PALO ALTO, CA — Today, BitGo announced the launch of its new service, BitGo Instant. BitGo claimed that this service is “the world’s first way to safely receive zero-confirm Bitcoin transactions with a full financial guarantee. Along with the announcement of its launch, BitGo reported that it has a “strong list of initial partners,” to recognize the zero-confirmation transactions. These partners include, Bitfinex, Bitstamp, CoinHako, FoldApp, Genesis Trading, Kraken, ShapeShift and Unocoin.
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BitGo Instant: A Guaranteed Zero-Confirmation Transaction
BitGo Instant with a multi-signature wallet implementation. BitGo Instant wallets consist of 3 keys: one held by BitGo, one held by the user, and one held on behalf of the user by a third-party Key Recovery Service (KRS). Two signatures are required on every transaction on a BitGo wallet, and in the usual case this would be done by BitGo and by the user. BitGo claimed that it will never co-sign a transaction that is a duplicate spend, leaving only the possibility of the user and the KRS “conspiring” to double spend. BitGo will attempt to prevent this by having a contract with any KRS it uses that requires the KRS to give BitGo advance notice of any signatures it makes.
BitGo has guaranteed these zero-confirmation transactions. In the event of financial loss from a BitGo Instant transaction, the company said that customers will be able to file a claim and will “be compensated in full by BitGo.”
The company is marketing its new service as a good way to avoid losing value to bitcoin’s volatile exchange rate. According to BitGo, it was unsafe to accept zero-confirmation transactions before its BitGo Instant service, because it was “possible for the sender to spend the money elsewhere before the transaction is confirmed.” This risk led many Bitcoin businesses to require multiple confirmations before crediting a deposit. BitGo said that these wait times were inconvenient and risky in themselves, because “in the volatile Bitcoin market, a delay in moving funds to an exchange can mean the loss of thousands of dollars on a large transaction.”
Bitstamp CEO Nejc Kodrič — one of BitGo Instant’s initial partners — was excited about the announcement of this new service. Kodrič told press:
“BitGo Instant is an elegant solution that lets users send bitcoin quickly and easily. Many bitcoin businesses would love to be able to accept zero-confirm transactions, but it’s been too risky to consider until now. We’re excited to be supporting this much-needed innovation from day one.”
BitGo is a multi-signature technology companies, and offers a suite of services aimed at facilitating secure bitcoin transactions. The company offers BitGo Enterprise, an enterprise-grade, multi-sig, multi-user Bitcoin wallet, and BitGo Platform API, a robust set of tools and services to access the underlying platform. BitGo recently announced handling of $1 billion of bitcoin transactions per quarter. The company was founded by veterans in online security, digital currency, and financial technology, and has raised more than $14 million in financing to date.
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Featured image courtesy of BitGo.
