Bitcoin Forum

With so many different ways to exchange $ for BTC these days, I would like to catch up and find out what is the cheapest for, say $2,000, twice a month.

That would be $2k in a bank account.

And what would be the steps to go from that $2k in my account to BTC in my wallet?

Thanks.

Open an account with an exchange, then take write checks that you deposit in a bank where that exchange has an account to fund your account with the exchange.  Then, when your USD are in your exchange account, place buy orders for Bitcoin.  There are a bunch of exchanges, such as Bitfloor, BTC-E, and MtGox.

Probably BitFloor.  You can deposit to your account there by making a cash deposit at any Chase branch.

Once there, if you place a buy order that doesn't fill immediately and goes on the books you'll get a 0.1% rebate.  If you'd prefer to have your bitcoins immediately, you can place a higher bid that executes against the existing sell orders on the books and still only pay a 0.4% commission (which is cheaper than you would get anywhere else anyways).

Also helps that prices there are generally lower than at any other exchange.

Not too shabby. I also noticed on Bitfloor's website that they allow ING person 2 person transfers for free.

I have an ING account. That would be very convenient.

Wow... I just signed up for a bitfloor account. Looks pretty damn good. Would have saved me $15 in cash deposit fees yesterday.

One question... why the difference in rate between market orders and putting one on the book?

Bitfloor does seem to be the cheapest as far as funding your account goes, though you should also see if Bitcoin can be purchased cheaper on other exchanges (which is, of course, something that changes all the time).  I just checked the last trades from the three exchanges I mentioned, and BTC-E was lowest ($9.851), MtGox was in the middle ($9.91), and Bitfloor was in the highest ($9.95).  That's just another factor to consider.

Market orders are orders that will execute at whatever the ask price is.  When you bid, your order will only execute if the ask price drops to your bid.

I get that... but why the 0.1% rebate?

Because you are providing liquidity to the exchange.

Bitfloor is awesome.  I wish more people used it.

Ironically for the past three months BitFloor was lower than Mt. Gox because their ACH withdrawal was as good as (or better than) withdrawing to Dwolla -- assuming you didn't need access to the funds for a day or two.  So there were more sellers than buyers.

I think the difference now is that they've added Wells Fargo in addition to Chase, for cash deposit methods which makes BitFloor available even that much more.

I gotta wonder at what point the banks start to question what all these cash deposits are all about.

That's about the point they realize they are being disintermediated.   They are becoming the dumb pipes of the financial network.  They provide a service cheaply -- they convert paper currency into electronic form.  

Because the cash deposited to BitFloor stays there until it goes out as an ACH, they probably have a fair amount of cash accumulating in their accounts.  So Wells Fargo and Chase probably don't mind being used for this.  And it gives them a chance to have potential new customers walk in through the door (though the bank reps probably can't figure out why nearly all attempts to get the prospect to open an account are met with the response "Pfffffft.  Pshaw right!").

I do wonder if the various exchanges have set up plain consumer checking accounts or if they have business accounts.  The transaction sizes on the accounts would certainly draw IRS scrutiny.

Think of the rebate as a "thank you" to traders who are putting orders out on the book for others who just want coins now to execute against. Since they are showing their hand and giving you price information about what it will cost you they get rewarded for this.

Ok, with Bitfloor gone....what is the cheapest one now?

Bitfloor is back up!

Do we have any more information on how it's back up?  I haven't seen anything about the plan moving forward.

https://plus.google.com/109620439233076225324/posts

Nice, thanks :)