draglet

Users interested in the service can first request a technical presentation from the draglet team, as nearly all implementations are going to have different aims and purposes. An in-depth presentation like this is crucial to reassure many customers of the suitability of the product.

From that point, users are then able to order a test installation of the platform. This service will run for 100 days on their site, offering customers the complete exchange experience, and suitability reassurance, before they purchase the complete 12-month service.

When satisfied with the draglet platform, users can purchase a 12-month contract with the company to provide the full hosted platform for the customer's exchange. The basic option includes two currencies and one language, but further languages and currencies can be added with paid modules. The draglet team are also able to provide custom designed user-interface elements for customers, further heightening the custom-made nature of the builds.

Services such as user 2-factor authentication and multisignature, automatically controlled cold wallets for the exchange are included as basic services within all levels of the draglet system, removing some of the larger technical security headaches for an exchange owner.

As part of their purchase, customers receive a basic, or Gamma Service Level Agreement (SLA) with the following conditions: 3 servers, in 1 data center, with an guaranteed uptime of 0.99. Three further levels of service are available for a monthly increase in cost. The highest level of these, Zeta, offers users 6 servers across 3 data centers, with a 0.999 guaranteed uptime.

The increasing levels of SLA also affect the turnaround time for exchange's technical support tickets.  Response times span eight days for a noncritical problem on a basic pack, to 30 minites for a critical problem on a high-level pack. These “low critical” problems are guaranteed to be fixed within 24 days for the basic pack, versus 3 days for the top-level Zeta service, and “highly critical” problems are fixed in 32 and 4 hours, respectively.

The range of expansion, and customization on offer for the platform means that once a customer has set up their initial business, growth can be easily accommodated. 

Removing the need for a strong technical background for someone thinking of opening a digital currency or similar exchange means that more people will be able to do so. The removal of that barrier will mean that a much wider range of ideas from entrepreneurs will reach market, providing a more diverse and possibly specialized range of services to users.

Users will also benefit from a more robust team working on the security, user experience and technical backbone of their exchange. Unlike exchanges where development can take a backseat to “keeping the lights on” as the pace of growth outstrips the in-house tech team's ability, having the draglet team constantly working on the underlying platform allows the exchange team to focus on their core business.

draglet was founded in 2013 in Germany.

The test installation costs €990 for the complete 100-day period. This cost can be credited against the purchase of the full live exchange later on.

Moving to the full exchange platform begins with a monthly fixed charge of €440. On top of this, customers can purchase one of a range of service packs that enable a certain volume of trading on their site. These start at €90 for 1,000 “ticks” (executed orders on their exchange), and range up to a €19,440 top-level pack for 1,000,000 ticks.

Users receive the basic Gamma Service Level Agreement pack as part of the €440 price. Higher levels of service are available for a monthly cost, including Delta for €900, Epsilon for €2900, and Zeta for €4900.

These prices contain the cost of renting the server hardware needed from draglet, and include two exchange currencies, all presented in one language. Adding additional currencies and language packs is available for €20 a month.

Custom development on a more custom-made platform costs around €65 per developer hour spent on the project.

Cointelegraph: What's the background of the draglet team?

Benjamin Bommhardt: The background of the draglet team is as follow:

• Me (Sales director): I always traded either virtual currencies or cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin fascinated me since 2013 and I just had to dive into the Bitcoin space. My professional background is a lot of study, as well as process and customer relationship management.
• Our CEO has 15 years of experience of developing and customizing financial and/or trading software and is very deep into the software development (rumor has it he dreams in Java).
• Our CTO has 10 years of experience in server administration, hosting and software development. He is our technical expert and makes our server architecture impenetrable.

We gathered because we were pretty much unsatisfied with the landscapes of exchanges. Trading experience on Mt. Gox and BTC-e were horrible. The potential for trading software (when developed right) was clear. Our mission: to generate reliable and trustworthy gateways into the cryptocurrency economy.

CT: With exchange security being such a high priority, to what extent is that issue already solved for users running your software? Do they also need to be well-versed in crypto security?

BB: We have plenty of security-focused customizations in our exchange software: we even developed our own process that is called "user encrypted access" (patent pending) and protects the user funds by an additional, unique encryption process.

While the client side features typical 2-factor authentications, the admin interface is protected by VPN certificates. The server architecture is distributed, encapsulating every module on a single instance while all servers are based on a clustered persistence and backed by multiple locations, ensuring industry-grade availability.

DDoS protection is guaranteed through DNS failover, allowing to switch new servers into the cluster in maximum 180 seconds. Last but not least, the deep freeze process automatically swaps crypto funds from the hot wallet to the multisignature cold storage.

We have a manual that broadly describes how to administer the back end and take care of the funds, so our customers can easily learn the process and do not have to be technically versed.

CT: How has the initial user reaction been to your software?

BB: Our users are surprised by the unique features that our software offers. For example, the optimistic fund locking feature gives our customers a completely new understanding of how trading might work.

While every other exchange platform locks user funds (e.g., an account balance of 100 euro will be locked, as soon as you create an order to buy Bitcoin for 100 euro) our exchange software lets traders create orders even when no funds are available, allowing a huge variety of connected use cases, such as automatic trading or better overall trading experience.

As soon as a user understands this, a moment of surprise as well as enthusiasm is guaranteed. Also, our users do like the simplicity (yet effectiveness) of our admin interface.

CT: What kind of technical support do you offer for those who are interested in founding a wallet or exchange service, but lack some of the technical ability to do so?

BB: We offer the whole "white label package" by customizing the exchange software according to our customer's needs (branding, content, trading pairs, etc.) and also doing extra customization such as UI changes or developing additional modules like payment processing.

We also offer additional modules such as external liquidity provider or spreads that further increase the functionality of the exchange. After the customization is done and all tests have been passed, the exchange software will then be deployed on the customer's website. Our customer will receive the login for the admin interface and can immediately start to administer his exchange, setting up transaction fees or processing user KYC documents and support.

The technical support is ensured over defined SLAs (Service Level Agreements) that are implemented in our service desk, where our customers can get reliable service for problems with their exchange, should there be any.

Since we completely cover the technical side and our customers cover marketing, legal issues and operation of the exchange, no real technical knowledge is needed to use our services to launch and operate an exchange.

CT: Do you have any exciting news or upcoming features you can share with us?

BB: Our first two exchanges (www.capitaldigi.com and www.lacoinex.com) are running smoothly and will be accompanied by several other exchanges that will be launched in the upcoming weeks. Also, we are taking the last steps in completing our next revolutionary feature, the DSO (draglet shared orderbook) that facilitates an open API, allowing the ability to tap into the liquidity network of draglet.

This API allows a real shared orderbook among all exchanges that either run on draglet technology or can communicate with the open, documented API deployed on the customer's website.