Coinffeine launches first decentralized Bitcoin exchange

Spanish firm Coinffeine announced Tuesday on its blog the launch of the world’s first decentralized Bitcoin exchange platform in more than 70 nations, including Brazil, China, Indonesia, and Russia.

Two months following the release of the technical preview version, in which users experimented with the platform, Coinffeine now allows the exchange of Bitcoin and fiat currency in a peer-to-peer manner and in an international market.

The company said in the blog post that it provides a user experience similar to traditional exchanges, but using local payment processors like PayPal to manage fiat currency and a desktop application to allow users to manage their own Bitcoins without having to lose control over their coins at any time.

Coinffeine said it leverages the peer-to-peer model to avoid deposits in BTC or fiat currency, making it unnecessary to identify consumers or meet costly money laundering laws in each nation.

“Not having to identify users or enforce KYC [know your customer] laws has allowed us to design a much more scalable exchange model,” said Coinffeine CEO Alberto Gómez in the blog post. “Coinffeine is like BitTorrent. You just download it, you connect your OKPAY account, or PayPal in the future, and use it.”

Currently, Coinffeine only supports OKPAY, a Russian-based payment processor that is popular in the Bitcoin community and with 20 percent of its users in China. But the company plans to integrate other payment platforms such as PayPal or Alipay to expand services to the rest of the world in the near future.

Coinffeine said it integrates the concept of a Bitcoin wallet and exchange in the small product, offering the first Bitcoin desktop wallet that features the ability to buy and sell the digital currency automatically.

The company said in the blog post that its success is largely due in part to support from key partners such as Bankinter and the law firm Abanlex. The latter is known for winning the “right to be forgotten” lawsuit against Google in Europe, and supports Coinffeine’s legal strategy in its international launch.

Coinffeine is still in beta, so the company is recommending that consumers use moderate amounts of money. Users of the beta version could encounter some limitations of liquidity available in the market. Coinffeine said it is in talks with specialized firms to close liquidity deals and market surveillance to be added in future releases.