Bitcoin Forum

Now that average Joe can open a Coinbase or Gemini account, what will stop the next bubble??? I say nothing.... the next top is going to blow our minds.

In 2013 it took me 6 months before I mustered enough courage to open a Gox account (what a disasterous decision), i had sucked every local bitcoin out of my community and I couldn't buy enough coins. If Coinbase or Gemini were in place in 2013, nothing would have stopped me.

I am one of millions of sheep out there, so I am certain now that barriers to entry are fundamentally gone the next bubble will be dramatically different than the last. There is no end to human greed and no end to mankind taking massive risks to make a buck.

Get ready for the bubble to end all bubbles. My only fear is that this one will be so big that the ensuing collapse will bring to pass the destruction of us all.

Much depends on what country you're in. It unquestionably is a different deal for Americans now. Speaking as a Brit pretty much nothing has changed.

Localbitcoins sellers seem to be way, way more anal than they were in late 2013. A couple of other well rated buying services are dead. There's Coinbase here but you have to wire money to Europe to use it, same goes for Coinfloor and a couple of other places. Bitstamp and Kraken existed back then too and by the time you've waited for verification and your transfer to Europe well over a week will have passed.

It's far from the end of the world but here at least most people are going to take a little look around, think 'fuck it, too much hassle' and forget about the whole thing.

Well, more than 80% of the volume is coming from China.  I'd say that if there is really some kind of sea change going on, unless there are people in this forum auto-translating from Chinese, we're just kinda guessing about sentiment.

Any good Chinese forums y'all visit?

Its odd to me that its more difficult to buy Bitcoin in EU than US. In my (limited) experience it always seemed that EU was much more relaxed with a lot of law and regulation in comparison to the US.

It's a uniquely UK thing and all to do with the flat refusal of any UK bank to deal with Bitcoin companies. If we used the Euro it would be a piece of piss. SEPA transfers can go anywhere in Europe and arrive pretty much the same day.

In mainland Europe there are lots of excellent options. We're stuck on this rainy island like a lonely turd at sunset with nowhere to rapidly throw our money unless you want to pay a painful premium to a private seller.

Yeah,all the 'meet @ 1:30am dumpster behind DQ' texts were a pain to explain. And those initiation rites involving anal penetration? Also painful, and a bit weird too, if you ask me.
Would rather deal with a reputable exchange.

I wouldn't say the barriers are gone.  It is still impossible to buy BTC from a licensed exchange in several states.  Definitely making progress though.

Ah, that makes more sense then. I didnt realize it was just the UK that had issues.

compared to 2013 when your only option was wester union and dwolla and gox.... now those are some barriers

Is it not true that once upon a time you could buy coins with Paypal inside the blockchain.info wallet? Sometimes it pays to fly below the radar.

Don't know about the situation worldwide, but here (Netherlands) at least 99% of the population seem unaware or uninterested in the phenomenom Bitcoin. Media reported about Bitcoin now and then in november and december 2013, but this has died down completely. Even 'geeky' persons I know brush Bitcoin off as some odd appearance on the internet. It is yet to be seen if cryptocurrencies will pick up REAL momentum (widespread usage and acceptance among the general public) and then the price could indeed reach hights that would seem surrealistic right now.

The internet was geeky for 99% of the population too though at one point.

if the alt coins  ratio  continues   to get dumped into btc,  and with this run we got going,along with avg joe money  i think ur going to be very right.    btc  will be getting dp  towards halving.  dp means double penetration

There are relatively many physically stores in the Netherlands accepting Bitcoin. Still not anywhere near common though.

We have a long way to go before we get mainstream, but that only means Bitcoin can grow a lot more in value.

Do you have mainstream ways to buy bitcoin like coinbase or gemini. Automatic withdrawal from traditional bank accounts????

Well, we still have a barrier to >7 transactions/second.

if much more that 300,000 people do just 2 blockchain transactions per day, the network will crash. 

While I think this bubble will be big, it won't be the end of all bubbles.

there's going to be at least 2 more bubbles after this, probably more.

it's too soon for bitcoin to stabilize.

it will not crash, it will just become cluttered, and the transactions with low fees will take forever. Good days for miners, bad days for bitcoin in general.

this issue needs to be fixed, yesterday.

One of the quickest ways (with a little bit of a fee for their service) is bitonic (https://bitonic.nl/?partner=167) a secure website that buys and sells bitcoin using iDeal. It's really fast, and I sometimes use it if i immediately want to buy or sell small amounts of bitcoin.

Obviously, since it uses iDeal, you need a dutch bank account. (Although, once the rest of europe introduces similar system, the rest of europe can use it too).

For an actual exchange I prefer to use kraken (https://www.kraken.com) it seems to me the most professional exchange and also seems very trustworthy. It's one of the first if not the first to have proof of reserves, and they have high security standards, I never had any problems with them either.

They use SEPA for transactions, which make them pretty fast if you have a european bank account. (not as fast as bitonic, since SEPA is still slower than iDeal, but still pretty fast).

Actually, I was using gox and dwolla back in 2011 to buy coins.  It was pretty simple.  Now it is impossible for me to buy BTC from a licensed exchange.  Hopefully they are able to clear the last few states from whatever legal hurdles are standing in the way soon.