Bitcoin Forum

I was reading how btc used to be bought back in the day. You either mined it yourself or found someone who had it and made a deal with them. But now, is the only way to buy BTC through an exchange?

Mining still happens, but if you don't want to pay for expensive mining gear or if your electricity is expensive (making mining unprofitable), you will have to buy from somewhere.
But that "somewhere" can be of many types:
* most known are centralized exchanges
* then there are decentralized exchanges
* then you can buy from some sellers even from this forum
* then you can buy by meeting sellers in person
* or you can buy from Bitcoin ATMs
* or you can buy from OTC exchanges
* or you can mine altcoins and sell them for bitcoin

I guess that there are other choices too, but as a first list, this looks OK to me.

People buy bitcoin through vendors, just like you meet someone that is doing the business on this forum and buy or sell with him. I mean direct p2p. No intermediary.

To earn bitcoin, we have many ways you can get this done while buying it also comes in many forms but the use of exchanges is the most common means most people use to buy bitcoin, now the real thing is what type of exchange do you make use of when buying your bitcoin, and there's a clear difference between between buying a bitcoin from earnings it, but everything all comes under how it was earned, which means tou can buy it, mine it, got it as gift or exchange it with an asset, but buying is mostly common with using exchanges.

Well all have been mentioned above --addition to what has been said above, use a legitimate escrow when you are dealing with an outside exchange or there is no third party involved. Exchange platforms either centralized or decentralized are served as escrow between sellers and buyers or known as a trader. Bitcoin ATMs are considered safe but be careful buying large sums outside, it will perhaps your life put in danger.
Choose wisely in purchasing bitcoin. 

Simple answer yes for convenience. Exchange is the most convenient way to purchased Bitcoin to day due to there huge liquidity volume on there orderbook. It's also safer compared to buying it directly on P2P because exchange is already serves as escrow on all trade in a sense.

Just don't hold your coins on exchange and store it on wallet that you have the private key to make that your asset is safe.

Fun fact: the first Bitcoin exchange we had in 2009 was called New Liberty Standard (NLS).

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=26
https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/ronan-manly/dawn-of-bitcoin-price-discovery-2009-2011-the-very-early-bitcoin-exchanges

If you are buying through vendor or P2P, be sure you are not going to be making payment of coin first if you don't have personal relationship or contact with the person. There are people out ready to scam you. I have such experience and that is a lesson you can learn. Be the wise person, don't sell without escrow when you can not identify the person.

There's always been quite good exchanges for doing instant/non custody transfers afaik.

Shapeshift was a good example of that before they required kyc. There are still some sites that offer it (that aren't p2p) that don't need kyc but dex/p2p is probably going to become the long term solution for those who buy and hold imo as exchanges likely have a short average lifespan given the ones that have already failed.

No.
You can buy Bitcoin directly from other trusted forum members, or with P2P trading in your local area.
There are always ways you can find people without using centralized exchanges, but you can also use decentralized exchanges like Bisq.
This is best way to avoid to buy/sell Bitcoin and to avoid extra complication with kyc verification, and to be safe from losing money in websites like FTX.

On reading the tittle of this thread, something struck my mind, which is;
Now that people have started knowing and considering the cons of exchanges, will it result to the old days where this forum was used largely for p2p.
When you check the trust feedback of the old accounts, the majority of the feedbacks are based on trading BTC for fiat. I believe it was so until the advent of exchanges.

Well, I highly doubt the hand of clock will readily go back, there are tons of exchanges, when one fails, victims will troop into the other ;D

Very informative. I had always wondered what the trust feedback was for seeing am still new and getting around.
I actually doubt we would have to revert to old means of trading BTC seeing the recent advancement in tech and development of apps that suit these function. Those who were introduced to BTC at the onset with the old methods of trading are even at an advantage, because they are exposed to more than one means of trading with trusted parties, of which they are familiar with.

Just as said, there are other ways to do it. Aside from all of those mentioned ways, you can go back to ancient times when barter happens.
This is still applicable today where you can trade anything you own and have it paid for or exchanged with bitcoin. And that means that anything that could interest other people with any possession you have and you think that you want to exchange or sell it for bitcoin, that's another way.

Now I see where he gets confused.
It's not a commodity that needs anyone getting into a military zone, where your ass' been wiped hard , just to get 'em stacked....No! Lol..
It's simply a coin you could counterbalance its worth, in your local currency exchange-equator, then get any amount you need to HODL. The most interesting part is that ; you can buy in bits( units...I just hope it's something you knew already, otherwise you'd have to learn).. yeahhhh, that's a good question that brings a great answer, which is P2P. I made a post decades ago (exaggerating) 'bout some typical questions on how it works...yeah, you'd need to have a foresight just so you won't fall a victim of copying an ETH address to collect BTCs ...^{who the fuck does that? Yeah, there are ...}

Sandra 💇

this way may still be done. but I guess it would be very rare for people to do it. exchanging goods with Bitcoin, the need for these goods is of course not everyone will have them. so is Bitcoin. the trading process carried out will be quite difficult.
The easiest for now, of course, is through the exchange. moreover, the development of the current exchange platform for each fiat currency in each country is quite large. it's not hard to get. all that needs to be prepared again is just a wallet to hold the purchased bitcoins.

Actually, it's like selling those stuff for bitcoin. I've just made the example of barter because it's really the method that we exchange service to bitcoin or any currency that's acceptable.
That's why it's not that really difficult at all as long as you're able to find someone that might interest any known bitcoin holder personally or from the forum. Just like what we can see in the Goods section.

Direct p2p may work and/or especially when there is trust between the two party involved but is it actually right to have p2p without an intermediary regardless of the trust built? I think except you know the person or have regional connections with the person.
 
To be More secured having the services of an escrow can activated too.

I did few direct P2P trades with people I never met before and so far I had no issues whatsoever. You have to use common sense though and be careful when arranging trade with someone you never met in your life so of course you won't meet in some dodgy place in the middle of the night but instead at some public place like a bar or casino (this is a good place to do the trade as you can check whether bills are counterfeit). There are of course some other dangers of doing IRL P2P trades like $5 wrench attacks but as I said, if you are careful and take some precaution you should be OK.

Just to add that I live in country with one of the lowest crime rates in the world, so it may be safer to do P2P trades here than someplace else.

Aside from mining, faucet, or any promotional or marketing activity like signature campaign that incentivized bitcoin then yes. The only way you could get your hands on bitcoin is thru buying it. Theres a lot of users still wishing faucet earns from bitcoin but it only give dust. So better to buy it on exchange or any peer to peer method.

As a general rule, you can receive bitcoins in the same way you receive regular money (example with work, selling a service, renting a house, etc).
At the same time you can receive bitcoins with "mining" (which is a direct method of production even if it is very expensive and requires a real investment).
There are also bounties, signatures campaigns, airdrops etc etc but considering how difficult it is to obtain them (and how much effort and time it takes ::) ) I would not consider them "effective" methods...

Obviously there are not "ONLY" centralized exchanges but also a whole series of options to receive bitcoins as illustrated here

Exchanges isn't the only way to buy or sell Bitcoin, but direct P2P trade will ruin your privacy and you need to fully trust the person you're want to trade, also you can use Bitcoin ATM, but it doesn't worth since they charge large fees. IMO exchange is the comfortable place to buy or sell Bitcoin since it's easy and you don't need to choose which person you want to trade. But you need to avoid centralized exchange since it will ruin your privacy, privacy is really important. I suggest to buy Bitcoin via decentralized exchange e.g. Bisq.

No.  It is the opposite, if I had to make a list of ways you can buy Bitcoin, Decentralized Exchanges and Peer to Peer (as in face to face) trades would be at the bottom of the list.

Peer to peer gives you the best privacy since no party is collecting data on you, unless you fell in a honeypot or are trading with a weirdo.  That is considering you are taking the proper safety measures prior to meeting the guy you are about to trade with.

ATM's usually charge large fees only upon selling Bitcoin.  For buying Bitcoin they are in fact a great choice most of the time.  Buying fees are negligible.

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Regards,
PrivacyG

Mining is another way but it takes so much time and electricity,P2P is decentralized just between you and the changer, you need to know or trust the person that you want to trade with because scammers  are everywhere or you can use bisq it is very safe. ATM is also another way to buy bitcoin, you can deliver a service in this forum to get paid in bitcoin

Central exchange is good because of convenience but you are to only put the money you are using and don't leave any coins in the exchange as they can't secure your coins. I  use p2p all the time since I have a friend that I trade with in my neighborhood at least this is safe.

I figure there may be quite a bit of variability in fees from one country to another though. Taking a look at the fees on CoinAtmRadar for Toronto (https://coinatmradar.com/city/165/bitcoin-atm-toronto/), buy fees are pretty steep, for the most close to/in the 2 digit percentage range. Likewise, Madrid (https://coinatmradar.com/city/97/bitcoin-atm-madrid/) has a similar costly buy fee. L.A. (https://coinatmradar.com/city/93/bitcoin-atm-los-angeles/) shows a bunch charging close to 15% for buy operations, though most ATMs there don’t list the fees on CoinATMRadar.

OP, looks like you have a very useful answer now even the first one. I don't know if you care about privacy or not, but you can buy bitcoin in several ways as suggested. If your country doesn't prohibit you from buying and owning bitcoin, then you should trust that bitcoin will be very easy for you to buy, be it a centralized or decentralized exchange.

If you are forced to buy bitcoin on centralized exchange for your own reasons, then consider withdrawing your bitcoin to your non-custodial wallet for safety. This is just an additional suggestion, maybe you already know how it works.