CryptoThrift Rebrands to bitify and is Ready to Go Mainstream

CryptoThrift Rebrands to bitify and is Ready to Go Mainstream



Two years after launching CryptoThrift, we believe the time is right for change. As you may have noticed already, we have rebranded to bitify (https://bitify.com).
Why the change?

bitify has achieved continual growth since it began trading two years ago, with over 200% organic growth in the past 12 months alone. We have a great following of users and have solidified our position as the number one marketplace and auction site within the Bitcoin community. But now we need to build upon that platform and prepare ourselves for the rising popularity of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency technology. We need to be ready to go mainstream. The first step in that process is to ensure we have a brand name that better represents what we do, and one that will help us reach and be accepted by a wider audience.
So what’s behind the name?

It’s simple really. “bit”, short for Bitcoin, “-ify” to make it a verb. bitify – to turn into Bitcoin. It’s short, it’s memorable, it’s current.
What about the logo?

Again we wanted to keep it simple. The “b” in bitify being made up of a 1 and 0, the fundamental values of a “bit”.
How will the rebrand occur?
We hope it will be completely seamless for you. The existing cryptothrift.com site will automatically forward to bitify.com. Any existing links you have in your listings or emails from us to the cryptothrift.com site will remain active, as will our email addresses. Our support IRC channel will change to #bitify on freenode IRC, though we will still monitor #cryptothrift until the end of this year. Our social media pages and forum username changes are in progress and will transition over the coming weeks. We’ll update you further as necessary.
What’s next for bitify?

Our goal for bitify is to make it easier to buy and sell goods with Bitcoin. This means making the process easier for both buyers and sellers alike, building tools for sellers to better manage their sales, simplifying navigation and improving visibility for buyers, enhancing our security, and generally providing better customer service.
We have a heap of features planned to meet these goals, most notably our intention to introduce customisable “store fronts” aimed at power sellers and small businesses. But we also want to hear what you want to see on the site. This is, after all, a site for you! So please do email us with your suggestions to ideas@bitify.com.
Developing new features and growing the business takes both time and money. Not many people realise that bitify is a bootstrap startup, founded, funded, developed, and operated by just two guys, in the evenings and weekends between full time jobs and raising families. This unfortunately means that both time and money are in short supply. But we recognise that we can’t do this alone anymore, so are already exploring our options for external help and funding. If you are an investor and want to know more, please drop as an email to invest@bitify.com.
About bitify

– bitify is marketplace and auction site allowing buyers and sellers to transact using Bitcoin.
– Trading for almost 2 years, the site boasts nearly 50,000 users and several thousand items listed for sale.
– Business is based in Sydney, Australia, and is registered with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
– bitify has processed over USD $2.5m through its escrow service, making it the most widely used and trusted escrow services in the Bitcoin eco system.
– The marketplace lists a diverse range of products from computer hardware and software, digital games, and gift cards to motor cars, real estate, gold, and silver.
– bitify is proud to have hosted several charity auctions, from the Ten Trillion Zimbabwean dollar bill signed by Bitcoin guru Andreas Antonopoulos, to the very recent Direct Relief fund raising campaign in partnership with SatoshiLabs.

We’ll take this opportunity to thank all of our users for your support over the past two years. We hope we can continue to provide you with an honest and fair escrow service and reliable customer support.

Thanks
Paul & Ahmad,
“team bitify”

bitify is Live

bitify – BitCoin and LiteCoin Auction Site is Live

We are glad to be announcing the public release of our brand new website bitify.com. bitify is a BitCoin BTC and LiteCoin  LTC auction website where users can buy, sell and auction items, goods and services for BitCoin and LiteCoin (more currencies to come).  It supports a built in Escrow service with a fee lower than any other Escrow service available on the market. It also provides a platform for other crypto project developers to hold fundraising and charity auctions to fund their crypto projects; those auctions will be listed and sold free of charge and will be accompanied with a blog page explaining the project and how others can donate and contribute to them. More about the project can be found here.

Features:

•    BitCoin and LiteCoin Support (more to come)

•    Free listing

•    Percentage base fee

•    Split payments

•    Built in Escrow

•    Automatic payment processing

•    Advanced feedback system

•    Fully integrated social networking

•    Charity and Community support and fundraiser auctions

•    Retina/Super HD display support

•    A lot more features coming in the next update, stay tuned!

The website has been built with user friendliness in mind, we know most crypto users are already tech savvy, but we’re hoping our project alongside other crypto projects will help contribute towards pulling more users and a variety of people into using cryptocurrency in day to day online shopping. That’s why we’re offering item listings in Fiat (USD only for now) rather than crypto as we believe it’s still slightly easier for online shoppers to calculate figures in Fiat rather than crypto. In saying so, listing in cryptocurrencies will be added soon to accommodate every taste as well as other major fiat currencies.

So how it works? And if the listing is in Fiat, what are BitCoin and LiteCoin have to do with it?

Users will post items for sale in Fiat; the equivalent value of accepted crypto will be shown alongside the Fiat value calculated from the average value pulled through an API from major exchanges like mtGox and BTC-e. When the item is sold, the final value in crypto will be used to for payment. Yes, payments can be made in cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency only. The Fiat figures are there for reference only. Check our FAQ page for more info

Fees, charges and payments:

Listing on bitify is completely free, you post your item and pay nothing until it’s sold, no sale no fee. When the item is sold, a percentage fee will be deducted from the final value of the auction upon closure. We’re using percentage fees as it’s fairer for sellers. Escrow fees will be added to the final value of the sale and will be paid by the buyer should they select the escrow option (if that the seller is offering Escrow). All payments whether with or without Escrow will be made to crptothrift’s wallets, fees will be deducted automatically and the final amount will be sent to the seller. Automatic payments have been put in place to eliminate human errors and speed up transactions. In case of an Escrow, the funds will be held in bitify’s offline wallets until the buyer confirms the reception of the goods and the satisfaction of the sale, where funds will be released to the seller. You can find more information about fees, charges and other auction details here.

Auction Duration and Details:

Auctions can be submitted as a normal auction and/or as “Buy Now” listing. Sellers select which country they are selling from and whether they provide international shipping (if applicable). They also need to select what condition the item they are selling is in (brand new, used, defected, etc..). Sellers select the category and price of the item as well as the format of the sale (auction or buy now) alongside the shipping, escrow, item description and other details. Sellers select the duration of the listing (10 days by default) and upload photos (3 photos free of charge) as well as any files in the case of downloadable goods. Items get posted

Buyers bid on the items until the auction duration ends, the highest bidder at the closure of the auction is the winner and is expected to pay for the item in full within 48 hours in the nominated cryptocurrency they choose provided that the seller accepts that currency. Sellers ship the items (registered post preferred) and mark them as shipped, buyers receive the items and mark them as received, funds get released to the seller in the case of Escrow and both buyers and seller can then choose to exchange feedback. The feedback system has been put in place to increase trust between parties and to save you money as well as a high rated seller might offer escrow, but the buyer can decide not to select it as their feedback and reputation is high enough to be trusted, thus saving themselves money. Please check our Terms and Conditions page before buying or selling on bitify

Community Support and Auctions, what is it and how it works?

Community auctions (which will be introduced shortly) is the best feature of our website. It gives other crypto developer with give plans and low on funds the opportunity to raise funds for their projects by submitting a fundraising auction as well as an explanation page about their projects and how others can contribute to them on our blog. Those auctions will be free of charge and the full amount will be sent to the developer.

In order for us to control what gets posted in the “Community Auctions” and so others don’t abuse this feature, we will have this category locked where only site admins and moderators will be able to submit auctions in this category. So if you’ve got the plans, we’ve got the helping hand to lend you; all you need to do is submit your plans to us, we will check them and if they’re deemed to be for a worthy cause, we will let you know so you can submit your auctions details to us alongside the explanation page and we will post them on your behalf.

Safety and Privacy:

To makes sure your funds are secure, all funds are transferred immediately out of our wallets to the seller. When an Escrow is selected; funds will be stored in a cold wallet awaiting manual release. This step has to be done manually to increase security. Also, all BitCoin and LiteCoin addresses are a one off address, once the full payment is received, those addresses are no longer in use, and each item will have its own generated addresses.

Your privacy is as important to us as it is to you. We will not store any personal information on our website apart from those you decide to share or those which are essential for you to communicate with others like your username and location (if provided). Our multi verification system is being developed as we’re typing this message. To increase security and trust between users, we will offer a 2 step verification, a silver one which uses your online profiles and reputation to prove who you are and give you a score badge out of a 1,000, and a second gold verification which is done manually by you submitting your proof of ID and address. Both verifications will NOT give away any of your personal information, they are purely used to give you a badge and a score. Once your identity is confirmed, documents will be destroyed and no further details will be held in our hands. Our complete privacy policy details can be found on our Privacy Policy page.

Feedback and Contact:

We’ll be looking forward to your feedback, suggestions and complains, whatever you want to call them. That’s what matters the most to us as your feedback will help us serve you better and deliver a better user experience.

So, if you have questions or would like to discuss any ideas, send us an email through our contact us page or drops us a line on Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus. We’ll be happy to hear form you and will do our best to respond ASAP and carefully address any issues, concerns and suggestions.

Bitcoin and Litecoin marketplace and auction site.

Bitify is an Australian registered Bitcoin and Litecoin marketplace and auction site. We are currently the number one marketplace and auction site accepting Bitcoin in the world. We offer a safe and secure platform for sellers to list their items for sale FREE of charge and for buyers to bid and buy those items while taking advantage of our 30 days buyer protection and in-house automated escrow service.

bitify.com is owned and operated by two Sydney based developers who run the site whilst holding down other full-time jobs and raising kids! As such we rely heavily on our great community of users to help us out as much as they can, moderating the site and reporting users. We’re always looking for more help, so if you are interested in becoming a moderator, please let us know. Despite our small team, we pride ourselves on providing great customer support.

Thanks to the help and support of the community bitify has achieved steady growth since its launch in September 2013. In February 2015 we reached a milestone of 25,000 users and are regularly topping our record sales figures. Not bad for a business that has never received investment funding!

bitify.com is still a young project, with many more features planned over the coming years. Our intention is to release a new set of updates and features every quarter, and when we do we will email our users to keep you all informed. So stay tuned for more information or contact us via our Contact Us page.

We are always open to suggestions for new features and ways we can improve the site – this is after all a service for the crypto community! So please feel free to get in touch with us, either via the Contact Us page or in our official IRC channel #bitify on freenode.

Want to know more? Please check our FAQ’s page or shoot us an email with your questions and inquiries.

https://bitify.com/faqs/