

I'm just hoping new people getting into crypto don't get frustrated and decide not to join the party, so to speak. We need those new people, but right now it's a bit of a frustrating process. If I just signed up as a new person as opposed to 4-5 months ago, the slower speeds would make me second guess the system. 

I'm just trying to think as everyday, small investors might think. It's really time for the exchanges to up their game here. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, manateehunter said:

I think as the exchanges get more bogged down they will only have two options - upgrade or disappear into obsolescence. Just need some time and they'll catch up.

I hope so. It would be nice if one day we could say to newer investors, "I remember when it took 6 hours for a transaction to go through! Sometimes even a day. Now it's a few seconds..."
 

[hammertoe]

12 minutes ago, DrWhoAmI said:

I agree - XRP is great to move around, and ultimately why I believe it will be #1. 

I'm just hoping new people getting into crypto don't get frustrated and decide not to join the party, so to speak. We need those new people, but right now it's a bit of a frustrating process. If I just signed up as a new person as opposed to 4-5 months ago, the slower speeds would make me second guess the system. 

I'm just trying to think as everyday, small investors might think. It's really time for the exchanges to up their game here. 

I was just driving back home from my in-laws and was brainstorming in the car how I could set up a simple XRP-buying facility in the UK. I've had so many family members and friends ask me recently how to buy it. I would love to set up something that you just put in your debit card details and a wallet address and it transfers XRP to that wallet. Nice and simple. I wouldn't bother with any other crypto's or payment methods. You hit 'buy' and the XRP is in your wallet in seconds. It would also be a pretty easy thing to set up. The main stumbling block appears to be the KYC/AML regulations I'd need to adhere to.

-Matt

[Guest]

1 minute ago, hammertoe said:

I was just driving back home from my in-laws and was brainstorming in the car how I could set up a simple XRP-buying facility in the UK. I've had so many family members and friends ask me recently how to buy it. I would love to set up something that you just put in your debit card details and a wallet address and it transfers XRP to that wallet. Nice and simple. I wouldn't bother with any other crypto's or payment methods. You hit 'buy' and the XRP is in your wallet in seconds. It would also be a pretty easy thing to set up. The main stumbling block appears to be the KYC/AML regulations I'd need to adhere to.

-Matt

This would be a dream come true. I also imagine the security needed would be insane. 

[hammertoe]

1 minute ago, DrWhoAmI said:

This would be a dream come true. I also imagine the security needed would be insane. 

Actually, no, security would be pretty easy. I would not be storing XRP on behalf of customers. And I would not be storing payment information. So the only thing that would need securing is the mechanism by which the system transferring out XRP to accounts gets told what to do. As the system would be so simple and dealing with just one currency it would be quite easy to secure as there is such a smaller attack surface.

Many of the site's I've seen seem to only require KYC for orders over a certain amount, usually a few hundred £/€/$ a day. I'm wondering if I kept it to under this limit whether that would still be a useful business.

e.g if you could go to a website and put in your debit card details and a wallet address and hit 'buy' and purchase up to £200 with a small handling fee and have the XRP in your wallet in under 10 seconds, would you find that useful?

-Matt

[Guest]

40 minutes ago, hammertoe said:

e.g if you could go to a website and put in your debit card details and a wallet address and hit 'buy' and purchase up to £200 with a small handling fee and have the XRP in your wallet in under 10 seconds, would you find that useful?

-Matt

I would find that extremely useful, because all of my transactions are within that amount of money. I just buy more often than others. I consider myself to be more a part of the general public/mainstream then a real trader like everyone here...but I think most people like me would prefer to invest money in smaller amounts to begin with. 

I know I'm still heavily invested in 401K and many other things besides crypto and view this as a fun side project (that I think will actually turn out really well). 

I think if the general pop wants to invest large amounts, they will use a crypto fund manager. I have a feeling those will pop up more and more. 

[Pete]

3 hours ago, hammertoe said:

I was just driving back home from my in-laws and was brainstorming in the car how I could set up a simple XRP-buying facility in the UK. I've had so many family members and friends ask me recently how to buy it. I would love to set up something that you just put in your debit card details and a wallet address and it transfers XRP to that wallet. Nice and simple. I wouldn't bother with any other crypto's or payment methods. You hit 'buy' and the XRP is in your wallet in seconds. It would also be a pretty easy thing to set up. The main stumbling block appears to be the KYC/AML regulations I'd need to adhere to.

-Matt

 

Hi Matt.  I used the guys at Cryptomate when I started buying in May.  It was XRP I started buying and they were offering it.  Things weren't as manic then, so getting wallets, opening basic accounts on exchanges etc was pretty quick anyway.  Maybe not exactly the same as what you are suggesting, but for someone at the time that had the Wallet, and wanted to start straightaway it was ideal.  Passing about some details, Bank Transfer then Voila !  Job done...  This last few days have made me think of it again, as even transferring XRP between exchanges is starting to slow due to the increase n demand.  Something linked to an XRP only Wallet (would probably need to be well funded though), and a  Company able to buy extremely large quantities would be ideal.  How\where they are purchasing is the thing along with what exchange's pricing it would follow.  At the minute, there can be a crazy difference from one to the other.  If it's UK only, the difference in price may not be as much.  Something automated to buy from an Exchange, then send to the Customer on their behalf.

[hammertoe]

@Pete Yeah, I saw Cryptomate. That does look pretty interesting and along the lines of what I am thinking. Apart from my service would be XRP-only and designed for small purchases (£200 or less) by debit card and transferred to the wallet instantly, rather than by human interaction.

A broker to buy and sell large quantities would also be an interesting idea. But that would be something very different. I had someone come to me to ask me to help them buy £10,000 worth the other day. A large-order, personal, service would be very useful for that sort of thing. Something that sat somewhere between 'buying it yourself on the exchange' and 'buying from Ripple, Inc'.

-Matt

[Pete]

@hammertoe, agreed.  Unless you had a boat load of XRP already in the 'Company' wallet, it wouldn't be instant.   Personally, tracking an Exchange and buying on behalf is the safest bet for price fluctuations.  Having a decent quantity to hand would enable you to send as quickly as possible, and simply constantly replenish the Wallet with the Customer order.  There is def an opportunity there especially for the smaller quantities.  The likes of a £10K order would be trickier as once you try buying the larger quantities yourself in the one go, the Bots keep kicking in.  It will be interesting to see what the difference in price would be if\when Coinbase list XRP and what Fees would be involved with Card purchases.  Also would be interesting to see what kind of Regulation\Rules etc. (if any) that would be involved.  As more people enter the space, I think it could get pretty popular due to it being an extremely easy entry point for most as well as for people wanting to regularly be buying a few hundred per month.  Keep me posted .......

[hammertoe]

@Pete Yes, my idea would be to keep a small float in a wallet to transfer out to customers, and simultaneously buy on the exchanges to replenish. I would need to keep a float of Euros on the exchange to do this, and that float would need to be large enough to sustain the total number of orders in the period it takes for the fiat payment processor to distribute the funds and me to send those then on to an exchange. E.g. Stripe take (I think) 7 days to distribute funds, and a SEPA payment make take 3 days to get from my account to, e.g. Bitstamp. So if I expect to serve, say, 10 customers a day, each buying £200 of XRP then I'd need 10 * £200 * 10 * [EUR/GBP rate ~1.13 currently] = €22,600 sat on the exchange. More realistically double or triple that in order to deal with delays and spikes in demand etc. If I want to be able to handle 100 customers a day, then I'm going to be needing to have in the order of half a million Euros sat on the exchange. And if that is the case, then I might need to work out a fast way to move payment about. But if I get to that stage then I'll have proven the business can work.

-Matt

[Pete]

@hammertoe , you'll also have to allow time for the Debit\Credit card payment to reach your Account.  Depending on the Bank\Card issuer can be anything up to 3 days for the money to be in your Account.  A Friday evening transaction could be a nightmare if that provider is 3 business days.  The one I mentioned earler uses the Faster Payments, so that is a transfer from Account to Account.  I was using Santander on my end which was quick, although that's about all they're good for.