We've been around for a few years now, but weren't expecting to see our name pop up on HN just yet. Of course, now that it's here, if anyone has any questions about what we do, feel free to ask and I'll get back to you asap.
Hey, I actually just heard about CurrencyFair today (through the article I posted), and was surprised it didn't have a lot of news coverage thus far.
As a marketplace, reaching a critical number of users must be something to look forward to, even though I'd understand if you wanted to expand to select markets first (the article says 37% of your current users are in the UK, and 20% in Australia).
Hey Pioul - we noticed the traffic from your article ... thank you for that :)
<marketing speak>We're at quite a large size already, having put > .5bn sterling through our system by now</marketing speak>, but more users is always a good thing!
Sure, we have a large user base in the UK and Australia, but really, those users are international - they're not all from those countries, and that's completely ignoring all of the European users we have ... so critical-mass is something we've pretty much already hit.
The decentralized currency exchange platform found on the Ripple network seems more promising, as soon as you find a gateway near you that you can trust. Plus, you'll have support for other currencies (like Bitcoin or event local currencies)
https://ripple.com/distributed-fx/
Unless I missed something, there is no easy way to send money to a US bank account though.
The Bitstamp Gateway supports SEPA, but not ACH. Plus it seems like a lot of hassle to add more conversions to the process.
Comments
Hey there - I'm on the tech team in CurrencyFair.
We've been around for a few years now, but weren't expecting to see our name pop up on HN just yet. Of course, now that it's here, if anyone has any questions about what we do, feel free to ask and I'll get back to you asap.
If you're looking for a direct link, it's at the bottom of the OP, or: https://www.currencyfair.com
Hey, I actually just heard about CurrencyFair today (through the article I posted), and was surprised it didn't have a lot of news coverage thus far.
As a marketplace, reaching a critical number of users must be something to look forward to, even though I'd understand if you wanted to expand to select markets first (the article says 37% of your current users are in the UK, and 20% in Australia).
Hey Pioul - we noticed the traffic from your article ... thank you for that :)
<marketing speak>We're at quite a large size already, having put > .5bn sterling through our system by now</marketing speak>, but more users is always a good thing!
Sure, we have a large user base in the UK and Australia, but really, those users are international - they're not all from those countries, and that's completely ignoring all of the European users we have ... so critical-mass is something we've pretty much already hit.
[edit: spelling]
I meant the article I shared on HN, I didn't write it – so props to its author!
Ah, sorry, some confusion there. Another blog post today pushed a good few new users to our site earlier.
Now I'm just getting excited for no good reason ;)
The decentralized currency exchange platform found on the Ripple network seems more promising, as soon as you find a gateway near you that you can trust. Plus, you'll have support for other currencies (like Bitcoin or event local currencies) https://ripple.com/distributed-fx/
Unless I missed something, there is no easy way to send money to a US bank account though. The Bitstamp Gateway supports SEPA, but not ACH. Plus it seems like a lot of hassle to add more conversions to the process.
Bitcoin seems to be missing from the list of supported currencies. That by design or an accidental mis-feature?
It's by design right now - we don't allow bitcoin at the moment for anti-money laundering reasons.
That said, we're watching that world quite closely - we could well support it in the future ... just not right now.
[edit: formatting]