The team behind localethereum.com announced today 80% of the development is complete as they ready the launch of a new, secure, privacy-oriented local marketplace for the Ethereum community.

Once 100% complete, the project will undergo a thorough security audit before going live.

By utilizing smart contracts and in-browser cryptography, localethereum is a private way to buy or sell Ether (ETH) for offline currencies.

Through a web-based peer-to-peer exchange committed to privacy; nobody on the localethereum team is able to read user messages, nor access funds.

Messages between buyers and sellers are end-to-end encrypted, transactions are protected by smart contracts and identities are secured by digital signatures.

More Features:

Buyers and sellers do not need to install any third-party apps or plugins. The solution that is entirely web-based.

localethereum leverages the new Web Crypto API, a secure interface to cryptographic operations. The native API — developed in part by Google, Mozilla, and Netflix — is at the center of localethereum’s secure messaging protocol.

Every account has a public and private key pair for reputation and security purposes — the public key is public and the private key never touches the internet. Signing in to your account involves decrypting an encrypted private key using a stretched password as the key — somewhat akin to Blockchain.info’s web wallet for Bitcoin.

Messages are signed and end-to-end encrypted for absolute privacy and transactions are signed in the browser. This means that even in the unlikely event of a hack no user messages or funds are at risk.

Sleek user interface inspired by other blockchain-greats.

The only time the team may read messages is when either party initiates the dispute resolution process. This involves volunteering the decrypted versions of signed messages to an arbitrator.

The first 100 people who sign up to the waiting list for notice of exact launch time will receive no fees on their first USD $50,000 transacted.