Bitcoin Forum

What was your first time like? I used coinbase(4 days waiting period  :( ), for anyone who used coinbase their first time or mainly uses coinbase to buy bitcoins, how do you find their service?

I dont like you are limited with the number of Bitcoins you can buy

Are you asking us this? How are we supposed to know that?  :D

I bought 7BTC in 2010? for €50, totally forgot them till 2 weeks ago, and got very happy :)

Currenty trading at BTC-E with a total of 10,532BTC, and transferred about 0,5BTC to cryptsy to buy some altcoins (COL, MEC, WDC, DVC, SEX, and NET). Made sell orders for x10 the worth for the cryptsy coins (in case anyone decides to pump one, and because i don't like daytrading @ cryptsy).

ATM all in on LTC @ BTC-E @ $29.2

I am happy with BTC-E, and think i am seeing the patterns of when to buy, sell and rebuy again.

No experience with coinbase though ..

I use BTCE, and I have seen a lot of people complaining about them recently. Personally I have had no problem with them. Coinbase I have never used.

First time was off coinchat, purchased quite a bit off a few people, for about $80 USD a peice.
Those were the good ol' days...

I used localbitcoins instead, very happy, the transaction was quick. You have to use reputable seller though, probably hader than just buy from coinbase

I have bought my Bitcoins on Coinbase.  Today I caught an article about the BTC-e founders contacting Coindesk and they won't reveal their true identity.  That's a little sinister, don't ya think?

It all depends on how you can pay and how long you're willing to wait, in the long term you definitely need accounts on all the major exchanges (MtGox, BTCE, Bitstamp, etc), but you could try your luck with Localbitcoins or OTC marketplaces, if you're in a rush.

Coinbase works well for my monthly Bitcoin purchases with some spare money

Sharing my first experience selling, not buying (but that's just as good!)
Two mom's found me on localbitcoins, we were going to meet at starbucks but it was closed. Went next door, ate pizza, discussed the tech of bitcoin, and traded a few bitcoins for cash!

Coinbase flagged me as a risk twice, but luckily the price dropped before I bought the third time (~100).

My first Bitcoin experience was with Coinbase, and I got burned hard!  Disclaimer: *But not necessarily Coinbase's fault*

I decided to buy several Bitcoins last week on Coinbase.  After several days of waiting to get verified, putting my order in then waiting for the withdrawal, my money was taken out of my account literally HOURS before the China announcement hit.  Since I saw the China report 1 minute after it was released, I logged onto Coinbase to sell my coins really quick, because I knew the value was going to plummet.  *figuring I would just buy them again when it started going back up*  The kicker?  I couldn't, because although Coinbase already took the money out of my bank account, they hadn't actually given me my coins yet.  So all I could literally do was sit there sick to my stomach as the price crashed, and I couldn't do anything to protect my money. 

Then when it finally stopped crashing at around $500 and started creeping back up, I decided to buy some coins really quick while they were cheap.  NOPE.  Coinbase wouldn't let me buy any yet because even though they took my money out of my bank account days earlier, the transaction still hadn't finished pending, and you can't buy more coins until your first purchase is finished.  So not only did I get screwed by Coinbase because they took my money but gave me no coins, I couldn't even buy more when the market crashed. 

In the end, I don't really "blame" Coinbase.  I could have tried to get instant verification, I'm just not ready to fork over all that personal info yet.  I also obviously understand WHY they have to wait several days for everything, otherwise people would buy Bitcoins, send them away, then go to the bank to reverse their withdrawal.  Still sucks though, since I decided to buy Bitcoins at the worst possible time.  *hours before a crash*  Even if Bitcoins skyrocket in value in the near future, I am still partially bummed because I could have had twice as many. 

I heavily recommend to everyone to buy their coins somewhere they can't get them instantly, so you don't get screwed by circumstance like I did. 

i wouldnt use coinbase... p2p, only way to go

Lol, from what I've read about coinbase's level 1 bitcoin purchase, it's as if they've Schrodinger working for them, I may or may not have bought bitcoins.  

Are you also on level 1? I imagined a somewhat similar scenario in my head concerning coinbase. Although I'm a bit worried about uploading all my info on the site for instantbuy, I'll try doing that as soon as I hit level 2.

Thanks for all these replies. I actually just opened a wallet with coinbase. Everyone's responses have gotten me to reconsider.

What options are out there for P2P?

Does P2P include trading options like MtGox and BTCE?

Very bad. When I wanted to buy, they were out of Bitcoins and I had to wait 4 days. I bought using localbitcoins instead

Localbitcoins is good.  If using coinbase just make a small purchase to make sure everything is verified and ready to go when you need it.

I also think localbitcoins is the best option because you can organize everything the way you want it and therefor minimazing the risk of unwanted danger :)

But most people preffer easy buy button, and believing Coinbase guarantee their coins are safe there

Experience with bitcoin is good,its good payment,bad experience is that I want to do some trading and im not able to send PMs to exchangers since my account is new,this is not cool.

I've bought recently my first using localbitcoins. All went very fast and without an y problems.
Now I'm interested in using some exchange too. Studying many threads that mention some of them, but all of them seem to have critics.

For an European, if you had to choose, which one could you recommend ?:

Mt Gox
BTC-E
Bitstamp

Things like how fast the set up is, how reliable, costs, easy to get money in and out, etc.

i havent had any problem with coinbase...ive only gotten 4 btc from them as a test (2 and 2)  the last 2 i got i had validated with their level 2 security validation  and  so i got my btc instantly.  Very nice..now if China could get their act together!

I got lucky and found a member on the forum to send me a coin for a money pak.  It was pretty awesome.  Don't like the idea of being limited on the amound of coins I can buy one bit, sounds like a hole lot of hoop jumping.