Bitcoin Forum

Hello everyone,

I am new here and have been reading a lot but im not exactly sure where the best place to convert about $2000 into bitcoins would be with minimal fees. Moneypak seems to be best but I need to build rep first if I am correct. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
-Mark9510

If you can withdrawal the $USD 2k in cash, then your best bet is to find a seller on a service like https://www.localbitcoins.com/

When buying that kind of volume of BTC and paying cash, you can negotiate a discount (say 5%) over the spot price. People will be glad to take you business (if you are in Brussels, I would have no problems in accepting $USD and offer a similar discount :-)

Edit: When I say 'discount of 5% over spot price' I mean instead of paying 1% or more in fees, you get 5% extra BTC for the same amount of money. Also, you can get your BTC today, in a matter of hours, no need to wait for wire transfers or deposits, as you are doing a face 2 face transaction with somebody. It's all about finding a reliable seller with feedback who can meet you asap.

You can use localbitcoins.com for wire transfer and paypal transaction but those prices are way over spot price

If I were you, I´d open an account at MTGox. They initially charge you 0.6% od the amount you buy. If you are in the USA, you could also try to do it at coinbase. At any case you will have link a bank account to your trading house account.

Hope it helps.

Peace.

be very very careful using mtgox

BEFORE sending them any money, make sure you understand just how many people (newbies?) have had long and horrible experiences with their customer support, particularly with regards to getting their account verified (which is needed if you'd like to take advantage of that handy feature known as 'withdraw')

unless you want your money locked up for weeks or possibly months, i suggest getting your account FULLY verified before sending them a single cent.

or just skip the trauma and get your bitcoins elsewhere

I agree, in my case I was not exactly a newbie when joined to gox. But absolutely is neccessary to get verified (not troublesome if you, like me, are honest and don´t plan to use BTC as money laundry). Nevertheless once you pass this brief proccess of validation, the fees buying BTC here, are really good. Don´t you think so?

Peace.

i'm glad for you the process was 'brief'. i'm just warning people that not everyone is so lucky.

Question:  What's worse, buying a BTC today at $24 and paying an additional $1 for the fee or buying a BTC tomorrow for $25 where there is no fee?

Of course, they are the same -- the end result is $25 either way.

If the exchange rate was stable you'ld probably want to go for the method with the lowest fees.    With the exchange rate rising, quick beats cheap.

But the factors relevant to providing the right answer to that include:

 - Where are you located (country)?
 - How much are you looking to buy?  [You answered about $2K]
 - What payment methods do you have available?
 - How soon do you need access to the proceeds?
 - Is privacy important?

A bank transfer is going to be the cheapest method. 

In the U.S. you can buy bitcoins at a 1% fee through Coinbase using a bank transfer.  The problem there is that they are limiting that to $100 maximum per-day.  You do get to lock in the price immediately though.
 - http://www.Coinbase.com

Dwolla is another inexpensive method to move cash from your bank account to a Bitcoin exchange (currently just Camp BX or Mt. Gox but they require you to verify your identity before they will credit your Dwolla deposit to your account.   The problem with that again is the amount of time involved as Dwolla transfers from your bank take several days.  But the price is right ... $0.25 per transaction.

A cash deposit method can also be inexpensive.  BitMe.com doesn't charge for cash deposits.  The problem there is they don't have enough sellers at near market price, so you end up overpaying a little when buying coins.  That will change hopefully as more sellers trust them but for now that's the limitation:
 - http://www.BitMe.com

Or you might find a local trade (paying cash):
 - http://www.localbitcoins.com

Or if you are considering a bank transfer, there all kinds of options are available:
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Buying_bitcoins

If you are located in the U.S. (and anonymity isn't too important to you) you can open a free checking account (no minimum balance) with CapitalOne360 (It used to be ING Electric Orange).  You can link the CapitalOne360 account with any checking account you have with another bank and transfer funds to the CapitalOne360 account for free.  You can then transfer the funds from CapitalOne360 to the BitFloor bitcoin currency exchange for free and receive a 0.1% bonus for a limit order to exchange your USD for BTC.

See here for step by step instructions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSmxbtFQlmg&t=2m30s

What are the fees with bitinstant whens all said and done? Now that i think about it, why the hell are buyers paying seller fees for buying their coins, sellers should be cutting buyers deals to sell them.

$3.99 + 4%

So $2000 would have $84 in fees.

Note however, I think that BitInstant has a $500 limit. Attempting to circumvent this $500 limit by making multiple $500 purchase within a short timeframe results in Moneygram and Zipzap fraud filters rejecting one or more payments.  This typically results in naive buyers coming to bitcointalk.org to complain that BitInstant is not processing their order and is "scamming" them or "stealing" from them.

Supply and demand.  The sellers have the bitcoin, and the buyers want them.  More buyers want them than there are sellers to sell them.  If there was an overabundance of bitcoins available for sale, and very few people who wanted to acquire them, then the cost of acquiring them would drop.

If you are anywhere near Chicago, I'd probably be willing to meet up with you and make the exchange for cash.

Coinbase, brah. It's the best thing since sliced whole wheat bread.

Looks like Coinbase has a fee of 1%.  That's better than BitInstant's 4% that you pay to maintain anonymity and deal with cash, but not as good as BitFloor's 0.4% fee for a market order or the 0.1% bonus that BitFloor pays you to place a limit order.

EDIT: As of 2013-04-17 BitFloor has ceased all operations.