Bitcoin Forum

Alright BTC is in a free fall.  I have $X,XXX in my bank account that I'd be willing to use to buy BTC's NOW.  What are my options?

MtGox used for example:

1) Dwolla - initiate ACH.  Wait 3 business days.  Oh yeah, and send them a copy of my ID
2) Mail cash or check
3) Liberty Reserve (similar to Dwolla sans photo ID req)
4) Paxum - wire funds to Paxum, wait 3 business days to clear.  Transfer funds to MtGox
5) International USD/EUR wire - Not clear on the timeframe for this one, since it's international I'd imagine at least a few days to clear

Seems like your only option is to have funds already in MtGox/Dwolla/LR in anticipation of a crash.  Otherwise you wait days.  This is probably why the depth on the buy side is so low.  Even if investors wanted to buy in, they're stuck twiddling their thumbs since there are no real viable options to fund quickly.  This needs to be addressed otherwise there's no way to stop these crashes. 

You're an idiot.

Do I need to say any more.

Meh, just means people get more bitcoins for cheaper since it falls while they wait. The problem isn't waiting on buyers, it's sellers freaking the fuck out and continuing to sell, not realizing that if they just wait for 3 days they'll get a better price.

i agree that getting money into the exchange takes to long....

buuuuuuut, thats why you want to keep some free cash on the exchange to take advantage of the crashes...

I have $X,XXX in MtGox, and I have no desire in trying to catch the knife man ;)

Fastest way is to find someone near you to exchange cash for BTC
http://bitcoinlocator.com

It's a solution, but a poor one.  Give the average person two options (we are still trying to make BTC mainstream right?):

A) Keep your cash in an FDIC, interest-bearing account

or

B) Keep your cash in MtGox (security has already been breached) or Dwolla (has blatantly gone against the TOS)

Pretty obvious which one they're going to choose.

One person and one store within I would estimate a 200-300 mile radius... and I live 15 min out from Manhattan. I could only imagine how scarce a map would be for someone in Utah. This site is kind of primitive. Why not list the locations and their distance rather than mapping them out and not even providing a scale for distance calculations?

Nope.  Don't say anything again, ever.  Thanks!

He's not an idiot.  He has a great point.  There's no way to quickly add money.

When i first started mining, btc was around this same price.. 8.50 ish.. and guess what?  I couldn't buy btc !  took me over a week to set up and add money to dwolla to get transferred to gox and by that time, my money wasn't going to buy as much.

If not for scammers and hackers, i could have spent thousands w\ paypal and in turn made thousands when the prices jumped past 25... but other people have ruined paypal as a payment method.



How many btc do you want?  I will buy some for you and let you pay me w\ cash via usps priority.  Or paypal w\ 3 types of identification and a picture of you + id holding a fish.

No one within 500 miles of me.  Good solution, but only for a fraction of the population.

honestly, i think a lot of things need to change before it goes mainstream, this is more a solution for todays users..... i wouldnt be keeping anything i couldnt afford to lose in btc or on the exchanges until these growing pains get worked out..its too risky IMO

I (and American) have wired money to Tradehill three times on the way to work and used it to buy BTC by just after lunch on the same day.  My bank charges me a fee, but it's flat so if one plays with several $k it's not that big a deal.

Most of the time the BTC I have bought have been back in my wallet by the evening, and into a more secure wallet by the time I've hit the rack.

I dunno if the same thing would work that way with MtGox though.

Probably not since MtGox is in Japan so it's an international wire.  Good to know about TH though, thanks.  Too bad the volume isn't what it is over at MtGox but I suppose it's an option at least.

You can't buy Bitcoins with your Visa and Mastercard because it's too easy to commit fraud with those payment methods, meaning the card payment processors don't want to deal with it, AND when fraud happens the merchant (in this theoretical case a Bitcoin exchange accepting credit cards) eats the entire cost of the fraudulent transaction, so exchanges are reluctant to accept them.

Among other things, this is a problem that Bitcoin - as a currency - actually solves very well. Which is why some of us are here.

You can however buy Second Life Lindens instantly with Visa/MC and sell them for bitcoins on VirWox

Sure, you can do this if you know the option exists and if the exchange rate isn't too unfavorable. Though it doesn't solve the underlying fraud problem, it just makes it Virwox's problem.

sure just saying its an option for ppl that want to "buy btc quick!" and don't have USD/EUR in a trading account.

Vig is a bit high at VirWox and volume is thin, but it's no problem and quick

TH is in Chile (as I understand it) but have a US bank account.  I would think that MtGox could as well.

As for volume, I considered less to have an advantage in that if someone with big liquidity screws up, it has the possibility to push things sharply out of band (and in fact that seems to have happened today and I was able to capitalize.)  I'm not playing with enough funds to push the markets a long way on an extended basis, so they have plenty of volume for my needs and there seem to be enough arbitrage plays that the price levels are more or less the same.

My biggest concern with any of the exchanges is that they don't screw up and become insolvent of get frozen (and lock my funds) for some other reason.  So far TH has been able to move whatever funds I want moved on a reasonable schedule (though I had to wait all night go get some BTC out of them once or twice...and am waiting on a transfer right now.)

Perhaps an individual from the Local exchanges?
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Category:Local

BTC Near Me, Ubitex, or Bitcoin.local might have someone close to you?

100% agree with this post.

Bitcoinlocator is only a few weeks old, and hopefully more users will start using it soon.  I think the idea is really good, and easier to use than any of the other sites listed in the bitcoin local wiki.

Looks like the minimum bank wire into Tradehill is now $5k USD...

Now that's not really fair.






He might not feel comfortable sending you a picture of his ID.

Looks like.  Must be a new-ish policy.  I'm sure it takes some manpower to process wires, but I would not think it would be that much.  OTOH, if they expect to get only a fraction of that as commissions from buy-once-n-run folks like Moi, I guess it might make sense.

I guess I'm done transferring funds in that way I guess cuz I'm not ready to trust them with that kind of money yet (and doubt that I will want _that_ much more BTC for a while, if ever, anyway.)  Maybe if I get into money moving I'll re-evaluate, but for now I'll keep my day job.