Status as of Saturday, January 20, 2018

[Steve Sokolowski]

Good morning! Here's a brief status update.

• Today's tasks will be focused on Ripple payouts.
• After that is done, I'll be moving onto the new "coin_payout_exception" feature. This feature will record when exceptions occur during coin payouts, and display a message to customers in the "live coin balances" section of the "Earnings" page indicating that they should not create a support ticket for the issue. Chris will query the exceptions table and be able to track payout issues, resolving many of them before customers even notice, and reducing the number of support tickets.
• Next week will see the upgrade to Postgres 10, and the beginning of the installation of SHA-256 coins on the servers. However, I think that notifications and notification events may still have issues that need to be addressed before we can work on SHA-256. Notifications, from what I can see, are the last major feature that has yet to have a review since the manpower on the project was significantly increased in late November.
• Comcast said that their contractor will be calling Chris on Tuesday to schedule a "site survey." Then, after the survey, they will call to schedule the running of the fiber lines. Then, after that is done, they will call again to schedule the connection of the lines on both ends. After that, Chris will be able to switch all services to the new connection. Things appear to be on schedule for completion in March, as originally planned.
• Our biggest problem right now remains that we cannot sell cryptocurrencies for dollars to pay taxes. Our Coinbase accounts are frozen and even if they were not, we are fed up with Coinbase's poor customer service anyway, and we have not heard back from three additional exchanges to which we applied. Once our existing dollars are insufficient to cover our tax debt, we will have to make a decision about how and whether to continue operations. If anyone has any suggestions about how to sell large amounts of cryptocurrencies, please get in contact with us. We could end up owing 5 million dollars in taxes when we expand into SHA-256 and Ethereum mining.
• All tickets in the support ticketing system are either under investigation by Chris (22 of them) or waiting for customer reply (760 of them). There are no tickets that have not been seen. Before making posts in the forums, please review the ticketing system for a reply to your ticket, as every ticket has a reply and there are a large number of customers who submit a ticket and then never provide the information requested to continue the investigation.
• I was considering the idea of eliminating "Tips for Chris" and instead providing the ability for customers to mine for charity. In addition to the other coins, we would add charities to the list, where they would receive donations. Customers would be able to track how much they donated. Comments on that?

[pavvappav]

Spamming twitter like ANTPool seems to get the attention of some exchanges support teams.

[travelinmusic]

Chris, "If anyone has any suggestions about how to sell large amounts of cryptocurrencies, please get in contact with us." I am just curious, Does PH run it's own miners? And if so and you don't mind sharing info, How much mhs are you running?
Do you collect your 5% in the coins mined by customers, thus your large amounts? Have you tried Yobit? I have no clue about their skills and payout reliability but they do service many of the coins available on PH so it may be a good place to unload. Thanks

[Steve Sokolowski]

Chris, "If anyone has any suggestions about how to sell large amounts of cryptocurrencies, please get in contact with us." I am just curious, Does PH run it's own miners? And if so and you don't mind sharing info, How much mhs are you running?
Do you collect your 5% in the coins mined by customers, thus your large amounts? Have you tried Yobit? I have no clue about their skills and payout reliability but they do service many of the coins available on PH so it may be a good place to unload. Thanks

We trade cryptocurrencies on Yobit all the time, but they don't provide a way to sell into the legacy financial system.

Our problem is that the government doesn't accept cryptocurrencies for payment of taxes. Right now, everything we've earned is being held in ETH, LTC, BCH, Monero, and DASH. Other than the tax problem, this wouldn't be a problem, since there are enough ways to use coins to pay for things.

[keksik]

looking for SHA256 mining (despite having only 1 S9, 2nd on the way) Do i understand properly that after internet connection upgrade in March you will start with sha256?
so far im pretty satisfied to mine on PH. btw im having 1GH for ETH, but will remain in nanopool as they have only 1-2%, so not added value for now to change pools as i want also payment in ETH.
anyway looking forward for improvements! keep that good work.

[travelinmusic]

What about Kraken? They have connectivity issues as well but QandA says "What are the options to deposit or withdraw cash through a bank and what are the fees?
Deposit options and fees

EUR SEPA Deposit (Free) - EEA countries only
USD Bank Wire Deposit ($5 USD) - US only
EUR Bank Wire Deposit (€10) - outside US only
USD Bank Wire Deposit ($10 USD) - outside US only
JPY Bank deposit (Free, ¥5,000 deposit minimum) - Japan only
CAD Wire Deposit (Free)
Withdrawal options and fees

EUR SEPA Withdrawal (€0.09) - EEA countries only
USD Bank Wire Withdrawal ($5 USD) - US only
USD Bank Wire Withdrawal ($60 USD) - outside US only
EUR Bank Wire Withdrawal (€60) - outside US only
JPY Bank withdrawal (¥20) - Japan only
CAD EFT Withdrawal ($10 CAD fee, $25K CAD daily max) - Canada only
We are always working to add more funding options to better serve our clients globally. Fees are determined by our transaction costs and may be adjusted if our funding partners adjust their fee structure."

[Steve Sokolowski]

What about Kraken? They have connectivity issues as well but QandA says "What are the options to deposit or withdraw cash through a bank and what are the fees?
Deposit options and fees

EUR SEPA Deposit (Free) - EEA countries only
USD Bank Wire Deposit ($5 USD) - US only
EUR Bank Wire Deposit (€10) - outside US only
USD Bank Wire Deposit ($10 USD) - outside US only
JPY Bank deposit (Free, ¥5,000 deposit minimum) - Japan only
CAD Wire Deposit (Free)
Withdrawal options and fees

EUR SEPA Withdrawal (€0.09) - EEA countries only
USD Bank Wire Withdrawal ($5 USD) - US only
USD Bank Wire Withdrawal ($60 USD) - outside US only
EUR Bank Wire Withdrawal (€60) - outside US only
JPY Bank withdrawal (¥20) - Japan only
CAD EFT Withdrawal ($10 CAD fee, $25K CAD daily max) - Canada only
We are always working to add more funding options to better serve our clients globally. Fees are determined by our transaction costs and may be adjusted if our funding partners adjust their fee structure."

Good idea. We'll apply there. We also found out about itBit, an over the counter matching service. It requires us to save up until we have 25 bitcoins to unload, and it only deals in bitcoins, but it could serve as a last resort.

[travelinmusic]

I can say that Kraken has a great security protocol with many levels of protection you can choose for higher payout levels. I've only traded 1 LTC there for ripple and never took a cash withdrawal yet, but it was the very first solid place I stumbled upon when I first googled crypto after the epiphany of jumping in. $5 unlimited cash payouts sure sounds reasonable! and even stash some cash in Japanese Yen

[jaybizz]

What about Kraken? They have connectivity issues as well but QandA says "What are the options to deposit or withdraw cash through a bank and what are the fees?
Deposit options and fees

EUR SEPA Deposit (Free) - EEA countries only
USD Bank Wire Deposit ($5 USD) - US only
EUR Bank Wire Deposit (€10) - outside US only
USD Bank Wire Deposit ($10 USD) - outside US only
JPY Bank deposit (Free, ¥5,000 deposit minimum) - Japan only
CAD Wire Deposit (Free)
Withdrawal options and fees

EUR SEPA Withdrawal (€0.09) - EEA countries only
USD Bank Wire Withdrawal ($5 USD) - US only
USD Bank Wire Withdrawal ($60 USD) - outside US only
EUR Bank Wire Withdrawal (€60) - outside US only
JPY Bank withdrawal (¥20) - Japan only
CAD EFT Withdrawal ($10 CAD fee, $25K CAD daily max) - Canada only
We are always working to add more funding options to better serve our clients globally. Fees are determined by our transaction costs and may be adjusted if our funding partners adjust their fee structure."

Good idea. We'll apply there. We also found out about itBit, an over the counter matching service. It requires us to save up until we have 25 bitcoins to unload, and it only deals in bitcoins, but it could serve as a last resort.

Kraken is very much like Gemini as far as adhering to US law and what not, from what I've seen. I have an account with both, and I personally prefer Gemini's interface and banking procedures, but Kraken does offer the ability to verify to higher "levels" in to move large amounts of USD and cryptos. They also have a lot more options as far as trading pairs vs. Gemini. But, I will say that they took forever to setup/verify my account - and I'd imagine the level you guys will need would take a while by default. But, Kraken overall is probably your best bet taking everything into account - hopefully they can get you guys up and running relatively quickly.

[spauk]

if you're just worried about taxes like once a year you could resort to old fashioned face to face transactions if you can find people to buy the cryptos for cash, not sure if you could get the volume you need though.
no btc atm's in your area? (i have never even seen one in my state)
i'm sure you've thought of these things but just throwing it out there