Your focus on API-driven banking really intrigued us, however I wasn't surprised to see that you won't bank money services businesses. Kind of a shame, because we could really use an API to help with cash management.
Trading is unaffected. You can see quotes at any brokerage that allows trading futures, though you may need a paid subscription for access to non-delayed quote data. Look for the symbol XBTF18.
I wouldn't be surprised if this was a DDoS attack, as all bitcoin exchanges have suffered from them, but I don't know what they think they're accomplishing because unlike bitcoin exchanges the CBOE website is completely separate from the trading systems.
This was on purpose and an example of good engineering. Novice users trying to send funds to SegWit addresses before the network activated could have lost funds. The plumbing was all there to activate (and make use of via command line), however users will get access via UI in the next update.
> however users will get access via UI in the next update.
Update after next-- we'll be doing a short release for segwit support right after 0.15.
Feature freeze for 0.15 (next release) was scheduled on July 16th ( https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/9961 ), segwit lock-in wasn't until aug 9th. We'd shortcut the process for a serious emergency, but not for something short of one.
Digital Mint is an on-demand cash-to-bitcoin exchange company, enabling consumers to participate in the online economy using the versatility of digital currencies. We allow customers to convert their cash into bitcoin through physical kiosks and convenient point-of-sale solutions. It is our vision to become the largest consumer bitcoin transaction company in the United States, empowering underserved and unbanked consumers to utilize digital currencies as a tool for their financial lives.
Currently, we operate over 50 brick-and-mortar locations in 9 states — serving over 13,000 individual customers! In addition, we are profitable, growing fast, and need motivated and talented team members to help us shape the landscape of the burgeoning digital currency ecosystem.
We're looking for dedicated engineers to help us scale our existing stack to keep pace with the ever-growing demand for bitcoin. Some technologies we use include Ruby on Rails, React.js + Redux, react-native, Redis, Elasticsearch, SQL, and Git. Experience working with bitcoin APIs and DevOps knowledge is a plus.
Bitcore and BitcoinJS achieve a lot of the same basic functions like generating addresses (and now multi-signature addresses), building, and signing transctions. You will still need to be able to connect to a Bitcoind peer (via an API or run your own) to promulgate the transaction on the Bitcoin network.
http://cryptocoinjs.com/ is another library that performs some of these functions. Rubyists may be interested in https://github.com/lian/bitcoin-ruby
I would lean towards hiring devs, even if remotely, as opposed to outsourcing.
Especially if your startup may be handling users' private keys, you will want a trustworthy domestic dev team. The last thing you want is millions of dollars (or bitcoins!) worth of your users' deposits to disappear without a trace overseas.
One of the most notorious threats to blockchain-powered networks is allowing a malicious actor to obtain control over more than half of the network's computing resources. This situation is commonly referred to as the elusive "fifty-one percent attack." It is difficult, but not impossible to pull off —http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/bitcoins-fatal-flaw-was-nea... — the aggregation of this kind of hashing power. And it looks like we've nearly made it there again, but there is a difference between a pool getting > 50% of resources, and an "attack."
A successful attack using this method would allow the attacker to exclude, or "orphan" any new blocks from the valid chain causing all newly-minted coins go to the attacker. He may also execute a "double-spend" and reverse any of his own transactions during the window of time that his sham blockchain is considered authoritative by the network.
A successful 51% attack on Feathercoin — http://www.coindesk.com/feathercoin-hit-by-massive-attack/ — was stopped in its tracks by the network's natural uptick in difficulty in response to an increase in network hash rate. The Feathercoin attacker was likely executing a price pump in parallel to compromising the network, which caused coin-switching pools to mine feathercoin and increase the difficulty to a level that stopped the attack.
