I've been working on a new peer-to-peer exchange that employs WebRTC for the past few weeks.
It's pretty unique because it fully complies with FinCEN's regulations around exchange because all communication in the platform is conducted directly peer-to-peer and subsequent exchanges are conducted physically by the respective exchangers (I'd love to employ an online transfer in further iterations, but don't have a good solution yet).
I just went live with an early alpha tonight if others would like to try it out and give feedback.
My primary goal with the platform is give as much anonymity as possible, meaning that I self-host all files (no external js). I'm stuck using an external tile-server (which means mapquest logs some data, including IP + timestamp), but I hope to get some capacity soon to bring that in-house as well so no external logging of users occurs (beyond ISPs).
The site is
elqnt.org (pronounced eloquent).
Best,
Stephen
This is a brilliant step, and congratulations for the person who thought this up!
However, as constructive criticsm, I must say that the poster below (Astrohacker) who makes a comment regarding trust has a valid point. This idea of lack of trust is what coagulates the liquidity of trading in any peer-to-peer exchange.
I do understand that alot of us are not fans of ripple because they bastardise what the protocol actually stands for, however the concept of having a network (and thus a route) of trust is something that can help with this regard. The problem is that in order for it to be effective, the trust network needs to reach a critical mass for it to be effective. It's a catch 22 but it is the only way I can see exchanges happening properly. This trust could naturaly develop when bitcoiners trade small amounts amongst each other first to build up trust, and then you can have this expressed as a credit line, so as people make small trades with everybody, the more collective trust there is to finance this ripple-like system.
This is what I believe would propel the idea of P2P exchange.
I completely agree re: coagulation of liquidity, but with anonymity comes a certain challenge to trust. At this point it's a physical exchange, and thus the burden of trust is on end-users, elqnt simply provides a means to find each other. The issue with the method you mentioned is that as soon as you have a centralized organization producing any kind of 'credit ledger' or the like, they can soon expect to get a knock on the door for being an online money transmitter (as seen with other internally developed digital currencies used to exchange BTC). Staying at the individual level with direct peer-to-peer exchanges keeps things below the regulations and issues around being considered an online money transmitter (which brings with it a removal of anonymity to comply). Making this peer-to-peer exchange as smooth as possible is the goal and some form of distributed 'credit ledger' would be fantastic to layer on, but I'm not sure how this would work.
Regarding services like ripple and other exchanges:
The core issue I take with networks like ripple is that they break the benefit of anonymity, and without this, Bitcoin looses almost all advantages over fiat currencies.
I lost faith in Bitcoin for a period of time simply because if a 3rd-party can observe who the money is coming from when it comes in and who it goes to when it comes out, then decentralization and internal anonymization mean almost nothing. The exchange in + out of Bitcoin must be anonymous in order for the decentralized nature to have benefit. Once you loose anonymity, enforceable regulation is soon behind, along with taxation.
The prior is why I'm opposed to any layering of identification onto Bitcoin (much like what Google is working on internally, to produce 'clean' Bitcoins via layered identity) or tracking in/out of the platform itself through linked bank accounts at online exchanges.
This ultimately led me to explore options that would fit within current regulations and thus WebRTC produced the most readily available solution, and now I see a possibility for Bitcoin to remain valuable through Anonymous exchanges conducted peer-to-peer physically.